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Philosophy of Swami Vivekananda
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opporiunity and one day he found the lion-sheep asleep. He woke him up and said, “You are a lion”. The other said, “No' and began to bleat like a sheep. Then the stranger lion took him to see his image in the water and showed him that both of them looked the same. Then the stranger lion began to roar and asked him to do the same. The lion-sheep tried his best and was soon roaring. And he was a sheep no longer.
As such, every one of us has such potentiality but we are ignorant of that. In his words, "My friends, I would like to tell you all that you are as mighty as lions."16
We may now discuss the immortality of the soul. Projected from Brahman, it passes through all sorts of vegetables, animal forms and at last it is in man and man is the nearest approach to Brahman. Man, according to Swami Vivekananda, is the greatest being in the universe.
Angels or Gods whatever you may call them, have all to become man, if they want to become perfect.16
There is neither "I" nor "you”, it is all one. It is either all "[" or all "you". This idea of duality is false and this world, as we know it, is the result of this false knowledge. There is therefore, one soul, eternally pure, eternally perfect, unchangeable and unchanged. All these various changes in this universe are the appearances in that one self.
There goes a story about the infinity of the soul thus : In a certain school a number of children were being examined. The examiner had foolishly put all sorts of difficult questions to the little children. Among others, there was one question, “Why does not the earth fall ?" His intention was to bring hoine the idea of gravitation. Most of the children did not even understand the question, and so they answered wrongly. But a bright little girl answered it with another question, “Where shall it fall ?" The examiner's question was nonsense.
So, there is no coming and going in the universe. The very question of birth and death is nonsensical. The idea is only relative,
