(To search a particular quote, please use the 'Find in Page' option of the browser and type the desired keyword.)

I do not believe in humility. I believe in 'Samadarshitva' -– same state of mind with regard to all. The duty of the ordinary man is to obey the commands of his God, society; but the children of light never do so. This is an eternal law. ...
... The accommodating man finds a path of roses; the non-accommodating, one of thorns. But the worshippers of "Vox populi" go to annihilation in a moment; the children of truth live for ever.
-Swami Vivekananda

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling Mature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one or more or all of these and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.
-Swami Vivekananda

Meditate! The greatest thing is meditation. It is the nearest approach to spiritual life -- the mind meditating. It is the one moment in our daily life that we are not at all material - the Soul thinking of Itself, free from all matter - this marvellous touch of the Soul!
-Swami Vivekananda

"I have neither death nor fear, I have neither caste nor creed, I have neither father nor mother nor brother, neither friend nor foe, for I am Existence, Knowledge and Bliss absolute; I am the blissful one, I am the blissful one. I am not bound either by virtue or vice, by happiness or misery. Pilgrimages and books and ceremonials can never bind me. I have neither hunger nor thirst; the body is not mine, nor I am subject to the superstitions and decay that come to the body, I am Existence, Knowledge and Bliss absolute; I am the Blissful One, I am the Blissful One." This says Vedanta is the only prayer that we should have.
-Swami Vivekananda

My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.
-Swami Vivekananda

Duty is good to the extent that it checks brutality. To the lowest kinds of men, who cannot have any other ideal, it is of some good; but those who want to be Karma-Yogis must throw this idea of duty overboard. There is no duty for you and me. Whatever you have to give to the world, do give by all means, but not as a duty. Do not take any thought of that. Be not compelled. Why should you be compelled? Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment.
-Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

...the idea of happiness without misery, or of life without death, is very good for school-boys and children; but the thinker sees that it is all a contradiction in terms and gives up both. Seek no praise, no reward, for anything you do.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising -- not in believing, but
in being and becoming. Thus the whole object of their system is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach God and see God, and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus.
- Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago

Divine wisdom is to be got by devotion, meditation, and chastity.
"Truth alone triumphs, and not untruth. Through truth alone the way is spread to Brahman" -- where alone love and truth are.
- Swami Vivekananda

In all religions the superconscious state is identical. Hindus, Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists, and even those of no creed, all have the very same experience when they transcend the body....
- Swami Vivekananda

Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the other, to him I say, "Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.
- Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago

To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul grasp and realise the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength, till it reaches the Glorious Sun.
- Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago

.. it is work through the sense of duty that leads us to work without any idea of duty; when work will become worship -- nay, something higher -- then will work be done for its own sake.
We shall find that the philosophy of duty, whether it be in the form of ethics or of love, is the same as in every other Yoga -- the object being the attenuating of the lower self, so that the real higher Self may shine forth the lessening of the frittering away of energies on the lower plane of existence, so that the soul may manifest itself on the higher ones.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Everything in the universe is struggling to complete a circle, to return to its source, to return to its only real Source, Atman. The search for happiness is a struggle to find the balance, to restore the equilibrium. Morality is the struggle of the bound will to get free and is the proof that we have come from perfection. . .
- Swami Vivekananda

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this:
It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance:
"Help and not Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."
- Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago

I believe I have told you that without non-attachment there cannot be any kind of Yoga.
Non-attachment is the basis of all the Yogas....
Non-attachment does not mean anything that we may do in relation to our external body, it is all in the mind.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Every mental and physical blow that is given to the soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which its own power and knowledge are discovered, is Karma, this word
used in its widest sense.
- Swami Vivekananda, in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

All knowledge, ... secular or spiritual, is in the human mind.
In many cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say, "We are learning," and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering.
The man from whom this veil is being lifted is the more knowing man, the man upon whom it lies thick is ignorant, and the man from whom it has entirely gone is all-knowing, omniscient.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practise it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Even fighting in self-defence is wrong, though it is higher than fighting in aggression.
There is no "righteous" indignation, because indignation comes from not recognising sameness in all things.
- Swami Vivekananda

... knowledge, ..., is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man "knows", should, in strict psychological language, be what he "discovers" or "unveils"; what a man "learns" is really what he "discovers", by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free. The full sponge can absorb no more.
- Swami Vivekananda

Pranayama is not, as many think, something about breath; breath indeed has very little to do with it, if anything. Breathing is only one of the many exercises through which we get to the real Pranayama. Pranayama means the control of Prana....

... From thought down to the lowest force, everything is but the manifestation of Prana.
The sum total of all forces in the universe, mental or physical, when resolved back to their original state, is called Prana. ...
... The knowledge and control of this Prana is really what is meant by Pranayama.
- Swami Vivekananda in Raja-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Clinging to books only degenerates the human mind. Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book?
How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!
Millions of people have been killed because they did not believe what the books said, because they would not see all the knowledge of God within the covers of a book.
Of course this killing and murdering has gone by, but the world is still tremendously bound up in a belief in books.
- Swami Vivekananda

All outgoing energy following a selfish motive is frittered away; it will not cause power to return to you; but if restrained, it will result in development of power.
This self-control will tend to produce a mighty will, a character which makes a Christ or a Buddha.
- Swami Vivekananda

Philosophy in India means that through which we see God, the rationale of religion; so no Hindu would ever ask for a link between religion and philosophy.
Concrete, generalised, abstract are the three stages in the process of philosophy.
The highest abstraction in which all things agree is the One.
In religion we have first, symbols and forms; next, mythology; and last, philosophy. The first two are for the time being; philosophy is the underlying basis of all, and the others are only stepping stones in the struggle to reach the Ultimate.
-Swami Vivekananda

If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another.
Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man.
Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.
- Swami Vivekananda Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions;
so we have to know how to act.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

In every religion there are three parts: philosophy, mythology, and ritual.
Philosophy of course is the essence of every religion; mythology explains and illustrates it by means of the more or less legendary lives of great men, stories and fables of wonderful things, and so on; ritual gives to that philosophy a still more concrete form, so that everyone may grasp it -- ritual is in fact concretised philosophy.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

If a Hindu is not spiritual I do not call him a Hindu. In other countries a man may be political first, and then he may have a little religion, but here in India the first and the foremost duty of our lives is to be spiritual first, and then, if there is time, let other things come. Bearing this in mind we shall be in a better position to understand why, for our national welfare, we must first seek out at the present day all the spiritual forces of the race, as was done in days of yore and will be done in all times to come.
National union in India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces.
A nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune.
- Swami Vivekananda

Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness. I do not mean the sentimental statement that all men are brothers, but that one must feel the oneness of human life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Lecture at Hartford, Connecticut

When we begin to work earnestly in the world, nature gives us blows right and left and soon enables us to find out our position. No man can long occupy satisfactorily a position for which he is not fit.
There is no use in grumbling against nature's adjustment.
He who does the lower work is not therefore a lower man.
No man is to be judged by the mere nature of his duties, but all should be judged by the manner and the spirit in which they perform them.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Make your nerves strong. What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel.
We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men.
It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want.
And here is the test of truth -- anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true.
Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all-knowledge.
- Swami Vivekananda

"Whom the Self chooses" is true. Election is true, but put it within. As an external and fatalistic doctrine, it is horrible.
- Swami Vivekananda

As a boy I had some white mice. They were kept in a little box in which there were little wheels, and when the mice tried to cross the wheels, the wheels turned and turned, and the mice never got anywhere.
So it is with the world and our helping it. The only help is that we get moral exercise. This world is neither good nor evil; each man manufactures a world for himself.
Life is good or evil according to the state of mind in which we look at it, it is neither by itself.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

However much their systems of philosophy and religion may differ, all mankind stand in reverence and awe before the man who is ready to sacrifice himself for others.
Here, it is not at all any question of creed, or doctrine - even men who are very much opposed to all religious ideas, when they see one of these acts of complete self-sacrifice, feel that they must revere it.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths;
and these paths I have generalised into four, viz. those of work, love, psychology, and knowledge.
But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the other. But according to the type which prevails, we name the divisions....
These divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one.
All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

… we see that it is not the thing done that defines a duty. To give an objective definition of duty is thus entirely impossible. Yet there is duty from the subjective side.
Any action that makes us go Godward is a good action, and is our duty; any action that makes us go downward is evil, and is not our duty.
-Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New-York

The position of the mother is the highest in the world, as it is the one place in which to learn and exercise the greatest unselfishness. The love of God is the only love that is higher than a mother's love; all others are lower.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

... you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave's work.
... ninety-nine per cent of mankind work like slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish work. Work through freedom! Work through love!
The word "love" is very difficult to understand; love never comes until there is freedom. ...
...when we ourselves work for the things of the world as slaves, there can be no love in us, and our work is not true work. This is true of work done for relatives and friends, and is true of work done for our own selves. Selfish work is slave's work; and here is a test.
Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

It is easy to say that there is no use of rituals and temples and all such paraphernalia; every baby says that in modern times.
But it must be easy for all to see that those who worship inside a temple are in many respects different from those who will not worship there.
Therefore the association of particular temples, rituals, and other concrete forms with particular
religions has a tendency to bring into the minds of the followers of those religions the thoughts for which those concrete things stand as symbols; and it is not wise to ignore rituals and symbology altogether. The study and practice of these things form naturally a part of Karma-Yoga.
- Swami Vivekananda Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

In one sense we cannot think but in symbols; words themselves are symbols of thought.
In another sense everything in the universe may be looked upon as a symbol.
The whole universe is a symbol, and God is the essence behind.
- Swami Vivekananda Karma-Yoga, New York

A fool can do heroic deeds when the approbation of society is upon him, but for a man to constantly do good without caring for the approbation of his fellow men is indeed the highest sacrifice man can perform.
-Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavour to accomplish it. That is a surer way of progress than taking up other men's ideals, which he can never hope to accomplish ...
All the men and women, in any society, are not of the same mind, capacity, or of the same power to do things; they must have different ideals, and we have no right to sneer at any ideal.
Let everyone do the best he can for realising his own ideal. Nor is it right that I should be judged by your standard or you by mine.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for the time being.
... the right performance of the duties of any station in life, without attachment to results, leads us to the highest realisation of the perfection of the soul.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.
He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself.
- Swami Vivekananda Karma-Yoga, New York

Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our miseries for ever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a time. It is only with the knowledge of the spirit that the faculty of want is annihilated for ever; so helping man spiritually is the highest help that can be given to him. He who gives man spiritual knowledge is the greatest benefactor of mankind and as such we always find that those were the most powerful of men who helped man in his spiritual needs, because spirituality is the true basis of all our activities in life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga Classes, New York

Language is not the result of convention; it is not that people ever agreed to represent certain ideas by certain words; there never was an idea without a corresponding word or a word without a corresponding idea; ideas and words are in their nature inseparable. The symbols to represent ideas may be sound symbols or colour symbols. Deaf and dumb people have to think with other than sound symbols. Every thought in the mind has a form as its counterpart. This is called in Sanskrit philosophy Nama-rupa -- name and form.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New-York

All these are but various names. There is but one fact in the universe, and we look at it from various standpoints. The same fact looked at from one standpoint becomes matter. The same one from another standpoint becomes mind. There are not two things.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

We may all be perfectly sure that it [the world] will go on beautifully well without us, and we need not bother our heads wishing to help it. Yet we must do good; the desire to do good is the highest motive power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to help others. ...
It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

No man's seeing God can help you the least bit except that it may excite you and urge you to do the same thing. That is the whole value of the ancients' examples. Nothing more. [Just] signposts on the way. No man's eating can satisfy another man. No man's seeing God can save another man. You have to see God yourself.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

