However You Choose to Seek

"Sisters and brothers of America."

Chicago, 1893. These words from a young Indian monk triggered a two-minute standing ovation. The Western intellectuals had expected primitive Eastern mysticism. Instead, Swami Vivekananda offered kinship.

"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth," he declared. "I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning may be the death-knell of all fanaticism.”

Christian ministers shifted uncomfortably. He was saying their belief that only Christians could be saved was just another form of fanaticism.

Vivekananda was known for telling a story that captured religious narrowness perfectly. A well-frog meets an ocean-frog. "How big is your ocean?" asks the well-frog. When told it's vast beyond imagination, he declares the other frog a liar. Nothing could be larger than his well.