Swami Vivekananda                           

Baptism

       Some years ago one of your Christian teachers, a friend of mine, said, "You believe in Christ?"  "Yes," I answered, "but perhaps with a little more reverence."  "Then why don’t you be baptized?" How could I be baptized? By whom? Where is the man who can give true baptism? What is baptism? Is it sprinkling some water over you, or dipping you in water, while muttering formulas?
            Baptism is the direct introduction into the life of the spirit.  If you receive the real baptism, you know you are not the body but the spirit.  Give me that baptism if you can.  If not, you are not Christians.  Even after the so-called baptism which you received, you have remained the same.  What is the sense of merely saying you have been baptized in the name of Christ? Mere talk, talk -- ever disturbing the world with your foolishness! "Ever steeped in the darkness of ignorance, yet considering themselves wise and learned, the fools go round and round, staggering to and fro like the blind led by the blind" (Katha Upanishad 1,  ii.5)  Therefore do not say you are Christians, do not brag about baptism and things of that sort.
            Of course there is true baptism, in the beginning, when the Christ came to the earth and taught.  The illumined souls, the great ones that come to earth from time to time, have the power to reveal the Supernal Vision to us.  This is true baptism.   You see, before the formulas and ceremonies of every religion there exists the germ of universal truth.  In course of time this truth becomes forgotten; it becomes as it were strangled by forms and ceremonies.  The form remains -- we find there the casket with the spirit all gone.  You have the form of baptism but few can evoke the living spirit of baptism.  The form will not suffice.  If we want to gain the living knowledge of the living truth, we have to be truly initiated into it.  That is the ideal.