Our duties are determined by our deserts to a much larger extent than we are willing to grant. ...
To the grumbler all duties are distasteful; nothing will ever satisfy him, and his whole life is doomed to prove a failure. Let us work on, doing as we go whatever happens to be our duty, and being ever ready to put our shoulders to the wheel. Then surely shall we see the Light!
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

No two persons have the same mind or the same body. ... ...No two persons have the same religion....
If you want to be religious, enter not the gate of any organized religions.
They do a hundred times more evil than good, because they stop the growth of each one's individual development. Study everything, but keep your own seat firm. ... ...Enter not the door of any organized religion. [Religion] is only between you and your God, and no third person must come between you. Think what these organized religions have done!
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

The great men think, and you and I [also] think. But there is a difference. We think and our bodies do not follow. Our actions do not harmonise with our thoughts. Our words have not the power of the words that become Vedas.
...Whatever they think must be accomplished. If they say, "I do this," the body does it. Perfect obedience.
-Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

Without the supernatural sanction as it is called, or the perception of the superconscious as I prefer to term it, there can be no ethics.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Just as inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God, there would be no creation either.
It is the difference between these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else.
Let us put forth all our energies to acquire that which never fails -- our spiritual perfection.
-Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles

If we were really unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could cheerfully do good work in the world.
Never will unhappiness or misery come through work done without attachment.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based upon the experience of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has the same perceptions himself. Yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these perceptions.
It is not much use to talk about religion until one has felt it.
- Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Our duty is to encourage everyone in his struggle to live up to his own highest ideal, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the truth.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

Karma-Yoga is the attaining through unselfish work of that freedom which is the goal of all human nature. Every selfish action, therefore, retards our reaching the goal, and every unselfish action takes us towards the goal; that is why the only definition that can be given of morality is this: That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come out.
Through this machinery itself is the way out.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New-York

Doing is very good, but that comes from thinking. Little manifestations of energy through the muscles are called work. But where there is no thought, there will be no work. Fill the brain, therefore, with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work. Talk not about impurity, but say that we are pure. We have hypnotised ourselves into this thought that we are little, that we are born, and that we are going to die, and into a constant state of fear.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

Freedom is the one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient; and consciously or unconsciously, everything is struggling towards that goal. The freedom which the saint seeks is very different from that which the robber seeks; the freedom loved by the saint leads him to the enjoyment of infinite, unspeakable bliss,while that on which the robber has set his heart only forges other bonds for his soul.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)

It is useless to say that the man who lives out of the world is a greater man than he who lives in the world; it is much more difficult to live in the world and worship God than to give it up and live a free and easy life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

All the orthodox systems of Indian philosophy have one goal in view, the liberation of the soul through perfection. The method is by Yoga. The word Yoga covers an immense ground, but both the Sankhya and the Vedanta Schools point to Yoga in some form or other.
- Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York

One idea comes out of all this -- the condemnation of all weakness. This is a particular idea in all our teachings which I like, either in philosophy, or in religion, or in work.
If you read the Vedas, you will find this word always repeated -- fearlessness fear nothing.
Fear is a sign of weakness. A man must go about his duties without taking notice of the sneers and the ridicule of the world.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

The main effect of work done for others is to purify ourselves. By means of the constant effort to do good to others we are trying to forget ourselves; this forgetfulness of self is the one great lesson we have to learn in life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

The Karma-Yogi is the man who understands that the highest ideal is non-resistance, and who also knows that this non-resistance is the highest manifestation of power in actual possession, and also what is called the resisting of evil is but a step on the way towards the manifestation of this highest power, namely, non-resistance.
Before reaching this highest ideal, man's duty is to resist evil; let him work, let him fight, let him strike straight from the shoulder. Then only, when he has gained the power to resist, will non- resistance be a virtue.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

This is the one central idea in the Gita: work incessantly, but be not attached to it.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery we see. Let men have light, let them be pure and spiritually strong and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world, not before. We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist until man's character changes.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New-York

The very reason of nature's existence is for the education of the soul; it has no other meaning; it is there because the soul must have knowledge, and through knowledge free itself.

If we remember this always, we shall never be attached to nature; we shall know that nature is a book in which we are to read, and that when we have gained the required knowledge, the book is of no more value to us.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

If a man retires from the world to worship God, he must not think that those who live in the world and work for the good of the world are not worshipping God: neither must those who live in the world, for wife and children, think that those who give up the world are low vagabonds. Each is great in his own place.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

Two ways are left open to us -- the way of the ignorant, who think that there is only one way to truth and that all the rest are wrong, and the way of the wise, who admit that, according to our mental constitution or the different planes of existence in which we are, duty and morality may vary. The important thing is to know that there are gradations of duty and of morality -- that the duty of one state of life, in one set of circumstances, will not and cannot be that of another.
- Swami Vivekananda in Karma Yoga (Classes in New York)

It is useless to say that the man who lives out of the world is a greater man than he who lives in the world; it is much more difficult to live in the world and worship God than to give it up and live a free and easy life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York

Until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one idea and to the one alone, we never, never will see the light. - Swami Vivekananda

Birth, life and death are but old superstitions. None was ever born, none will ever die, one changes ones position that's all. This is first fact of consciousness - I am. - Swami Vivekananda

And tell the world --
Awake, arise, and dream no more!
This is the land of dreams, where Karma
Weaves unthreaded garlands with our thoughts
of flowers sweet or noxious, and none
Has root or stem, being born in naught, which
The softest breath of Truth drives back to Primal nothingness.
Be bold, and face The Truth!
Be one with it! Let visions cease,
Or, if you cannot, dream but truer dreams,
Which are Eternal Love and Service Free.
- Swami Vivekananda

Thy will be done' - every moment the traitor mind rebels against it, yet it must be said, again and again, if we are to conquer the lower self.
- Swami Vivekananda

This I say,
Remember pray,
That God is true, all else is nothing!
The world is a dream,
Though true it seem.
The only truth is He the living!
The real me is none but He, the real me is none but He
And never never the matter changing!
- Swami Vivekananda



Attach yourself to the Lord and nothing else, because everything else is unreal. Attachment to
the unreal will bring misery. No excuse for you! So much the worse for you that you know all the philosophies and at the same time think you are the body! Religion is the realization of spirit as spirit.
- Swami Vivekananda



We may represent love as a triangle. ...The first angle of our triangle of love is that love knows no bargaining. ... To worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other rewards equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Love is always for love's sake. The Bhakta loves because he cannot help loving. ... The second angle of the triangle of love is that love knows no fear. ... Love and fear are incompatible; God is never to be feared by those who love Him. The third angle of the love-triangle is that love knows no rival, for in it is always embodied the lover's highest ideal. ... The highest ideal of every man is called God. Ignorant or wise, saint or sinner, man or woman, educated or uneducated, cultivated or uncultivated, to every human being the highest ideal is God.
...perfected Bhakta no more goes to see God in temples and churches; he knows no place where he will not find Him. He finds Him in the temple as well as out of the temple, he finds Him in the saint's saintliness as well as in the wicked man's wickedness, because he has Him already seated in glory in his own heart as the one Almighty inextinguishable Light of Love which is ever shining and eternally present.
- Swami Vivekananda (bhakti-Yoga)



To be good and to do good - that is the whole of religion. …
…this life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others,
the rest are more dead than alive. Sympathy for the poor, the downtrodden, even unto death - this is our motto. Onward brave lads!
- Swami Vivekananda



The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and end of all religions, is but one -- re-union with God,
or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity which is every man's true nature. But while the aim is one, the method of attaining may vary with the different temperaments of men.
Both the goal and the methods employed for reaching it are called yoga, a word derived from the same Sanskrit root as the English "yoke", meaning "to join", to join us to our reality, God.
There are various such Yogas, or methods of union -- but the chief ones are -- karma-yoga,
Bhakti-yoga, Raja-yoga, and Jnana-yoga.
- Swami Vivekananda



The old religion said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself. But it is not selfish faith, because the Vedanta, again, is the doctrine of oneness. It means faith in all, because you are all.
Love for yourselves means love for all, love for animals, love for everything, for you are all one.
It is the great faith which will make the world better. I am sure of that.
- Swami Vivekananda



We believe that it is the duty of every soul to treat, think of, and behave to other souls as such
i.e. as Gods and not hate or despise, or vilify, or try to injure them by any manner or means.
This is the duty not only of the Sannyasin but of all men and women.
- Swami Vivekananda



I am He, whatever mind does, I am not touched. The sun is not touched by shining on filthy
places. I am existence.
- Swami Vivekananda



The body is not the Real Man, neither is the mind, for the mind waxes and wanes. It is the spirit
which alone can live for ever....
These are old delusions, however comfortable they are, to think that we are little limited beings,
constantly changing.
... Assert it, manifest it. Not to become pure, you are pure already, you are not to be perfect, you
are that already....
... Happiness is only found in the spirit.
- Swami Vivekananda



Talk not of impurity, but say that we are pure, we have hypnotized ourselves into this thought
that we are little, that we are born, that we are going to die, and into a constant state of fear. - Swami Vivekananda


That is the secret: To think that I am the spirit and not the body and that the whole of this
universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil is but as a series of paintings scenes on a canvas-of which I am the witness. - Swami Vivekananda

You are pure already, you are free already. If you think you are free, free you are this moment,
and if you think bound you you are bound, will be. - Swami Vivekananda

... hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once
more. The ideal of man is to see God in everything. - Swami Vivekananda


Good and bad are never two different things, they are one and the same; the difference is not one of kind, but of degree. ... conquest of evil comes by the change in the subjective alone. That is how the Advaita system gets its whole force, on the subjective side of man. To talk of evil and misery is non-sense, because they do not exist outside.
-Swami Vivekananda


Maya - it is a simple statement of facts - what we are and what we see around us....
What does the statement of the existence of the world mean, then? "This world has no existence." What is meant by that? It means that it has no absolute existence. It exists only in relation to my mind, to your mind, and to the mind of everyone else. ... ... It has, therefore, no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence. Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that it exists and we have to work in and through it. It is a mixture of existence and non-existence.... … ... ... there is neither how nor why in fact; we only know it is and that we can not help it. ... People generally get frightened when these things are told to them. But bold we must be. Hiding facts is not the way to find a remedy ... … the very basis of our being is contradiction. ... ... Thus the Vedanta philosophy is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It voices both these views and takes things as they are. - Swami Vivekananda (Jnana-Yoga)


Say to your own minds, "I am He. I am He." Let it ring day and night in your minds like a song, and at the point of death declare, "I am He." That is the Truth; the infinite strength of the world is yours. Drive out the superstition that has covered your minds. Let us be brave. Know the Truth and practice the Truth. The goal may be distant, but arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached. - Swami Vivekananda


'I pray that he may never come back again to this dirty hole they call the Earth. Neither may he
be born in heaven or any other horrid place. May he never again wear a body--good or bad, thick or thin. What a humbug and illusion this world is, Mother, what a mockery this life. I pray constantly that all mankind will come to know the reality, i.e. God, and this "Shop" here be closed for ever.' - Swami Vivekananda (writes to Mrs. Hale on demise of Diwanji Haridas Desai)


Teach yourselves, teach every one his real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity. - Swami Vivekananda


'This Atman is first to be heard of.' Hear day and night that you are that soul. Repeat it to yourselves day & night till it enters into your very veins, till it tingles in every drop of blood, till it is in your flesh & bone. Let the whole body be full of that one ideal, 'I am the birth-less, the deathless, the blissful, the omniscient, the omnipotent ever-glorious soul.' - Swami Vivekananda


... and the greatest of all lies is that we are bodies, which we never were nor ever can be. It is
the greatest of all lies that we are mere men; we are the God of the universe. In worshipping God we have been always worshipping our own hidden Self. The worst lie that you ever tell yourself is that you were born a sinner or a wicked man. He alone is a sinner who sees a sinner in another man. - Swami Vivekananda


