To confine religion to rituals, dogmas, scriptures, churches, temples etc. is to confine the universal spirit of the religion and forbidding it to reach the far most corners of the world. The real, living, breathing religion, according to Vivekananda, is not just some chosen rituals that we perform at a certain point of day, with certain materials, chanting certain rhymes, but it is in our very breath, actions, every aspect of our life and society. Religion needs be aware and respectful of the existence of other religions and be liberal and more tolerating in their outlook. This is because, like different fingers try to point to the same moon, all the religions try to strive man to the same ultimate reality. As it is not appreciable the mutual conflict in the fingers for the man, so is harmful the mutual conflict among different religions for the spiritual well-being of the society at large. Only such a liberal and tolerant religion can attain the status of Universal Religion.

          Instead of believing in the performance of rituals as a means to attain truth, Vivekananda preached about the self-realization as a means towards that. Religion, for Vivekananda, is at best maps of a country as if.  They can at best show us the direction, rest we have to cover the path. Unless we realize our self, we are no better than atheists even if we have mugged up Bibles of the world. In the spirit of Vedanta, Vivekananda asserts that religion has to be realized now. To be religious means that we have to start from scratch without any religion, see and realize things on our own, then our own self, only we can say to have gotten religious.⁶

          This point needs more elaboration. What Vivekananda prescribing here is not the blind following of what prophets or scriptures have told before? Viveakananda is as much a rationalist, as a religious preacher. A rationalist is one who goes by reason, evaluates things and events for their logicality, their rationale. If then something appears illogical to him, he declares it absurd, even if majority of the people are advocating it. Vivekananda was a great rationalist in this sense when he emphasized the self-realization as the only way to be religious and to attain the truth. Self-realization is more like self-discovery. We have to discover the truth on our own. Even though the old rishis have shared their experiences in the Vedanta for our benefit, we can at best read them, discuss them, and analyze them. But how would we ourselves have that experience? That would only be possible if we ourselves go their way and experience ourselves all what they had experienced. That is discovering the truth on our own. It is self- discovery or self-realization.