Greetings: I'll be quoting from Swami Vivekananda and then explain the context within which Swami Vivekananda developed his ideas.
Swami Vivekananda: "Thus, all religions say there are moments in which the mind transcends not only the senses, but reasoning as well. It comes face to face with higher facts it could never have reasoned out. These facts are the basis of all religions. Of course we have the right to challenge this. Nevertheless, the claim is that the mind has this peculiar power of transcending the limits of sense perception and reason.
Aside from these facts, we find one common characteristic. All religions speak in terms of abstractions, as compared with the concrete discoveries of physics. They take the largest unit form of abstraction, either an Abstracted Presence, an Omnipresent Being, an Abstract Personality called God, a Moral Law, or an Abstract Essence underlying everyday existence. We’re then asked to believe in it. None of us has seen an ideally perfect human, yet, without that ideal we can’t go on. Thus, one truth stands out. An Ideal Unit Abstraction is put before us, either as a Person, an Impersonal Being, a Law, a Presence or Essence."
Swami Brahmavid: This is an introductory idea in which SV is developing a foundation for a universal religion.