There is no 'I' nor 'you'; it is all one. It is either all 'I' or all you'. This idea of duality, of two, is
entirely false, and the whole universe, as we ordinarily know it, is the result of this false knowledge. When discrimination comes and man finds there are not two but one, he finds that he is himself this universe. "It is I who am this universe as it now exists, a continuous mass of change. It is I who am beyond all changes, beyond all qualities, the eternally perfect, the eternally blessed." There is, therefore, but one Atman, one Self, eternally pure, eternally perfect, unchangeable, unchanged; it has never changed; all these various changes in the universe are but appearances in that one Self. - Swami Vivekananda


I am One, alone, through all eternity. Whom shall I fear? It is all my self. This is continuously to
be meditated upon. Through that comes realization. - Swami Vivekananda


"I am neither the body, nor the organs, nor am I the mind; I am Existence, Knowledge and Bliss
absolute; I am He." This is true knowledge, all reason and intellect and everything else is ignorance. Where is knowledge for me, for I am knowledge itself! - Swami Vivekananda


… This is therefore, true knowledge: that the Soul of our souls, the Reality that is within us is
that which is unchangeable, eternal, ever-blessed, ever-free. This is the only solid ground for us to stand upon. - Swami Vivekananda


We have to go beyond the body, and beyond thought too, says the Advaita.
... according to Advaita, this freedom is not to be attained, it is already ours. We only forget it and deny it. Perfection is not to be attained, it is already within us. Immortality and bliss are not to be acquired, we possess them already; they have been ours all the time. - Swami Vivekananda


You are that impersonal Being; that God for whom you have been searching all over the
universe is all the time yourself; yourself not in the personal sense but in the Impersonal. The man we know now, the manifested. is personalized, but reality of this is Impersonal. -Swami Vivekananda


When you look at the unchanging Existence from outside, you call it God; and when you look at
it from the inside, you call it yourself. It is but One. There is no God separate from you, no God higher than you, the real "you". - Swami Vivekananda


What does Vedanta teach us? In the first place, it teaches that you need not even go out of yourself to know the truth. All the past and all the future are here in the present. No man ever saw the past. Did any one of you see the past? When you think you are knowing the past, you only imagine the past in the present moment. To see the future, you would have to bring it down to the present, which is the only reality - the rest is imagination. This present is all that is. There is only One. All is here right now. One moment in Infinite time is quite as complete and all inclusive as every other moment. All that is and was and will be is here in the present. Let anybody try to imagine anything outside of it - he will not succeed. - Swami Vivekananda


If you know that you are positively other than your body, you have then none to fight with or
struggle against; you are dead to all ideas of selfishness. So the Bhakta declares that we have to hold ourselves as if we are altogether dead to all the things of the world; and that is indeed self-surrender. Let things come as they may. This is the meaning of "Thy Will be done". - Swami Vivekananda


"I am He, I am He" Day and night say, "I am He". It is greatest strength; it is religion.
- Swami Vivekananda


All these ideas that I am imperfect, I am a man, or a woman, or a sinner, or I am the mind. I
have thought, I will think - all are hallucinations; you never think, you never had a body; you never were imperfect. … …Let things come and go, what is that to me, I am not the body. - Swami Vivekananda


The world is just a playground, and we are here having good fun, having a game, and God is
with us playing all the while, and we are with Him playing. - Swami Vivekananda


The Atman is Knowledge, the Atman is Intelligence, the Atman is Sachchidananda. It is through
the inscrutable power of Maya, which can not be indicated as either existent or non-existent, that the relative consciousness has come upon the Jiva who is none other than Brahman. This is generally known as the conscious state. And the state in which this duality of relative existence becomes one in the pure Brahman is called in the scriptures the super-conscious state and described in such words as 'िèतͧमतसͧललराͧशĤयमाÉयाͪवǑहनम”्
(Vivekachudamani 410).
- Swami Vivekananda


What is meant by perfect manifestation? Perfection means infinity and manifestation means
limit, and so it means that we shall become unlimited limiteds, which is self contradictory. Such a theory may please children; but it is poisoning their minds with lies, and is very bad for religion. But we know that this world is a degradation, that man is a degradation of God... ... But we shall never be able entirely to manifest the Infinite here. We shall struggle hard, but there will come a time when we shall find that it is impossible to be perfect here, while we are bound by the senses. And then the march back to our original state of Infinity will be sounded. - Swami Vivekananda


The fact being that the Lord is in us, we are He, the eternal subject, the real ego, never to be
objectified, and that all this objectifying process is mere waste of time and talent. When the soul becomes aware of this, it gives up objectifying and falls back more and more upon the subjective. This is the evolution, less and less in the body and more and more in the mind -- man the highest form, meaning in Sanskrit manas, thought -- the animal that thinks and not the animal that "senses" only. This is what in theology is called "renunciation". - Swami Vivekananda


This world is all for play; and only amuses God; nothing in it can make God angry.
- Swami Vivekananda


To manifest the Infinite through the finite is impossible, and sooner or later, man learns to give
up the attempt to express the Infinite through the finite. This giving up, this renunciation of the attempt, is the background of ethics. Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands. There never was an ethical code preached which had not renunciation for its basis. Infinite will never find expression upon the material plane, nor is it possible or thinkable. - Swami Vivekananda


Only the path of Jnana is of quick fruition and the rational of all other creeds; hence it is equally
esteemed in all countries and all ages. But even in the path of discrimination there is the chance of the mind getting stuck in the interminable net of vain argumentation. Therefore along with it, meditation should be practiced. By means of discrimination and meditation, the goal or Brahman has to be reached. One is sure to reach the goal by practicing in this way. This, in my opinion, is the easy path ensuring quick success. - Swami Vivekananda


What fear is there? Always dis discriminate your body, your house, these Jivas and the world
are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that this body is only an inert instrument. And the self contained Purusha within is your real nature. The adjunct of mind is His first and subtle covering, then there is this body which is His gross, outer covering. The indivisible, changeless, self-effulgent Purusha is lying hidden under these delusive veils therefore your real nature is unknown to you. The direction of the mind which always runs after the senses has to be turned within. The mind has to be killed. The body is but gross - it dies and dissolves into the five elements. But the bundle of mental impressions, which is the mind, does not die soon. It remains for some time in seed form and then sprouts and grows in the form of a tree - it takes on another physical body and goes the round of birth and death, until Self-knowledge arises. Therefore I say, by meditation and concentration and by the power of philosophical discrimination plunge this mind in the ocean of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. When the mind dies, all limiting adjuncts vanish and you are established in Brahman.' - Swami Vivekananda


You must bear this in mind; it is not that there is a soul in man, although I had to take that for
granted in order to explain it at first; but that there is only One Existence, and that One the Atman, the Self; and when this is perceived through sense-imageries, It is called body. When It is perceived through thought, It is called the mind. When It is perceived in Its own nature, It is Atman, the One Only Existence. So it is not that there are three things in one, the body and the mind and the Self, although that was a convenient way of putting it in the course of explanation; but all is that Atman, and that One Being is sometimes called the body, sometimes the world, and sometimes the Self, according to different vision. - Swami Vivekananda


This world is a delusion of two days. The present life is of five minutes. Beyond is the infinite,
beyond this world of delusion; let us seek that. - Swami Vivekananda


"Did Buddha teach that the many was real and the ego unreal, while orthodox Hinduism regards
the one as the real, and the many as unreal?" the Swami was asked. "Yes," answered the Swami, "And what Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and I have added to this is, that the many and the One are the same Reality, perceived by the same mind at different times and in different attitudes." - Swamiji answering a question


Now I will tell you my discovery. All of religion is contained in the Vedanta, that is, in the three
stages of the Vedanta philosophy, the Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita and Advaita; one comes after the other. These are the three stages of spiritual growth in man. Each one is necessary. This is the essential of religion: the Vedanta, applied to the various ethnic customs and creeds of India is Hinduism. The first step, i.e. Dvaita applied to the ideas of ethnic groups of Europe is Christianity; as applied to the Semitic groups, Mohammedanism.The Advaita, as applied in its Yoga-perception form, is Buddhism etc. Now by religion is meant the Vedanta; the applications must vary according to the different needs, surroundings, and other circumstances of different nations. You will find that although the philosophy is the same, the Shaktas, Shaivas, etc. apply it each to their own special cult and forms.
- Swami Vivekananda


If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill yourself with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty and your glory. - Swami Vivekananda

One day after lunch while Swamiji was resting at Belur Math, he asked his disciple Sharat
Chakrabarty to give him a little massage. Sharat was happy for the opportunity to serve his guru; but Swamiji didn't like his massage because, out of respect, Sharat massaged him gently. Swamiji asked him to call Brahmananda, who had just then gone to rest. When Brahmananda arrived, Swamiji said: "Raja, I don't feel good today. I asked this Bangal to give me a massage, but he did not do it well. So I have called you." Immediately Maharaj began to massage Swamiji vigorously, like an expert, and continued for a couple of hours. When the exhausted Brahmananda returned to his room, Sharat went to him and said: "Maharaj, I have come to you to resolve my confusion. I have heard that you are the spiritual son of the Master, and I have seen how much Swamiji respects you. I don't understand why Swamiji asked you to give him a massage." At this Brahmananda said: "What do you say? Don't you know he is the Lord Shiva Himself!" -(Life of Swami Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Disciples)


It is the same question in connection with this world; it has no existence in the past, present, or
future. If we have known the Atman as It is, if we have known that there is nothing else but this Atman, that everything else is but a dream, with no existence in reality, then this world with its poverties, its miseries, its wickedness, and its goodness will cease to disturb you. - Swami Vivekananda


True freedom can not exist in the midst of this delusion, this hallucination, this nonsense of the
world, this universe of the sense, body and mind. All these dreams, without beginning or end, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, ill-adjusted, broken, inharmonious form our idea of this universe. - Swami Vivekananda


In thine own heart day and night is singing that Eternal Music -- sachchidananda, soham,
soham -- existence-knowledge bliss Absolute, I am He, I am He. - Swami Vivekananda


While we recognise a God, it is really only the Self which we have separated ourselves from and
worship as outside of us; but it is our true Self all the time -- the one and only God. -Swami Vivekananda


The internal universe, the real, is infinitely greater than the external, which is only a shadowy
projection of the true one. This world is neither true nor untrue, it is the shadow of truth. - Swami Vivekananda


Stand upon the Self, then only can we truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby's play, and we know that, so cannot be disturbed by it. - Swami Vivekananda


Know you are the Infinite, then fear must die. Say ever, "I and my Father are one.'
- Swami Vivekananda


We are confined nowhere; we are not body, the universe is our body. We are now conscious
only where the body is, we can use only one brain; but when we reach ultra-consciousness, we know all, we can use all brains. - Swami Vivekananda


We go through the world like a man pursued by a policeman and see the barest glimpses of the
beauty of it. All this fear that pursues us comes from believing in matter. Matter gets its whole existence from the presence of mind behind it. What we see is God percolating through nature (i.e. matter and mind). - Swami Vivekananda


Really good and evil are one and are in our own mind. When the mind is self-poised, neither
good nor bad affects it. Be perfectly free; then neither can affect it, and we enjoy freedom and bliss. Evil is the iron chain, good is the gold one; both are chains. Be free, and know once for all that there is no chain for you. Lay hold of the golden chain to loosen the hold of the iron one, then throw both away. The thorn of evil is in our flesh; take another thorn from the same bush and extract the first thorn; then throw away both and be free.... - Swami Vivekananda


This infinite power of the spirit, brought to bear upon matter evolves material development,
made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and made to act upon itself makes of man a God. - Swami Vivekananda


Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.
- Swami Vivekananda


The old religion said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself. But it is not selfish faith because the Vedanta, again, is the doctrine of oneness. It means faith in all, because you are all. Love for yourselves means love for all, love for animals, love for everything, for are all one.
- Swami Vivekananda


