Talks Excerpt 471. Swamiji, quoting Swami Vivekananda, affirms ‘Away with superstition!’
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
[Talking about Swami Vivekananda continued]:
As Naren [Swami Vivekananda’s premonastic name] grew up he loved physical training. At that time he wanted to be strong to set the example for others. So he went to the gymnasium and trained. He was known to be the top student in that gymnasium. It is also remembered how he nursed someone who was hurt when everyone else ran away, thus showing his inner compassion. He could not bear to see anyone suffering.
Even from an early age he was not prepared to accept any superstition whatsoever. Once, an old man told him, ‘There’s a ghost on that tree and if you climb it he’ll break your neck.’ So he waited for the man to go away and then he and his friends climbed the tree to see if the ghost was there or not. If you think this is easy, you can try it.
Let your mother say in the darkness that there is a devil there, and see if you do not get frightened. When his friends said that they were afraid just in case there was truly a ghost there, Naren said, ‘Don’t be a fool. If there was a ghost on the tree, my neck would have been broken a long time ago. We have been playing on this tree for so long, and nothing happened to us. The old man was lying.’
From a young age Naren was bold and fearless. That is why we observe a child closely from the time he or she is young. When we see a bad habit in the child, we should correct it straight away. People say, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Sometimes even the rod is good – but not many times of course.
If the young Swami Vivekananda was not prepared to cater to superstition in his worldly dealings, how do you think he would cater to superstition in the scriptures?
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These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.