Becoming Prophets
I was reading the lecture The Methods and Purpose of Religion in Volume 6 of the Compete Works of Swami Vivekananda and I realized it had a very similar passage in it to the lecture The Great Teachers of the World in Volume 4.
The time is coming when we shall understand that to become religious means to become a prophet, that none can become religious until he or she becomes a prophet. We shall come to understand that the secret of religion is not being able to think and say all these thoughts; but, as the Vedas teach, to realise them, to realise newer and higher one than have ever been realised, to discover them, bring them to society; and the study of religion should be the training to make prophets.
Will other and greater Prophets come? Certainly they will come in this world. But do not look forward to that. I should better like that each one of you became a Prophet of this real New Testament, which is made up of all the Old Testaments. Take all the old messages, supplement them with your own realisations, and become a Prophet unto others. Each one of these Teachers has been great; each has left something for us; they have been our Gods. We salute them, we are their servants; and, all the same, we salute ourselves; for if they have been Prophets and children of God, we also are the same. They reached their perfection, and we are going to attain ours now. Remember the words of Jesus: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” This very moment let everyone of us make a staunch resolution: “I will become a Prophet, I will become a messenger of Light, I will become a child of God, nay, I will become a God!“
In the first passage, Swamiji is saying that the end goal of religion is not to memorize or learn the truth but rather to realize it, to discover it for ourselves; in other words, become a prophet. In the second passage Swamiji says something similar, prophets have come in the past and they will certainly come in the future too. But rather than wait for one to come it is even better to become one, because if both us and them have the same origin, then we can both reach the same realization of the truth.