Meditate! The greatest thing is meditation. It is the nearest approach to spiritual life -- the mind meditating. It is the one moment in our daily life that we are not at all material -- the Soul thinking of Itself, free from all matter -- this marvellous touch of the Soul! - Swami Vivekananda


"Avoid not and seek not -- wait for what the Lord sends", is my motto ...
- Swami Vivekananda


We must show the spirituality of the Hindus, the mercifulness of the Buddhists, the activity of the
Christians, the brotherhood of the Mohammedans, by our practical lives. -Swami Vivekananda


There is really no difference between matter, mind, and Spirit. They are only different phases of experiencing the One. This very world is seen by the five senses as matter, by the very wicked as hell, by the good as heaven, and by the perfect as God. - Swami Vivekananda


Those who give themselves up to the Lord do more for the world than all the so-called workers. One man who has purified himself thoroughly accomplishes more than a regiment of preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power. - Swami Vivekananda -


Enjoyment is the million - headed serpent that we must tread under foot. We renounce and go
on, then find nothing and despair; but hold on, hold on. The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm. Give up lust and gold. - Swami Vivekananda


To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not at all living in the body, but not - of it. This
rascal ego must be obliterated. Bless men when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing you; they can only hurt themselves. Go where people hate you, let them thrash the ego out of you, and you will get nearer to the Lord. - Swami Vivekananda -


The adamantine wall that shuts us in is egoism; we refer everything to ourselves, thinking. "I do
this, that, and the other. "Get rid of this puny "I"; kill this diabolism in us; "Not I, but Thou" say it, feel it, live it. Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. - Swami Vivekananda


As soon as we say "I", we are humbugged all the time; and we call it "knowable", but it is only
going round and round like a bullock tied to a tree. The Lord has hidden Himself best, and His work is best; so he who hides himself best, accomplishes most. Conquer yourself, and the whole universe is yours. - Swami Vivekananda


Our best work is done, our greatest influence is exerted, when we are without thought of self. All
great geniuses know this. Let us open ourselves to the one Divine Actor, and let Him act, and do nothing ourselves. "O Arjuna! I have no duty in the whole world", says Krishna. Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces, we can only see the results. Put out self, lose it, forget it; just let God work, it is His business. We have nothing to do but stand aside and let God work. The more we go away, the more God comes in. Get rid of the little "I", and let only the great "I" live. - Swami Vivekananda


Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing; do not merely
endure, be unattached - Swami Vivekananda


Make the heart like an ocean, go beyond all the trifles of the world, be mad with joy even at evil;
see the world as a picture and then enjoy its beauty, knowing that nothing affects you. Children
finding glass beads in a mud puddle, that is the good of the world. Look at it with calm complacency; see good and evil as the same both are merely "God's -- play"; enjoy all. - Swami Vivekananda


The world for me, not I for the world. Good and evil are our slaves, not we theirs. It is the nature
of the brute to remain where he is (not to progress); it is the nature of man to seek good and avoid evil; it is the nature of God to seek neither, but just to be eternally blissful. Let us be God! - Swami Vivekananda


There is no possibility of ever having pleasure without pain, good es without evil; for living itself
is just the lost equilibrium. What we want is freedom, not life, nor pleasure, nor good. Creation is infinite, without beginning and without end the ever-moving ripple in an infinite lake. There are yet unreached depths and others where the equilibrium has been regained; but the ripple is always progressing, the struggle to regain the balance is eternal. Life and death are only different names for the same fact, the two sides of the one coin. Both are Maya, the inexplicable state of striving at one time to live, and a moment later to die. Beyond this is the true nature, the Atman. - Swami Vivekananda


We seems to be walking in dreams. Dreams are all right in a dream - mind; but as soon as you
want to grasp one of them, it is gone. Why? Not that it was false, but because it is beyond the power of reason, the power of the intellect to comprehend it. Everything in this life is so vast that the intellect is nothing in comparison with it. It refuses to be bound by the laws of the intellect! It laughs at the bondage the intellect wants to spread around it. And a thousandfold more so is this the case with the human soul. - Swami Vivekananda


There is only one Power, whether manifesting as evil or good. God and the devil are the same
river with the water flowing in opposite directions. - Swami Vivekananda


"I bow to the Guru who is the embodiment of the Bliss Divine, the personification of the highest
knowledge and the giver of the greatest beatitude, who is pure, perfect, one without a second, eternal, beyond pleasure and pain, beyond all thought and all qualification, transcendental". Such is in reality the Guru. No wonder the disciple looks upon him as God Himself and trusts him, reveres him, obeys him, follows him unquestioningly. This is the relation between the Guru and the disciple. - Swami Vivekananda


Generally speaking, human religion begins with fear. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom." But later comes the higher idea. "Perfect love casteth out fear." Traces of fear will remain with us until we get knowledge, know what God is. - Swami Vivekananda


The worship of even one spark of Mother in our earthly mother leads to greatness. Worship Her
if you want love and wisdom. - Swami Vivekananda


The sum total of all the cells in an organism is one person; so each soul is like one cell and the
sum of them is God, and beyond that is the Absolute. The sea calm is the Absolute; the same sea in waves is Divine Mother. She is time, space, and causation. God is Mother and has two natures, the conditioned and the unconditioned. As the former, She is God, nature, and soul (man). As the latter, She is unknown and unknowable. Out of the Unconditioned came the trinity -- god, nature, and soul, the triangle of existence. This is the Vishishtadvaitist idea. - Swami Vivekananda


Mother is the first manifestation of power and is considered a higher idea than father. With the
name of Mother comes the idea of Shakti, Divine Energy and Omnipotence, just as the baby believes its mother to be all powerful, able to do anything. The Divine Mother is the Kundalini ("coiled up" power) sleeping in us; without worshipping Her we can never know ourselves. All-merciful, all - powerful, omnipresent are attributes of Divine Mother. She is the sum total of the energy in the universe. Every manifestation of power in the universe is "Mother". She is life, She is intelligence, She is Love. - Swami Vivekananda


Shaktas worship the Universal Energy as Mother, the sweetest name they know; for the mother
is the highest ideal of womanhood in India. When God is worshipped as "Mother", as Love, the Hindus call it the "right - handed" way, and it leads to spirituality but never to material prosperity. When God is worshipped on His terrible side, that is, in the "left -handed" People who report about sects with which they are not in sympathy are both conscious and
unconscious liars. A believer in one sect can rarely see truth in others. - Swami Vivekananda


Tapas means literally "to burn". It is a kind of penance to "heat" the higher nature. It is
sometimes in the form of a sunrise to sunset vow, such as repeating Om all day incessantly. These actions will produce a certain power that you can convert into any form you wish, spiritual or material. This idea of Tapas penetrates the whole of Hindu religion. The Hindus even say that God made Tapas to create the world. It is a mental instrument with which to do everything. "Everything in the three worlds can be caught by Tapas."... - Swami Vivekananda


In the Atman there is no distinction of sex, or Varna or Ashrama, or anything of the kind, and as
mud cannot be washed away by mud, it is likewise impossible to bring about oneness by means of separative ideas. - Swami Vivekananda


Brahman is neuter, unknown and unknowable, but to be objectified He covers Himself with a veil
of Maya, becomes the Mother of the Universe, and so brings forth the creation. The prostrate figure (Shiva or God) has become Shava (dead or lifeless) by being covered by Maya. The Jnaní says, "I will uncover God by force" (Advaitism); but the dualist says, "I will uncover God by praying to Mother, begging Her to open the door to which She alone has the key." - Swami Vivekananda


All theists agree that behind the changeable there is an Unchangeable, though they vary in their
conception of the Ultimate. Buddha denied this in toto. "There is no Brahman, no Atman, no soul," he said. As a character Buddha was the greatest the world has ever seen; next to him Christ. But the teachings of Krishna as taught by the Gita are the grandest the world has ever known. He who wrote that wonderful poem was one of those rare souls whose lives sent a wave of regeneration through the world. The human race will never again see such a brain as his who wrote the Gita. - Swami Vivekananda


The Light Divine within is obscured in most people. It is like a lamp in a cask of iron, no gleam of
light can shine through. Gradually, by purity and unselfishness we can make the obscuring medium less and less dense, until at last it becomes as transparent as glass. Shri Ramakrishna was like the iron cask transformed into a glass cask through which can be seen the inner light as it is. We are all on the way to become the cask of glass and even higher and higher reflections. - Swami Vivekananda



The great abstraction of ideas in the world is what we call God.Each thought has two parts - the
thinking and the word; and we must have both. Neither idealists nor materialists are right; we must take both idea and expression. All knowledge is of the reflected, as we can only see our face in a mirror. No one will ever know his own Self or God; but we are that own Self, we are God - Swami Vivekananda


Fool, hearest not thou? In thine own heart day and night is singing that Eternal Music -
sachchidananda, soham, soham -existence-knowledge-bliss Absolute, I am He, I am He. The fountain of all knowledge is in every one of us, in the ant as in the highest angel. Real religion is one, but we quarrel with the forms, the symbols, the illustrations. The millennium exists already for those who find it; we have lost ourselves and then think the world is lost. - Swami Vivekananda


Evil thoughts, looked at materially, are the disease bacilli. Each thought is a little hammer blow
on the lump of iron which our bodies are, manufacturing out of it what we want it to be. We are heirs to all the good thoughts of the universe, if we open ourselves to them. - Swami Vivekananda


If your freedom hurts others, you are not free there. You must not hurt others.
"To be weak is to be miserable", says Milton. Doing and suffering are inseparably joined. (Often, too, the man who laughs most is the one who suffers most.) "To work you have the right, not to the fruits thereof." - Swami Vivekananda


Krishna, the "Lord of souls", talks to Arjuna or Gudakesha, "lord of sleep" (he who has
conquered sleep). The field of virtue" (the battle - field) is this world; the five brothers (representing righteousness) fight the hundred other brothers (all that we love and have to contend against); the most heroic brother, Arjuna (the awakened soul), is the general. We have to fight all sense-delights, the things to which we are most attached, to kill them. We have to stand alone; we are Brahman, all other ideas must be merged in this one. -Swami Vivekananda -


All we can do is put down all desires, hates, differences; put down the lower self, commit mental
suicide, as it were; keep the body and mind pure and healthy, but only as instruments to help us to God; that is their only true use. Seek truth for truth's sake alone, look not for bliss. It may come, but do not let that be your incentive. Have no motive except God. Dare to come to Truth even through hell. - Swami Vivekananda


Differentiation creates; homogeneity or sameness is God. Get beyond differentiation; then you
conquer life and death and reach eternal sameness and are in God, are God. Get freedom, Knowledge is mere classification. When we find many things of the same kind we call the sum
of them by a certain name and are satisfied; we discover "facts", never "why". We take a circuit in a wider field of darkness and think we know something! No "why" can be answered in this world; for that we must go to God. The Knower can never be expressed; it is as when a grain of salt drops into the ocean, it is at once merged in the ocean. - Swami Vivekananda


My Master taught that religion is one; all prophets teach the same; but they can only present the
principle in a form; so they take it out of the old form and put it before us in a new one. When we free ourselves from name and form, especially from a body - when we need no body, good or bad- then only do we escape from bondage. Eternal progression is eternal bondage; annihilation of form is to be preferred. We must get free from any body, even a "god-body". God is the only real existence, there cannot be two. There is but One Soul, and I am That. - Swami Vivekananda


The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality.
They never say "me" and "mine"; they are only blessed in being instruments. Such men are the makers of Christs and Buddhas, ever living fully identified with God, ideal existences, Time asking nothing, and not consciously doing anything. They are the real movers, the Jivanmuktas, absolutely selfless, the little personality entirely blown away, ambition non-existent. They are all principle, no personality. - Swami Vivekananda


So long as the "skin sky" surrounds man, that is, so long as he identifies himself with his body,
he cannot see God. - Swami Vivekananda


