Sunday 10 September 2017

Swami Vivekananda - Sister Christine : 59

SOME PROBLEMS OF INDIA


...Marriage is a great austerity. It is not for self but for samaj — the society. There must be chastity in word, thought, and deed. Without a great ideal of faithfulness in monogamy there can he no true monasticism. There must be fidelity even when the emotion is no longer there. Chastity is the virtue which keeps a nation alive. To chastity he attributed the fact that India still lives while other nations no older than herself have sunk into oblivion.

Such an observation would lead to a recital of the rise and fall of the nations of antiquity. In the beginning of the national life, in its days of struggle, there was self-denial, restraint. austerity. As the nation grew prosperous, this was replaced by self-indulgence, laxity, luxury, resulting in decay, degeneration, destruction. Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Rome — this is the story of each and all. But India lives. However individuals may fail, India had never lowered the standard.


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