19-11-2012, 04:49 PM
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA’S SPEECH AT WORLD PARLIAMENT OF RELIGION, CHICAGO
1SWAMI VIVEKANANDA’S.pdf (Size: 46.43 KB / Downloads: 101)
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome
which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the
world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of
millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. My thanks, also, to some of the
speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that
these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the
idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both
tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept
all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and
the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have
gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and
took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by
Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is
still fostering remnant Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a
hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day
repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in
different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which
men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all
lead to Thee."