Brahman is omnipresent in the universe as is butter in milk, but friction makes It manifest in one
place. As churning brings out the butter in the milk, so Dhyana brings the realisation of Brahman in the soul. - Swami Vivekananda


Infinite manifestation dividing itself in portion still remains infinite, and each portion is infinite.
Brahman is the same in two forms - changeable and unchangeable, expressed and unexpressed. Know that the Knower and the known are one. The Trinity -- the Knower, the known, and knowing -- is manifesting as this universe. That God the Yogi sees in meditation, he sees through the power of his own Self. What we call nature, fate, is simply God's will. - Swami Vivekananda


To say that creation has any beginning is to lay the axe at the root of all philosophy. Maya is the
energy of the universe, potential and kinetic. Until Mother releases us, we cannot get free. The universe is ours to enjoy. But want nothing. To want is weakness. Want makes us beggars, and we are sons of the king, not beggars. - Swami Vivekananda


Heaven is a mere superstition arising from desire, and desire is ever a yoke, a degeneration.
Never approach anything except as God; for if we do, we see evil, because we throw a veil of delusion over what we look at, and then we see evil. Get free from these illusions; be blessed. Freedom is to lose all illusions. - Swami Vivekananda


Soul has no caste, and to think it has is a delusion; so are life and death, or any motion or
quality. The Atman never changes, never goes nor comes. It is the eternal Witness of all Its own manifestations, but we take It for the manifestation; an eternal illusion, without beginning or end, ever going on. The Vedas, however, have to come down to our level, for if they told us the highest truth in the highest way, we could not understand it. - Swami Vivekananda


God exists, not birth nor death, not pain nor misery, nor murder, nor change, nor good nor evil;
all is Brahman. We take the "rope for the serpent", the error is ours.... We can only do good when we love God and He reflects our love. The murderer is God, and the "clothing of murderer" is only superimposed upon him. Take him by the hand and tell him the truth. - Swami Vivekananda



One part of the Vedas deals with Karma -- form and ceremonies. The other part deals with the
knowledge of Brahman and discusses religion. The Vedas in this part teach of the Self; and because they do, their knowledge is approaching real knowledge. Knowledge of the Absolute depends upon no book, nor upon anything; it is absolute in itself. No amount of study will give this knowledge; it is not theory, it is realisation. Cleanse the dust from the mirror, purify your own mind, and in a flash you know that you are Brahman. - Swami Vivekananda


Be beyond both freedom and bondage. We are Shiva, we are immortal knowledge beyond the
senses. Infinite power is back of everyone; pray to Mother, and it will come to you. "O Mother, giver of Vak (eloquence), Thou self existent, come as the Vak upon my lips (Hindu invocation). "That Mother whose voice is in the thunder, come Thou in me! Kali, Thou time eternal, Thou force irresistible, Shakti, Power!" - Swami Vivekananda


It is easy to strike a blow but tremendously hard to stay the hand, stand still, and say, "In Thee,
O Lord, I take refuge, and then wait for Him to act. - Swami Vivekananda


Those who have attained sameness are said to be living in God. All hatred is killing the "Self by
the self", therefore love is the law of life. To rise to this is to be perfect; but the more perfect we are, the less work (so-called) can we do. The Sattvika see and know that all is mere child's play and do not trouble themselves about anything. - Swami Vivekananda


Blessed are those upon whom their sins are quickly visited, their account is the sooner
balanced! Woe to those whose punishment is deferred, it is the greater! - Swami Vivekananda


The sum total of knowledge is ever the same, only sometimes it is more manifested and
sometimes less. The only source of it is within, and there only is it found. -Swami Vivekananda


Never ask that foolish question, what good will it do to the world? Let the world go. Love and
ask nothing; love and look for nothing further. Love and forget all the "isms". Drink the cup of love and become mad. Say "Thine, O Thine for ever, O Lord!" and plunge in, forgetting all else. The very idea of God is love. - Swami Vivekananda


We divide ourselves into two to love God, myself loving my Self. God has created me and I have
created God. We create God in our image; it is we who create Him to be our master, it is not God who makes us His servants. When we know that we are one with God, that we and He are friends, then come equality and freedom.So long as you hold yourself separated by a hair's breadth from this Eternal One, fear cannot go. - Swami Vivekananda


Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticising can
never do any good, it has been tried for thousands of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing. A real Vedantist must sympathise with all. - Swami Vivekananda


The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and
holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe. We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one. - Swami Vivekananda


Brahmavidya is the highest knowledge, knowing the Brahman; lower knowledge is science. This
is the teaching of the Mundakopanishad or the Upanishad for Sannyasins. There are two sorts of knowledge - principle and secondary. The unessential is that part of the Vedas dealing with worship and ceremonies, also all secular knowledge. The essential is that by which we reach the Absolute. - Swami Vivekananda


Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the same time the forces struggling to obtain equality
are as much a necessity of creation as those which destroy it. - Swami Vivekananda


The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits
and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them. - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


In this stress and hurry of our materialistic life, our nerves lose sensibility and become
hardened. The older we grow, the longer we are knocked about in the world, the more callous we become; and we are apt to neglect things that even happen persistently and prominently around us. Human nature, however, asserts itself sometimes, and we are led to inquire into and wonder at some of these common occurrences; wondering thus is the first step in the acquisition of light. - Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)


Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would
stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. ... … the science of religion becomes perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world. One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations. Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science. - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


'... by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws
discovered by different persons in different times.' - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the
universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always your own mind. - Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)


Man as Atman is really free; as man he is bound, changed by every physical condition. As man,
he is a machine with an idea of freedom; but this human body is the best and the human mind
the highest mind there. When a man attains to the Atman state, he can take a body, making it to suit himself; he is above law. This is a statement and must be proved. Each one must prove it for himself; we may satisfy ourselves, but we cannot satisfy another. - Swami Vivekananda


We are lamps, and our burning is what we call "life". When the supply of oxygen gives out, then
the lamp must go out. All we can do is to keep the lamp clean. Life is a product, a compound, and as such must resolve itself into its elements. - Swami Vivekananda


Good thought and good works create less differentiation than bad ones; so indirectly they lead
to freedom. Work, but give up the results to the Lord. Knowledge alone can make us perfect. He who follows the God of Truth with devotion, to him the God of Truth reveals Himself.... - Swami Vivekananda


Religion without philosophy runs into superstition; philosophy without religion becomes dry
atheism. - Swami Vivekananda


Karma-yoga teaches us that the ordinary idea of duty is on the lower plane; nevertheless, all of
us have to do our duty. Yet we may see that this peculiar sense of duty is very often a great cause of misery. Duty becomes a disease with us; it drags us ever forward. It catches hold of us and makes our whole life miserable. It is the bane of human life.... The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God. All our duties are His. - Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York) The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti -- freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from deathes and misery. And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and this mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of His mercy. - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


... the Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce -- him the fire cannot burn
-- him the water cannot melt -- him the air cannot dry. The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body, and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or other it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter. - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


When you have trained your mind and your nerves to realise this idea of the world's
non-dependence on you or on anybody, there will then be no reaction in the form of pain resulting from work. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


... you see what Karma-Yoga means; even at the point of death to help anyone, without asking
questions. Be cheated millions of times and never ask a question, and never think of what you are doing. Never vaunt of your gifts to the poor or expect their gratitude, but rather be grateful to them for giving you the occasion of practising charity to them. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)


We often talk of right and justice, but we find that in the world right and justice are mere baby's
talk. There are two things which guide the conduct of men: might and mercy. The exercise of might is invariably the exercise of selfishness. All men and women try to make the most of whatever power or advantage they have. Mercy is heaven itself; to be good, we have all to be merciful. Even justice and right should stand on mercy. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York) First find out that you are not the slave of nature, never were and never will be; that this nature,
infinite as you may think it, is only finite, a drop in the ocean, and your Soul is the ocean; you are beyond the stars, the sun, and the moon. They are like mere bubbles compared with your infinite being. Know that, and you will control both good and evil. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


In whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a state, assume the same attitude towards it
as you have towards your children -- expect nothing in return. If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then will your work bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


You must remember that freedom of the soul is the goal of all Yogas, and each one equally
leads to the same result. By work alone men may get to where Buddha got largely by meditation or Christ by prayer. Buddha was a working Jnani, Christ was a Bhakta, but the same goal was reached by both of them. - Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)


The householder is the centre of life and society. It is a worship for him to acquire and spend
wealth nobly, for the householder who struggles to become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying; for in them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to God and to all that is His. - Swami Vivekananda in Karma-Yoga (Classes in New York)


Work, but let not the action or the thought produce a deep impression on the mind. Let the
ripples come and go, let huge actions proceed from the muscles and the brain, but let them not make any deep impression on the soul. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


What is the watchword of all ethical codes? "Not I, but thou", and this "I" is the outcome of the
Infinite behind, trying to manifest Itself on the outside world. This little "I" is the result, and it will have to go back and join the Infinite, its own nature. Every time you say, "Not I, my brother, but thou", you are trying to go back, and every time you say "I, and not thou", you take the false step of trying to manifest the Infinite through the sense-world. That brings struggles and evils into the world, but after a time renunciation must come, eternal renunciation. That little "I" is dead and gone. Why care so much for this little life? All these vain desires of living and enjoying this life, here or in some other place, bring death. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London The ideal of the Yogi, the whole science of Yoga, is directed to the end of teaching men how, by
intensifying the power of assimilation, to shorten the time for reaching perfection, instead of slowly advancing from point to point and waiting until the whole human race has become perfect. ... ... This is what is meant by concentration, intensifying the power of assimilation, thus shortening the time. Raja-Yoga is the science which teaches us how to gain the power of concentration. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga (Classes in New York)


The end and aim of all science is to find the unity, the One out of which the manifold is being
manufactured, that One existing as many. Raja-Yoga proposes to start from the internal world, to study internal nature, and through that, control the whole - both internal and external. It is a very old attempt. India has been its special stronghold, but it was also attempted by other nations. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York


Only perseverance, like the man who was willing to wait aeons, brings about highest result.
- Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York


All manipulations of the subtle forces of the body, the different manifestations of Prana, if
trained, give a push to the mind, help it to go up higher, and become superconscious, from where it acts. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga (Classes in New York)


How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of
the mind? The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New Yorkes


Man wants truth, wants to experience truth for himself; when he has grasped it, realised it, felt it
within his heart of hearts, then alone, declare the Vedas, would all doubts vanish, all darkness be scattered, and all crookedness be made straight. "Ye children of immortality, even those who live in the highest sphere, the way is found; there is a way out of all this darkness, and that is by perceiving Him who is beyond all darkness; there is no other way." - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York He is the ever active Providence. All power is His and within His command. Through His
command the winds blow, the sun shines, the earth lives, and death stalks upon the earth. He is the all in all; He is all and in all. We can only worship Him. Give up all fruits of work; do good for its own sake; then alone will come perfect non-attachment. The bonds of the heart will thus break, and we shall reap perfect freedom. This freedom is indeed the goal of Karma-Yoga. - Swami Vivekananda Karma-Yoga, New York


Day and night let us renounce our seeming self until it becomes a habit with us to do so, until it
gets into the blood, the nerves, and the brain, and the whole body is every moment obedient to this idea of self-renunciation. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


Whosoever, ... asks any one to believe blindly, or drags people behind him by the controlling
power of his superior will, does an injury to humanity, though he may not intend it. Therefore use your own minds, control body and mind yourselves, remember that until you are a diseased person, no extraneous will can work upon you; avoid everyone, however great and good he may be, who asks you to believe blindly. - Swami Vivekananda Raja-Yoga, New-York


This whole universe is only one speck of the infinite being; and all our laws, our bondages, our
joys and our sorrows, our happinesses and our expectations, are only within this small universe; all our progression and digression are within its small compass. So you see how childish it is to expect a dern Times continuation of this universe -- the creation of our minds -- and to expect to go to heaven, which after all must mean only a repetition of this world that we know. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


