Prabuddha Bh Arata
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68 ISSN 0032-6178 1 R.N. 2585/57 REGISTERED Postal Registration No. Kol RMS/96/2019–21 Published on 1 July 2020 RABUDDHA 9 770032 617002 P HARATA The best guide in life is strength. In religion, B or AWAKENED INDIA as in all other matters, discard everything A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order that weakens you, have nothing to do started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896 with it. —Swami Vivekananda With Best Compliments From : Manufacturers of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Intermediates July 2020 Regd. Off. & Fact. : Plot No. 88 & 89, Phase-11. Vol. 125, No. 7 Sipcot Industrial Complex. Ranipet-632 403, Tami Nadu. Phone : 04172-244820, 651507, Tele Fax : 04172-244820 ` 15.00 E-mail : [email protected] Website : www.svisslabss.net If undelivered, return to: ADVAITA ASHRAMA, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014, India 68 1 ISSN 0032-6178 R.N. 2585/57 REGISTERED Postal Registration No. Kol RMS/96/2019–21 Published on 1 August 2020 RABUDDHA 9 770032 617002 P H ARATA The best guide in life is strength. In religion, B or AWAKENED INDIA A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order as in all other matters, discard everything started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896 that weakens you, have nothing to do with it. —Swami Vivekananda With Best Compliments From : Manufacturers of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Intermediates Regd. Off. & Fact. : Plot No. 88 & 89, Phase-11. August 2020 Sipcot Industrial Complex. Ranipet-632 403, Tami Nadu. Vol. 125, No. 8 Phone : 04172-244820, 651507, Tele Fax : 04172-244820 E-mail : [email protected] Website : www.svisslabss.net ` 15.00 If undelivered, return to: ADVAITA ASHRAMA, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014, India 2 THE ROAD TO WISDOM Swami Vivekananda on Significance of Symbols-II orms, images, bells, candles, books, Fchurches, temples, and all holy symbols are very good, very helpful to the growing plant of spirituality, but thus far and no farther. In the test majority of cases, we find that the plant does not grow. It is very good to be born in a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. It is very good to be born within the limits of certain forms images are inside or outside the mind. We that help the little plant of spirituality, but are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, if a man dies within the bounds of these because it is in the nature of man. Who can forms, it shows that he has not grown, that get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the there has been no development of the soul. God-man. The rest are all idolaters. If, therefore, any one says that symbols, So long as we see this universe before rituals, and forms are to be kept forever, he us, with its forms and shapes, we are all is wrong; but if he says, that these symbols idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are and rituals are a help to the growth of worshipping. He who says he is the body is the soul, in its low and undeveloped state, a born idolater. We are spirit, spirit that has he is right. But, you must not mistake no form or shape, spirit that is infinite, and this development of the soul as meaning not matter. Therefore, anyone who cannot anything intellectual. grasp the abstract, who cannot think of A man can be of gigantic intellect, yet himself as he is, except in and through spiritually he may be a baby. You can verify it matter, as the body, is an idolater. And yet this moment. All of you have been taught to how people fight among themselves, calling believe in an Omnipresent God. Try to think one another idolaters. Therefore, we should of it. How few of you can have any idea of get rid of these childish notions. We should what omnipresence means! If you struggle get beyond all these and look at humanity as hard, you will get something like the idea of one vast organism, slowly coming towards the ocean, or of the sky, or of a vast stretch light—a wonderful plant, slowly unfolding of green earth, or of a desert. All these are itself to that wonderful truth which is material images, and so long as you cannot called God—and the first gyrations, the first conceive of the abstract as abstract, of the motions, towards this are always through ideal as the ideal, you will have to resort to matter and through ritual. these forms, these material images. It does rom The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, not make much difference whether these F(Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2016), 2.39-41. Vol. 125, No. 8 RABUDDHA 3 August 2020 P HARATA B or AWAKENED INDIA A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896 Managing Editor Swami Shuddhidananda Editor Contents Swami Vireshananda Associate Editor and Design Traditional Wisdom 583 Swami Shantachittananda This Month 584 Production Editor Editorial: What Does the Pandemic Teach Us? 585 Swami Chidekananda Spiritual Talks: Spiritual Conversations with 591 Cover Design Swami Shankarananda Subhabrata Chandra Notes and Comments: The Children of Mother India 594 Internet Edition Coordination Swami Jnanishananda Feeling the Presence of God 595 Circulation in Our Everyday Life Indrajit Sinha Swami Bhuteshananda Tapas Jana America BC and America Now— 602 Editorial Office Before covid-19 and After Prabuddha Bharata Swami Atmarupananda Advaita Ashrama PO Mayavati, Via Lohaghat Impact of the Pandemic 610 Dt Champawat · 262 524 on Urbanisation and Ecology Uttarakhand, India Swami Muktidananda Tel: 91 · 96909 98179 [email protected] Prabuddha Bharata—125 Years Ago 617 Printed and Published by Reminiscences and Reflections: 618 Swami Vedavratananda Memoirs of Swami Vireshwarananda Swami Sukhatmananda Publication Office Advaita Ashrama Traditional Tales: Savitri-Satyavan 621 5 Dehi Entally Road Kolkata · 700 014 Review Article: See God with Open Eyes 624 West Bengal, India Swami Atmashraddhananda Tel: 91 · 33 · 2289 0898 / 2286 6450 Reviews 627 [email protected] Manana 628 Internet Edition www.advaitaashrama.org Reports 629 —No bleed here— 4 Subscribe to Prabuddha Bharata 5 Become a Patron Subscriber and support the rich legacy left to all of us by Swami Vivekananda; patrons’ names are published in Prabuddha Bharata. 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