HINTS ON PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY - 2. Swami Vivekananda

(Delivered at the Home of Truth, Los Angeles, California)


2.
We are always making this mistake in judging others; we are always inclined to think that our little mental universe is all that is; our ethics, our morality, our sense of duty, our sense of utility, are the only things that are worth having.

The other day when I was going to Europe, I was passing through Marseilles, where a bull-fight was being held.

All the Englishmen in the steamer were mad with excitement, abusing and criticising the whole thing as cruel.

When I reached England, I heard of a party of prize-fighters who had been to Paris, and were kicked out unceremoniously by the French, who thought prize-fighting very brutal.
When I hear these things in various countries, I begin to understand the marvellous saying of Christ: "Judge not that ye be not judged."

The more we learn, the more he find out how ignorant we are, how multiform and multi-sided is this mind of man.

When I was a boy, I used to criticize the ascetic practices of my countrymen; great preachers in our own land have criticized them; the greatest man that was ever born, Buddha himself, criticised them.

But all the same, as I am growing older, I feel that I have no right to judge.

Sometimes I wish that, in spite of all their incongruities, I had one fragment of their power to do and suffer.

Often I think that my judgment and my criticism do not proceed from any dislike of torture, but from sheer cowardice — because I cannot do it — I dare not do it.

To be continued  ...