Law is the method, the manner in which our mind grasps a series of phenomena; it is all in the
mind. Certain phenomena, happening one after another or together, and followed by the conviction of the regularity of their recurrence -- thus enabling our minds to grasp the method of the whole series constitute what we call law. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


The Yogas of work, of wisdom, and of devotion are all capable of serving as direct and
independent means for the attainment of Moksha. "Fools alone say that work and philosophy are different, not the learned." The learned know that, though apparently different from each other, they at last lead to the same goal of human perfection. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


First it is feeling, then it becomes willing, and out of that willing comes the tremendous force for
work that will go through every veinand nerve and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is changed into an instrument of the unselfish Yoga of work, and the desired result of perfect self-abnegation and utter unselfishness is duly attained. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


That this world is created for our enjoyment is the most wicked idea that holds us down. This
world is not for our sake. Millions pass out of it every year; the world does not feel it; millions of others are supplied in their place. Just as much as the world is for us, so we also are for the world. To work properly, therefore, you have first to give up the idea of attachment. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


A perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between
ourselves and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are defeated, our life has to go. ... Life is not a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound effect. This complex struggle between something inside and the external world is what we call life. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe. Say --"I am
Existence Absolute, Bliss Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, I am He," and like a lion breaking its cage, break your chain and be free for ever. What frightens you, what holds you down? Only ignorance and delusion; nothing else can bind you. You are the Pure One, the ever-blessed. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US


… human birth is the greatest birth we can have. The lower creation, the animal, is dull, and
manufactured mostly out of Tamas. Animals cannot have any high thoughts; nor can the angels, or Devas, attain to direct freedom without human birth. In human society, in the same way, too much wealth or too much poverty is a great impediment to the higher development of the soul. It is from the middle classes that the great ones of the world come. Here the forces are very equally adjusted and balanced. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga (Classes in New York)


We run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing evil: first, we open ourselves to all the evil
influences surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which affects others, may be hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we injure ourselves and others also. In doing good we do good to ourselves and to others as well; and, like all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside. - Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, New York


If we are ever to gain freedom, it must be by conquering nature, never by running away.
Cowards never win victories. We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York


The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are
always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbours. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of Inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity. - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


We find that all religions teach the eternity of the soul, as well as that its lustre has been
dimmed, and that its primitive purity is to be regained by the knowledge of God. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Hartford, Connecticut


The idea of an objective God is not untrue -- in fact, every idea of God, and hence every
religion, is true, as each is but a different stage in the journey, the aim of which is the perfect conception of the Vedas. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Brooklyn, NY


... one is responsible for the miseries one suffers. If I set the wheel in motion, I am responsible
for the result. And if I can bring misery, I can also stop it. It necessarily follows that we are free. There is no such thing as fate. There is nothing to compel us. What we have done, that we can undo. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Hartford, Connecticut


It is only the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings to us real enjoyment and happiness. The animal has its happiness in the senses, the man in his intellect, and the god in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful. To him who desires nothing, and does not mix himself up with them, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New Yorks


... these three states -- instinct, reason, and itual Prop of Moget times superconsciousness, or
the unconscious, conscious, and superconscious states -- belong to one and the same mind. There are not three minds in one man, but one state of it develops into the others. Instinct develops into reason, and reason into the transcendental consciousness; therefore, not one of the states contradicts the others. Real inspiration never contradicts reason, but fulfills it. Whenever a prophet got into the superconscious state by heightening his emotional nature, he
brought away from it not only some truths, but some fanaticism also, some superstition which injured the world as much as the greatness of the teaching helped. To get any reason out of the mass incongruity we call human life, we have to transcend our reason, but we must do it scientifically, slowly, by regular practice, and we must cast off all superstition. We must take up the study of the superconscious state just as any other science. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York


… the present signifies both past and future, and all three are only demarcations of time, the
present also would be unknown if it were not for something above the senses, something independent of time, which unifies the past and the future in the present. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Brooklyn, New York


What, thus, men ignorantly worship under various names, through fear and tribulation, the Yogi
declares to the world to be the real power coiled up in every being, the mother of eternal happiness, if we but know how to approach her. And Raja-Yoga is the science of religion, the rationale of all worship, all prayers, forms, ceremonies, and miracles. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York


Those who really want to be Yogis must give up, once for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one
idea. Make that one idea your life -- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga (Classes in New York)


There must be perfect chastity in thought, word, and deed; without it the practice of Raja-Yoga is
dangerous, and may lead to insanity. If people practise Raja-Yoga and at the same time lead an impure life, how can they expect to become Yogis? - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York


… the rousing of the Kundalini is the one and only way to attaining Divine Wisdom,
superconscious perception, realisation of the spirit. The rousing may come in various ways, through love for God, through the mercy of perfected sages, or through the power of the analytic will of the philosopher. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York Anything that is secret and mysterious in these systems of Yoga should be at once rejected. The
best guide in life is strength. In religion, as in all other matters, discard everything that weakens you, have nothing to do with it. Mystery-mongering weakens the human brain. It has well-nigh destroyed Yoga – one of the grandest of sciences. - Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, New York


As this Kundalini force travels from centre to centre, layer after layer of the mind, as it were,
opens up, and this universe is perceived by the Yogi in its fine, or causal form. Then alone the causes of this universe, both as sensation and reaction, are known as they are, and hence comes all knowledge. The causes being known, the knowledge of the effects is sure to follow. - Swami Vivekananda Raja-Yoga, New York


We have to learn yet that all religions, under whatever name they may be called, either Hindu,
Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Christian, have the same God, and he who derides any one of these derides his own God. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in England


Several great ideas have to be understood, in order to grasp properly the workings of the
Vedanta philosophy. In the first place it is not philosophy in the sense we speak of the philosophy of Kant and Hegel. It is not one book, or the work of one man. Vedanta is the name of a series of books written at different times. …one fact is remarkable, that these ideas in the Upanishads would be always progressing. In that crude old language, the working of the mind of every one of the sages has been, as it were, painted just as it went; how the ideas are at first very crude, and they become finer and finer till they reach the goal of the Vedanta, and this goal assumes a philosophical name. Just at first it was a search after the Devas, the bright ones, and then it was the origin of the universe, and the very same search is getting another name, more philosophical, clearer -- the unity of all things --"Knowing which everything else becomes known." - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in England


... satisfaction in the senses, says our sage, is one of the causes which have spread the veil
between truth and ourselves. Devotion to ceremonials, satisfaction in the senses, and forming various theories, have drawn a veil between ourselves and truth. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in England


Books never make religions, but religions make books. We must not forget that. No book ever
created God, but God inspired all the great books. And no book ever created a soul. We must never forget that. The end of all religions is the realising of God in the soul. That is the one universal religion. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Hartford, Connecticut


A ruler of the universe does not explain the universe, and much less an external ruler, one
outside of it. He may be a moral guide, the greatest power in the universe, but that is no explanation of the universe. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in England


Wherever you see the most humanitarian ideas fall into the hands of the multitude, the first
result, you may notice, is degradation. It is learning and intellect that keep things sure. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in England


One moment I say, "Thy will be done," and the next moment something comes to try me and I
spring up in a rage. The goal of all religions is the same, but the language of the teachers differs. The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. All the different religions which grew among different nations under varying circumstances and
conditions had their origin in Asia, and the Asiatics understand them well. When they came out from the motherland, they got mixed up with errors. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Hartford, Connecticut


"Thy will be done"-- every moment the traitor mind rebels against it, yet it must be said, again
and again, if we are to conquer the lower self. We cannot serve a traitor and yet be saved. There is salvation for all except the traitor and we stand condemned as traitors, traitors against our own selves, against the majesty of Mother, when we refuse to obey the voice of our higher Self. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York


We must learn how to worship and love Him in the thunderbolt, in shame, in sorrow, in sin. All
the world has ever been preaching the God of virtue. I preach a God of virtue and a God of sin in one. Take Him if you dare -- that is the one way to salvation; then alone will come to us the Truth Ultimate which comes from the idea of oneness. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York


Sharp as the blade of a razor, long and difficult and hard to cross, is the way to freedom. The
sages have declared this again and again. Yet do not let these weaknesses and failures bind you. The Upanishads have declared, "Arise! Awake! and stop not until the goal is reached." We will then certainly cross the path, sharp as it is like the razor, and long and distant and difficult though it be. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York


… we see that the apparent contradictions and perplexities in every religion mark but different
stages of growth. And as such we have no right to blame anyone for his religion. There are stages of growth in which forms and symbols are necessary; they are the language that the souls in that stage can understand. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Hartford, Connecticut


… the human soul is in its very nature perfect, and that man is to regain that original purity.
How? By knowing God. Just as the Bible says, "No man can see God but through the Son." What is meant by it? That seeing God is the aim and goal of all human life. The sonship must come before we become one with the Father. Remember that man lost his purity through his own actions. When we suffer, it is because of our own acts; God is not to be blamed for it. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in Hartford, Connecticut On the philosophic side the disciples of the Great Master [Buddha] dashed themselves against
the eternal rocks of the Vedas and could not crush them, and on the other side they took away from the nation that eternal God to which every one, man or woman, clings so fondly. And the result was that Buddhism had to die a natural death in India. - Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions, Chicago


The whole of nature is worship of God. Wherever there is life, there is this search for freedom
and that freedom is the same as God. - Swami Vivekananda, - Lecture in New York


How can we make the distinction between the living and the dead, then? In the living there is
freedom, there is intelligence; in the dead all is bound and no freedom is possible, because there is no intelligence. This freedom that distinguishes us from mere machines is what we are all striving for. To be more free is the goal of all our efforts, for only in perfect freedom can there be perfection. This effort to attain freedom underlies all forms of worship, whether we know it or not. -Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York


The universe itself can never be the limit of our satisfaction.
That is why the miser gathers more and more money, that is why the robber robs, the sinner sins, that is why you are learning philosophy. All have one purpose. There is no other purpose in life, save to reach this freedom. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York


It is too often believed that a person in his progress towards perfection passes from error to
truth; that when he passes on from one thought to another, he must necessarily reject the first. But no error can lead to truth. The soul passing through its different stages goes from truth to truth, and each stage is true; it goes from lower truth to higher truth. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


It is not that a man has a fine and also a gross body; it is the one body only, the part which
endures longer is the fine body, and that which dissolves sooner is the gross. Just as I can cut this nail any number of times, so, millions of times I can shed this gross body, but the fine body will remain. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


That soul is strong that has become one with the Lord; none else is strong. In your own Bible,
what do you think was the cause of that strength of Jesus of Nazareth, that immense, infinite strength which laughed at traitors, and blessed those that were willing to murder him? It was that, Times "I and my Father are one"; it was that prayer, "Father, just as I am one with you, so make them all one with me." That is the worship of the Impersonal God. Be one with the universe, be one with Him. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


… good and evil are different aspects, or manifestations of the same thing. The idea that they
were two was a very wrong idea from the first, and it has been the cause of a good deal of the misery in this world of ours -- the idea that right and wrong are two separate things, cut and dried, independent of each other, that good and evil are two eternally separable and separate things.... … the Impersonal God ... is not a relative God; therefore it cannot be said that It is either good or bad, but that it is something beyond, because It is neither good nor evil. Good, however, is a nearer manifestation of It than evil. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


The Self is the essence of this universe, the essence of all souls;
He is the essence of your own life, nay, "Thou are That". You are one with this universe. He who says he is different from others, even by a hair's breadth, immediately becomes miserable. Happiness belongs to him who knows this oneness, who knows he is one with this universe. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England Vedanta can satisfy the demands of the scientific world, by referring it to the highest generalisation and to the law of evolution. That the explanation of a thing comes from within itself is still more completely satisfied by Vedanta. The Brahman, the God of the Vedanta, has nothing outside of Himself; nothing at all. All this indeed is He: He is in the universe: He is the universe Himself. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England That which existed eternally, independent of the senses and of the intellect, was the Lord
Himself. Upon Him the senses are painting chairs, and tables, and rooms, and houses, and worlds, and moons, and suns, and stars, and everything else. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


