WHO ARE THE PERSONALITIES AT
TEMPLE UNIVERSAL?
This website can only give a brief summary of some of the major spiritual leaders in history. Nevertheless, in these great sages, prophets and incarnations, we
see the same expressions of wisdom, kindness and inner
strength.
They draw from the same source. Nevertheless, each remains a unique hue in the rainbow of a larger religion, a grander spirituality.
Shouldn't we be able to choose the heroes that inspire us from any tradition?
This will be the religion of the future. Each saint or sage serves as an ideal around which all of our lesser,
more constricted ideals and ideas are dissipated and transcended. Consciousness
then opens up to perceive the ground of Being which motivates and inspires the great souls of all religions.
From the Teachings of Swami Vivekananda
"People
have an idea that there can be only one religion, one
Prophet, and one Incarnation; but that isn't true.
By studying the lives of all these great Messengers,
we find that each, as it were, was destined to play
a part, and a part only; that the harmony consists in
the sum total and not in one note. As in the life of
races, no race is born to alone enjoy the world. None
dare say no."
The messengers give us inspiration
"In the
history of mankind, you'll find these Messengers, and
from their very birth their mission is found and formed.
The whole plan is there, laid down; and you don't see
them swerving one inch from that. Because they come
with a mission, they come with a message, they don't
want to reason.
....when they speak, the world is bound to listen.
When they speak, each word is direct; it bursts like
a bomb-shell.
There's an old Sanskrit verse which says,
"I saw the Teacher sitting under a tree. He was
a young man of sixteen, and the disciple was an old
man of eighty. The preaching of the Teacher was silence,
and the doubts of the disciple departed." Sometimes
they don't speak at all, yet they convey the Truth from
mind to mind. They come to give.
They have enormous faith in themselves
They
command, they're the Messengers; you have to receive
the Command.
In your own scriptures, don't you remember the authority
with which Jesus speaks? "Go ye, therefore, and
teach all nations . . . teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you." It runs
through all his utterances, that tremendous faith in
his own message. That you find in the life of all these
great giants whom the world worships as its Prophets.
These great souls are clearer manifestations of God
These divine men have been
worshiped and will be worshiped so long as man is man.
Therein is our faith, therein is our hope of reality.
Of what avail is a mere mystical principle! The purpose
and intent of what I've to say to you is this, that
I've found it possible in my life to worship all of
them, and to be ready for all that are yet to come.
Politics creates the differences, not the prophets
Now,
in my little experience, I've collected this knowledge,
for all the devilry that religion is blamed with, religion
isn't at all at fault: no religion ever persecuted men,
no religion ever burnt witches, no religion ever did
any of these things.
What then incited people to do these things? Politics,
but never religion; and if politics takes the name of
religion whose fault is that? So, when each man stands
and says "My Prophet is the only true Prophet,"
he's not correct. He doesn't knows the alpha of religion.
Religion is neither talk, theory, nor intellectual consent.
It's realization in the heart of our hearts; it's touching
God; it's feeling, realizing that I'm a spirit in relation
with the Universal Spirit and all Its great manifestations.
If you've really entered the house of the Father, how
can you have seen His children and not known them?
Have confidence in yourself. Think something new!
Let
us think something new, even if it be wrong. It's better
to do that. Why shouldn't you try to hit the mark? We
come wiser through failures. Time is infinite.
Look at the wall. Did the wall ever tell a lie? It's
always the wall. Man tells a lie - and becomes a god
too. It's better to do something; never mind even if
it proves to be wrong; it's better than doing nothing.
The cow never tells a lie, but she remains a cow.
Do
something! Think some thought; it doesn't matter whether
you're right or wrong. But think something!
Because my forefathers didn't think this way, shall
I sit down quietly and gradually lose my sense of feeling
and my own thinking faculties? I may as well be dead!
And what is life worth if we have no living ideas, no
convictions of our own about religion? There's some
hope for the atheists, because though they differ from
others, they think for themselves.
The
people who never think anything for themselves are not
yet born into the world of religion; they have a mere
jelly-fish existence.
They won't think; they don't care for religion. But
the disbeliever, the atheist cares, and he's struggling.
So think something! Struggle God-ward! Never mind if
you fail, never mind if you get hold of a queer theory.
If you are afraid to be called odd, keep it in your
own mind. You need not go and preach it to others. But
do something!
Struggle, as the prophets did, for light
Struggle
God-ward! Light must come.
If a man feeds me every day of my life, in the long
run I'll lose the use of my hands. Spiritual death is
the result of following each other like a flock of sheep.
Death is the result of inaction. Be active; and wherever
there's activity, there must be difference. Difference
is the sauce of life; it's the beauty, it's the art
of everything. Difference makes all beautiful here.
It's variety that's the source of life, the sign of
life. Why should we be afraid of it?
Why quarrel over surface things
That's
religion, that's all of religion; the rest is mere theory,
dogma, so many ways of going to that state of direct
perception.
Now we're fighting over the basket and the fruits have
fallen into the ditch. If two men quarrel about religion,
just ask them the question: "Have you seen God?
Have you seen these things?" One man says that
Christ is the only Prophet: well, has he seen Christ?
"Has your father seen Him?" "No, Sir."
"Has your grandfather seen Him?" "No,
Sir." "Have you seen Him?" "No,
Sir." "Then what are you quarrelling for?
The fruits have fallen into the ditch, and you are quarrelling
over the basket!" Sensible men and woman should
be ashamed to go on quarrelling in that way! These great
Messengers and Prophets are great and true. Why? Because,
each one has come to preach a great idea.......................
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
