The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 3/Bhakti-Yoga/The Chosen Ideal
CHAPTER IX
THE CHOSEN IDEAL
The next thing to be considered is what we know as Ishta-Nishthâ. One who
aspires to be a Bhakta must know that "so many opinions are so many ways".
He must know that all the various sects of the various religions are the
various manifestations of the glory of the same Lord. "They call You by so
many names; they divide You, as it were, by different names, yet in each one
of these is to be found Your omnipotence....You reach the worshipper through
all of these, neither is there any special time so long as the soul has
intense love for You. You are so easy of approach; it is my misfortune that
I cannot love You." Not only this, the Bhakta must take care not to hate,
nor even to criticise those radiant sons of light who are the founders of
various sects; he must not even hear them spoken ill of. Very few indeed are
those who are at once the possessors of an extensive sympathy and power of
appreciation, as well as an intensity of love. We find, as a rule, that
liberal and sympathetic sects lose the intensity of religious feeling, and
in their hands, religion is apt to degenerate into a kind of politico-social
club life. On the other hand, intensely narrow sectaries, whilst displaying
a very commendable love of their own ideals, are seen to have acquired every
particle of that love by hating every one who is not of exactly the same
opinions as themselves. Would to God that this world was full of men who
were as intense in their love as worldwide in their sympathies! But such are
only few and far between. Yet we know that it is practicable to educate
large numbers of human beings into the ideal of a wonderful blending of both
the width and the intensity of love; and the way to do that is by this path
of the Istha-Nishtha or "steadfast devotion to the chosen ideal". Every sect
of every religion presents only one ideal of its own to mankind, but the
eternal Vedantic religion opens to mankind an infinite number of doors for
ingress into the inner shrine of divinity, and places before humanity an
almost inexhaustible array of ideals, there being in each of them a
manifestation of the Eternal One. With the kindest solicitude, the Vedanta
points out to aspiring men and women the numerous roads, hewn out of the
solid rock of the realities of human life, by the glorious sons, or human
manifestations, of God, in the past and in the present, and stands with
outstretched arms to welcome all — to welcome even those that are yet to be
— to that Home of Truth and that Ocean of Bliss, wherein the human soul,
liberated from the net of Mâyâ, may transport itself with perfect freedom
and with eternal joy.
Bhakti-Yoga, therefore, lays on us the imperative command not to hate or
deny any one of the various paths that lead to salvation. Yet the growing
plant must be hedged round to protect it until it has grown into a tree. The
tender plant of spirituality will die if exposed too early to the action of
a constant change of ideas and ideals. Many people, in the name of what may
be called religious liberalism, may be seen feeding their idle curiosity
with a continuous succession of different ideals. With them, hearing new
things grows into a kind of disease, a sort of religious drink-mania. They
want to hear new things just by way of getting a temporary nervous
excitement, and when one such exciting influence has had its effect on them,
they are ready for another. Religion is with these people a sort of
intellectual opium-eating, and there it ends. "There is another sort of
man", says Bhagavan Ramakrishna, "who is like the pearl-oyster of the story.
The pearl-oyster leaves its bed at the bottom of the sea, and comes up to
the surface to catch the rain-water when the star Svâti is in the ascendant.
It floats about on the surface of the sea with its shell wide open, until it
has succeeded in catching a drop of the rain-water, and then it dives deep
down to its sea-bed, and there rests until it has succeeded in fashioning a
beautiful pearl out of that rain-drop."
This is indeed the most poetical and forcible way in which the theory of
Ishta-Nishtha has ever been put. This Eka-Nishtha or devotion to one ideal
is absolutely necessary for the beginner in the practice of religious
devotion. He must say with Hanuman in the Râmâyana, "Though I know that the
Lord of Shri and the Lord of Jânaki are both manifestations of the same
Supreme Being, yet my all in all is the lotus-eyed Râma." Or, as was said by
the sage Tulasidâsa, he must say, "Take the sweetness of all, sit with all,
take the name of all, say yea, yea, but keep your seat firm." Then, if the
devotional aspirant is sincere, out of this little seed will come a gigantic
tree like the Indian banyan, sending out branch after branch and root after
root to all sides, till it covers the entire field of religion. Thus will
the true devotee realise that He who was his own ideal in life is worshipped
in all ideals by all sects, under all names, and through all forms.