The proof of religion depends on the truth of the constitution of man, and not on any books.
These books are the outgoings, the effects of man's constitution; man made these books. We are yet to see the books that made man. Reason is equally an effect of that common cause, the constitution of man, where our appeal must be. And yet, as reason alone is directly connected with this constitution, it should be resorted to, as long as it follows faithfully the same. What do I mean by reason? I mean what every educated man or woman is wanting to do at the present time, to apply the discoveries of secular knowledge to religion. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


The sum-total of this whole universe is God Himself. Is God then matter? No, certainly not, for
matter is that God perceived by the five senses; that God as perceived through the intellect is mind; and when the spirit sees, He is seen as spirit. He is not matter, but whatever is real in matter is He. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


All the books contained in the Upanishads have one subject, one task before them – to prove
the following theme: "Just as by the knowledge of one lump of clay we have the knowledge of all the clay in the universe, so what is that, knowing which we know everything in the universe?" The idea of the Advaitists is to generalise the whole universe into one that something which is really the whole of this universe. - Swami Vivekananda,Address to Graduate Philosophical Society, Harvard University


We are all one, and the cause of evil is the perception of duality. As soon as I begin to feel that I
am separate from this universe, then first comes fear, and then comes misery. "Where one hears another, one sees another, that is small. Where one does not see another, where one does not hear another, that is the greatest, that is God. In that greatest is perfect happiness. In small things there is no happiness." - Swami Vivekananda, Address to Graduate Philosophical Society, Harvard University


From the very outset they [Vedic Seers] seemed to declare -- look not for the truth in any
religion; it is here in the human soul, the miracle of all miracles -- in the human soul, the emporium of all knowledge, the mine of all existence -- seek here. What is not here cannot be there. And they found out step by step that that which is external is but a dull reflection at best of that which is inside. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in England The difference between man and man, between angels and man, between man and animals,
between animals and plants, between plants and stones is not in kind, because everyone from the highest angel to the lowest particle of matter is but an expression of that one infinite ocean, and the difference is only in degree. - Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in England


Priestcraft is in its nature cruel and heartless. That is why religion goes down where priestcraft
arises. Says the Vedanta we must give up the idea of privilege, then will religion come. Before that there is no religion at all. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London


The difference between God and the devil is in nothing except in unselfishness and selfishness.
The devil knows as much as God, is as powerful as God; only he has no holiness -- that makes him a devil. Apply the same idea to the modern world: excess of knowledge and power, without holiness, makes human beings devils. -Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London of Modernimes


The whole universe is a play of unity in variety, and of variety in unity. The whole universe is a
play of differentiation and oneness; the whole universe is a play of the finite in the Infinite. We cannot take one without granting the other. But we cannot take them both as facts of the same perception, as facts of the same experience; yet in this way it will always go on. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London


All beings, great or small, are equally manifestations of God; the difference is only in the
manifestation. The same eternal message, which has been eternally given, comes to them little by little. The eternal message has been written in the heart of every being; it is there already, and all are struggling to express it. Some, in suitable circumstances, express it a little better than others, but as bearers of the message they are all one. What claim to superiority is there? - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London


No life will be a failure; there is no such thing as failure in the universe. A hundred times man
will hurt himself, a thousand times he will tumble, but in the end he will realise that he is God. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


All are our fellow passengers, our fellow travelers -- all life, plants, animals; not only my brother
man, but my brother brute, my brother plant; not only my brother the good, but my brother the evil, my brother the spiritual and my brother the wicked. They are all going to the same goal. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London


Few men know that with pleasure there is pain, and with pain, pleasure; and as pain is
disgusting, so is pleasure, as it is the twin brother of pain. It is derogatory to the glory of man that he should be going after pain, and equally derogatory, that he should be going after pleasure. Both should be turned aside by men whose reason is balanced. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


The great truths about atoms, and the finer elements, and the fine perceptions of men, were
discovered ages ago by men who never saw a telescope, or a microscope, or a laboratory. How
did they know all these things? It was through the heart; they purified the heart. It is open to us to do the same today; it is the culture of the heart, really, and not that of the intellect that will lessen the misery of the world. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


Every day we run after pleasure, and before we reach it, we find it is gone, it has slipped
through our fingers. Still we do not cease from our mad pursuit, but on and on we go, blinded fools that we are. -Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


First among the qualification required of the aspirant for Jnana, or wisdom, come Shama and
Dama ... ... To restrain the mind from wandering outward or inward, and keep the organs in their respective centres, is what is meant by the words Shama and Dama. Shama consists in not allowing the mind to externalize, and Dama, in checking the external instruments. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


One must have tremendous faith in religion and God. Until one has it, one cannot aspire to be a
Jnani. ... … Strong faith in God and the consequent eagerness to reach Him constitute Shraddha. … Religion cannot be swallowed in the form of a pill. It requires hard and constant practice. The mind can be conquered only by slow and steady practice. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


It is not at all necessary to be educated or learned to get to God.
A sage once told me, "To kill others one must be equipped with swords and shields, but to commit suicide a needle is sufficient; so to teach others, much intellect and learning are necessary, but not so for your own self - illumination." Are you pure? If you are pure, you will reach God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." If you are not pure, and you know all the sciences in the world, that will not help you at all; you may be buried in all the books you read, but that will not be of much use. It is the heart that reaches the goal. Follow the heart. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


This human form is the great chance. It is called the Karma-body, in which we decide our fate.
We are running in a huge circle, and this is the point in the circle which determines the future. So this is considered the most important form that there is. Man is greater than the gods. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


There are moments when every man feels that he is one with the universe, and he rushes forth
to express it, whether he knows it or not. This expression of oneness is what we call love and sympathy, and it is the basis of all our ethics and morality. This is summed up in the Vedanta philosophy by the celebrated aphorism, Tat Tvam Asi, "Thou art That". In dualism, the universe is conceived as a large machine set going by God, while in qualified
monism, it is conceived an organism, interpenetrated by the Divine Self. - Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


We are finding pleasure in this little body, in this little individuality.
How much greater the pleasure when this whole universe is my body! If there is pleasure in one body, how much more when all bodies are mine! Then is freedom attained. And this is called Advaita, the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy. -Swami Vivekananda, Class-Talk in New York


Than the Gita no better commentary on the Vedas has been written or can be written.
The essence of the Shrutis, or of the Upanishads, is hard to be understood, seeing that there are so many commentators, each one trying to interpret in his own way. Then the Lord Himself comes, He who is the inspirer of the Shrutis, to show us the meaning of them, as the preacher of the Gita, and today India wants nothing better, the world wants nothing better than that method of interpretation. - Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora


This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal,
immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


That man alone will be able to get the best of nature, who, having the power of attaching himself
to a thing with all his energy, has also the power to detach himself when he should do so. The difficulty is that there must be as much power of attachment as that of detachment. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


One of the greatest lessons I have learnt in my life is to pay as much attention to the means of
work as to its end. He was a great man from whom I learnt it, and his own life was a practical demonstration of this great principle. I have been always learning great lessons from that one principle, and it appears to be that all the secret of success is there; to pay as much attention to the means as to the end. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation
[comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco


The whole universe is a mass of energy, and it is present at every point. One grain is enough for
all of us, if we know how to get what there is. ... - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco


You may be the greatest philosopher, but as long as you have the idea that you are the body,
you are no better than the little worm crawling under your foot! No excuse for you! So much the worse for you that you know all the philosophies and at the same time think you are the body! Body-gods, that is what you are! Is that religion? Religion is the realization of spirit as spirit. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco


The Personal God is only the sum total of all, and yet it is an individual by itself, just as you are
the individual body of which each cell is an individual part itself. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco What makes the value of anything in life? Not enjoyment, not possessions. Analyze everything.
You will find there is no value except in experience, to teach us something. And in many cases it is our hardships that give us better experience than enjoyment. Many times blows give us better experience than the caresses of nature. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco


Even if you have knowledge, do not disturb the childlike faith of the ignorant. On the other hand,
go down to their level and gradually bring them up. That is a very powerful idea, and it has become the ideal in India. That is why you can see a great philosopher going into a temple and worshipping images. It is not hypocrisy. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco


In every country it is the priest who is conservative, for two reasons because it is his bread and
because -- he can only move with the people. All priests are not strong. If the people say, "Preach two thousand gods," the priests will do it. They are the servants of the congregation who pay them. God does not pay them. So blame yourselves before blaming the priests. You can only get the government and the religion and the priesthood you deserve, and no better. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco


If you are strong, take up the Vedanta philosophy and be independent. If you cannot do that,
worship God; if not, worship some image. If you lack strength even to do that, do some good works without the idea of gain. Offer everything you have unto the service of the Lord. Fight on! - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in California


Everyone says, "Woe unto you people!!" Who says, "Woe unto me that I cannot help you?" The
people are doing all right to the best of their ability and means and knowledge. Woe unto me that I cannot lift them to where I am! - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in California


The enjoyment of advantage over another is privilege, and throughout ages, the aim of morality
has been its destruction. This is the work which tends towards sameness, towards unity, without destroying variety. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London


Die game. … This bending the knee to superstitions, this selling yourself to your own mind does
not befit you, my soul. You are infinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are infinite spirit, it does not befit you to be a slave. ... Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if you must. There is none to help you. You are all the world. Who can help you? - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco The one side, the Greek side, which is represented by modern Europe, insisted upon the
knowledge of man; the Indian side, mostly represented by the old religions of the world, insisted upon the knowledge of God. The one sees God in nature, and the otherern Times sees nature in God. To us, at the present time, perhaps, has been given the privilege of standing aside from both these aspects, and taking an impartial view of the whole. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in London


Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal
and external. Not only does it comprise the laws that govern the particles of matter outside us and in our bodies, but also the more subtle nature within, which is, in fact, the motive power governing the external. It is good and very grand to conquer external nature, but grander still to conquer our internal nature. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


This pursuit of the Infinite, this struggle to grasp the Infinite, this effort to get beyond the
limitations of the senses out of matter, as it were and to evolve the spiritual man - this -- striving day and night to make the Infinite one with our being -- this struggle itself is the grandest and most glorious that man can make. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


That society is the greatest, where the highest truths become practical.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


You are all Sons of God, immortal spirit. "Know", he [Jesus] declared, "the Kingdom of Heaven
is within you." "I and my Father are one." Dare you stand up and say, not only that "I am the Son of God", but I shall also find in my heart of hearts that "I and my Father are one"? That was what Jesus of Nazareth said. - Swami Vivekananda, 'Christ, The Messenger' at Los Angles


Religion is the greatest motive power for realizing that infinite energy which is the birthright and
nature of every man. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


... the mainspring of the strength of every race lies in its spirituality, and the death of that race
begins the day that spirituality wanes and materialism gains ground. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands. There never was an ethical code
preached which had not renunciation for its basis. Ethics always says, "Not I, but thou." Its motto is, "Not self, but non-self." The vain ideas of individualism, to which man clings when he is trying to find that Infinite Power or that Infinite Pleasure through the senses, have to be given up say the laws of ethics. – You have to put yourself last, and others before you. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


… one fact stands out from all these different religions, that there is an Ideal Unit Abstraction,
which is put before us, either in the form of a Person or an Impersonal Being, or a Law, or a Presence, or an Essence. We are always struggling to raise ourselves up to that ideal. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London Temples or churches, books or forms, are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the
spiritual child strong enough to take higher steps; and these first steps are necessary if he wants religion. With the thirst, the longing for God, comes real devotion, real Bhakti. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York


