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Vivekananda to an Agnostic
Swami Vivekananda responding to a famous American agnostic
Robert Ingersoll who said to him, "religion is of no use. Why bother
our heads about other worlds?":
"...You think it is enough to live and eat and drink and have a little
scientific knowledge, but you have no right to say that will suit all
tastes... Such a conception is nothing to me. If I had only to learn how an apple falls
to the ground, or how an electric current shakes my nerves, I would
commit suicide. I want to understand the heart of things, the
very kernel itself. Your study is the manifestation of life, mine is
the life itself".
"My philosophy says you must know that and drive out from your mind all
thoughts of heaven and hell and all other superstitions, even though
they exist in the same sense that this world exists. I must know the
heart of this life, its very essence, what it is, not only how it works
and what are its manifestations. I
want to know the why of everything, I leave the how to children."
- Swami Vivekananda (The Gift Unopened by Eleanor Stark,
pp. 89)