Everyone in the
world are fanatics excepts some who had reached to Brahmin (bodhisattva) state.
What differs is the degree of fanaticism. Somebody will be fanatics about
culture, some will be for their religion and so on. If we try to see the how
degree of fanaticism changes, some would be harming self like being fanatic
about cigar, wines , money and so on... But it starts taking grave nature when
it start harming and hurting the others. The degree can be gauged based on how
much is the impact , is it self, family, society, country or nations.
There are ongoing fanatic movements like talibans, womens independence and so on.. One has to ask does these movements are based
on love and compassion and trying to up bring the underprivileged sections to equality
, respect or these based on hatred towards other sections? Whether it’s based on hatred or love , that makes
the difference. Recently I came across an
story in the life of Swami Vivekananda. I will put it at narrated by
him... It goes like this ...
Fanaticism is
there everlasting since ages and will be there in future... One can
take some of historical fanatic acts from Mahabharata, which destroyed almost
all human kind of bharat varsha or the recent one , by Hitler as the superior
race to rule the world and pulling all the world to toe in world war...
I remembered a women whose
husband was a great drunkard and she complained to me of his becoming so. I
replied, “ Madam, if there were twenty millions of wives like yourself, all
husbands would become drunkards.” . I am convinced that large number of
drunkards are manufactured by their wives. My business is to tell the truth and
not to flatter anyone. These unruly women from whose minds the words bear and
forbear are forever, and whose false idea about independence lead them to think
that man should be at their feet, and who begin to howl , as soon as men dare
to say anything they do not like – such a women are becoming bane of the world,
and it is a wonder that they do not drive half the men in to commit suicide. In
this way things should not go on. Life is not so easy as they believe it to be;
it is a more serious business! – Swami Vivekananda
I do believe this applies vice a versa in many cases...
Swami Vivekananda narrated one more incident where some writer
had shared a book , which said there was no souls, but that there were gods and
goddesses in heaven, and a thread of light going from heaven to all these things?
When asked, Swamiji disagreed to believe
in these thoughts, then she replied “ You must be a very bad man; there is
no hope for you!” This is fanaticism!
