Jnana-Yoga : - 2.4.

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CHAPTER -2. THE REAL NATURE OF MAN : 4.

(Delivered in London)


This This is the kernel of truth is again and again repeated in the scriptures of the Hindus; the dream of a period which they call the Age of Truth, when no man died unless he wished to die, when he could keep his body as long as he liked, and his mind was pure and strong.

There was no evil and no misery; and the present age is a corruption of that state of perfection.

Side by side with this, we find the story of the deluge everywhere.

That story itself is a proof that this present age is held to be a corruption of a former age by every religion.

It went on becoming more and more corrupt until the deluge swept away a large portion of mankind, and again the ascending series began.

It is going up slowly again to reach once more that early state of purity.


Manu, a great ancient sage, was praying on the bank of the Gangâ, when a little minnow came to him for protection, and he put it into a pot of water he had before him. "What do you want?" asked Manu.

The little minnow declared he was pursued by a bigger fish and wanted protection.

Manu carried the little fish to his home, and in the morning he had become as big as the pot and said, "I cannot live in this pot any longer".

Manu put him in a tank, and the next day he was as big as the tank and declared he could not live there any more.

So Manu had to take him to a river, and in the morning the fish filled the river.

Then Manu put him in the ocean, and he declared, "Manu, I am the Creator of the universe. I have taken this form to come and warn you that I will deluge the world. You build an ark and in it put a pair of every kind of animal, and let your family enter the ark, and there will project out of the water my horn. Fasten the ark to it; and when the deluge subsides, come out and people the earth."

So the world was deluged, and Manu saved his own family and two of every kind of animal and seeds of every plant. When the deluge subsided, he came and peopled the world; and we are all called "man", because we are the progeny of Manu.

Swami Vivekananda
To be continued  ...


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