Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902) was a Bengali born yogi and philosopher, and one of the principal disciples of the mystic Ramakrishna. Vivekananda travelled widely in the west, giving hundreds of lectures. The following short passage is taken from ‘The Great Teachers of the World,’ an address given in Pasadena, California in February of 1900.

So, when each man stands and says “My Prophet is the only true Prophet,” he is not correct–he knows not the alpha of religion. Religion is neither talk, nor theory, nor intellectual consent. It is realisation in the heart of our hearts; it is touching God; it is feeling, realising that I am a spirit in relation with the Universal Spirit and all Its great manifestations. If you have really entered the house of the Father, how can you have seen His children and not known them? And if you do not recognise them, you have not entered the house of the Father. The mother recognises her child in any dress and knows him however disguised. Recognise all the great, spiritual men and women in every age and country, and see that they are not really at variance with one another. Wherever there has been actual religion–this touch of the Divine, the soul coming in direct sense-contact with the Divine–there has always been a broadening of the mind which enables it to see the light everywhere.