Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Swami VivekanandaRead
The idol is the expression of religion.
Interpretation
The idol symbolizes the various ways people express their spirituality and faith.
Swami Vivekananda's quote indicates that an idol serves as a tangible representation of an individual's religious beliefs and practices. It highlights that, while the idol itself is a physical object, it embodies deeper spiritual meanings, serving as a focal point for devotion and reflection in one's religious life.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of cultural heritage, one might quote this to emphasize the value of religious symbols.
Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Rama, the ancient idol of the heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the ideal husband, and above all, the ideal king, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can be purer, none chaster, none more beautiful, and at the same time simpler, than the language in which the great poet has depicted the life of Rama.
Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists".
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.
I have come to deal with principles. I have only to preach that God comes again and again, and that He came in India as Krishna, Rama, and Buddha, and that He will come again. It can almost be demonstrated that after each 500 years the world sinks, and a tremendous spiritual wave comes, and on the top of the wave is a Christ.
Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people.
Your soul has a single basic function-the act of valuing.
The person who forgets the ultimate is a slave to the immediate.
The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish.
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but it's never happened yet.
I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?
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