Man is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but the centre is located in one spot;
and God is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is everywhere. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


The reality of everything is the same infinite. This is not idealism; it is not that the world does not
exist. It has a relative existence, and fulfils all its requirements. But it has no independent existence. It exists because of the Absolute Reality beyond time, space, and causation. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


... the very fact that you complain and want to lay blame upon the external world shows that you
feel the external world -- the very fact that you feel shows that you are not what you claim to be. You only make your offence greater by heaping misery upon misery, by imagining that the external world is hurting you, and crying out, "Oh, this devil's world! This man hurts me; that man hurts me!" and so forth. It is adding lies to misery. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


Even if our every attempt is a failure, and we bleed and are torn asunder, yet, through all this,
we have to preserve our heart -- we must assert our God-head in the midst of all these difficulties. Nature wants us to react, to return blow for blow, cheating for cheating, lie for lie, to hit back with all our might. Then it requires a superdivine power not to hit back, to keep control, to be unattached. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


We get caught. How? Not by what we give, but by what we expect. We get misery in return for
our love; not from the fact that we love, but from the fact that we want love in return. There is no misery where there is no want. Desire, want, is the father of all misery. Desires are bound by the laws of success and failure. Desires must bring misery. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


...says the Gita: Work constantly; work, but be not attached; be not caught. Reserve unto
yourself the power of detaching yourself from everything, however beloved, however much the soul might yearn for it, however great the pangs of misery you feel if you were going to leave it; still, reserve the power of leaving it whenever you want. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angeles


Many do not know what an infinite mine of bliss is in them, around them, everywhere; they have
not yet discovered it. mi What is a demoniacal world? The Vedanta says, ignorance. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


… do your work, says the Vedanta.
It first advises us how to work -- by giving up the apparent, illusive world. What is meant by that? Seeing God everywhere. Thus do you work. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


If we discover that there is one unity running through all these developments, spiritual, moral,
and social, we shall find that religion, in the fullest sense of the word, must come into society, and into our everyday life. In the light of Vedanta you will understand that all sciences are but manifestations of religion, and so is everything that exists in this world. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


After all, these philosophical ideas and systems are but gymnastics of the mind, intellectual
exercises. The one great idea that to me seems to be clear, and comes out through masses of superstition in every country and in every religion, is the one luminous idea that man is divine, that divinity is our nature. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


He who sees in this world of manifoldness that One running through all, in this world of death he
who finds that One Infinite Life, and in this world of insentience and ignorance he who finds that One Light and Knowledge, unto him belongs eternal peace. Unto none else, unto none else. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


What is meant by morality? Making the subject strong by attuning it to the Absolute, so that finite nature ceases to have control over us.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London


Good and bad are never two different things, they are one and the same; the difference is not
one of kind, but of degree. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Everyone must be judged according to his own ideal, and not by that of anyone else. In our
dealings with our fellow-beings we constantly labour under this mistake, and I am of opinion that the vast majority of our quarrels with one another arise simply from this one cause that we are always trying to judge others' gods by our own, others' ideals by our ideals, and others' motives by our motives.

- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Say to your own minds, "I am He. I am He." Let it ring day and night in your minds like a song,
and at the point of death declare, "I am He." That is the Truth; the infinite strength of the world is yours.
Drive out the superstition that has covered your minds. Let us be brave. Know the Truth and
practise the Truth. The goal may be distant, but awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

The Hindu thinkers were as bold, and in some cases, much bolder than the moderns. They
made some of the grandest generalisations that have yet been reached, and some still remain as theories, which modern science has yet to get even as theories. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Fanatics cannot work, they waste three-fourths of their energy. It is the level-headed, calm,
practical man who works. So, the power to work will increase from this idea. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to
Truth or die. Societies should be moulded upon truth, and truth has not to adjust itself to society. If such a noble truth as unselfishness cannot be practised in society, it is better for man to give up society and go into the forest. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Do not talk of the wickedness of the world and all its sins. Weep that you are bound to see
wickedness yet. Weep that you are bound to see sin everywhere, and if you want to help the world, do not condemn it. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

What is there to be taught more in religion than the oneness of the universe and faith in one's
self? - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

Silly fools tell you that you are sinners, and you sit down in a corner and weep. It is foolishness,
wickedness, downright rascality to say that you are sinners! You are all God. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, USA

You are pure already, you are free already. If you think you are free, free you are this moment,
and if you think you are bound, bound you will be. This is a very bold statement, and as I told you at the beginning of this course, I shall have to speak to you very boldly. It may frighten you now, but when you think over it, and realise it in your own life, then you will come to know that what I say is true. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Beyond all sound, all sight, beyond form, absolute, beyond all taste and touch, infinite, without
beginning and without end, even beyond nature, the Unchangeable; he who realises Him, frees himself from the jaws of death. But it is very difficult. It is, as it were, walking on the edge of a razor; the way is long and perilous, but struggle on, do not despair. Awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

The Hindu is just as practical as the Western only we differ in our views of life. The one says,
build a good house, let us have good clothes and food, intellectual culture, and so on, for this is the whole of life; and in that he is immensely practical. But the Hindu says, true knowledge of the world means knowledge of the soul, metaphysics; and he wants to enjoy that life. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

It is this duality, this play of good and evil that makes our world of experiences. At the same time
the Vedanta says, "Do not think that good and evil are two, are two separate essences, for they are one and the same thing, appearing in different degrees and in different guises and producing differences of feeling in the same mind." - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Renunciation is the very basis of our true life; every moment of goodness and real life that we
enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves. This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Reality is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence. Life on the plane of the Spirit is the only life, and let us all try to attain to this realisation. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

God, though everywhere, can be known to us in and through human character. No character
was ever so perfect as Ramakrishna's, and that should be the centre round which we ought to
rally, at the same time allowing everybody to regard him in his own light, either as God, saviour,
teacher, model, or great man, just as he pleases. - Swami Vivekananda, Written to "Kidi" from Chicago

It is thought, which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear
them day after day, think them month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. ... Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. .... hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. The ideal of man is to see God in everything. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

All through evolution you find that the conquest of nature comes by change in the subject. Apply
this to religion and morality, and you will find that the conquest of evil comes by the change in the subjective alone. That is how the Advaita system gets it whole force, on the subjective side of man. To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

The highest heaven, therefore, is in our own souls; the greatest temple of worship is the human
soul, greater than all heavens, says the Vedanta; for in no heaven anywhere, can we understand the reality as distinctly and clearly as in this life, in our own soul. Changing places does not help one much. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

… the last word of eaches Upanishad is, "Thou art That".
There is but One Eternally Blissful Principle, and that One is manifesting Itself as all this variety. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

We had better remember here that throughout the Vedanta philosophy, there is no such thing as
good and bad, they are not two different things; the same thing is good or bad, and the difference is only in degree. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

Work incessantly, holding life as something deified, as God Himself, and knowing that this is all
we have to do, this is all we should ask for. God is in everything, where else shall we go to find Him? He is already in every work, in every thought, in every feeling. Thus knowing, we must work -- this is the only way, there is no other. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

With every breath, with every pulsation of the heart, with every one of our movements, we think
we are free, and with very same moment we are shown that we are not. Bound slaves, nature's bond-slaves, in body, in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings.
And this is Maya.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal
makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal. And this ideal we must hear about as much as we can, till it enters into our hearts, into our brains, into our very veins, until it tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every pore in our body. We must meditate upon it. "Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," and out of the fullness of the heart the hand works too. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

A great Bhakta (Hanuman) once said when asked what day of the month it was, "God is my
eternal date, no other date I care for." - Swami Vivekananda

If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill
yourselves with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty, and your glory. Would to God no superstitions had been put into your head! - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

Wherever there are two, there is fear, there is danger, there is conflict, there is strife. When it is
all One, who is there to hate, who is there to struggle with? When it is all He, with whom can you fight? This explains the true nature of life; this explains the true nature of being. This is perfection, and this is God. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

Rama, the ancient idol of the heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the
ideal husband, the ideal father, and above all, the ideal king, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can be purer, none chaster, none more beautiful and at the same time simpler than the language in which the great poet has depicted the life of Rama. - Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

No books, no scriptures, no science can ever imagine the glory of the Self that appears as man,
the most glorious God that ever was, the only God that ever existed, exists, or ever will exist. I am to worship, therefore, none but myself. "I worship my Self," says the Advaitist. To whom shall I bow down? I salute my Self. -Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work; he only breaks
himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

What can cause me sorrow? I am the One Existence of the universe.
Then all jealousies will disappear; of whom to be jealous? Of myself? Then all bad feelings disappear. Against whom can I have bad feeling? Against myself? There is none in the universe but I. And this is the one way, says the Vedantist, to Knowledge. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

The sky never changes; it is the clouds that change. It is a mistake to think that the sky is
changed. It is a mistake to think that we are impure, that we are limited, that we are separate. The real man is the one Unit Existence. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New York

The first test of true teaching must be, that the teaching should not contradict reason. And you
may see that such is the basis of all these [four] Yogas. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Pasadena, California

The theme of the Vedanta is to see the Lord in everything, to see things in their real nature, not
as they appear to be. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

We are like little puppies, making life-and-death struggles here and foolishly thinking that even
God Himself will take it as seriously as we do. He knows what the puppies' play means. Our attempts to lay the blame on Him, making Him the punisher, and the rewarder, are only foolish. He neither punishes, nor rewards any. His infinite mercy is open to every one, at all times, in all places, under all conditions, unfailing, unswerving. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New-York

The difference in knowledge between es the lowest worm that crawls under our feet and the
highest genius that the world may produce is only of degree, and not of kind. The Vedantin thinker boldly says that the enjoyments in this life, even the most degraded joys, are but manifestations of that One Divine Bliss, the Essence of the Soul. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, London

It is the same thing which appears as the body, as the mind, and as the thing beyond mind and
body, but it is not at the same time all these. - Swami Vivekananda. Jnana-Yoga, NY

According to Advaita Vedanta, the Self, the Atman, in you, in me, in every one, is omnipresent.
You are as much in the sun now as in this earth, as much in England as in America. But the Self acts through the mind and the body, and where they are, its action is visible.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

The alpha and omega of Vedanta philosophy is to "give up the world," giving up the unreal
Times and taking the real. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

The Vedanta recognizes no sin, it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the
Vedanta, is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that. Every time you think in that way, you, as it were, rivet one more link in the chain that binds you down, you add one more layer of hypnotism on to your own soul. - Swami Vivekananda Practical Vedanta I, London

The one theme of Vedanta philosophy is the search after unity.
The Hindu mind does not care for the particular; it is always after the general, nay, the universal. "What is that, by knowing which everything else is to be known?" That is the one theme. "As through the knowledge of one lump of clay all that is of clay is known, so, what is that, by knowing which this whole universe itself will be known?" That is the one search. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana Yoga, New York

As certain religions of the world say that a man who does not believe in a Personal God outside
of himself is an atheist, so the Vedanta says, a man who does not believe in himself is an atheist. Not believing in the glory of our own soul is what the Vedanta calls atheism. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

The Vedanta, ... as a religion must be intensely practical. We must be able to carry it out in
every part of our lives. And not only this, the fictitious differentiation between religion and the life of the world must vanish, for the Vedanta teaches oneness -- one life throughout. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

Real activity, which is the goal of Vedanta, is combined with eternal calmness, the calmness
which cannot be ruffled, the balance of mind which is never disturbed, whatever happens. And we all know from our experience in life that that is the best attitude for work. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

I will ask you to understand that Vedanta, though it is intensely practical, is always so in the
sense of the ideal. It does not preach an impossible ideal, however high it be, and it is high enough for an ideal. In one word, this ideal is that you are divine, "Thou art That". This is the essence of Vedanta. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

… just as we under delusion think that the sun is moving and not the earth, in exactly the same
way we think that we are dying, and not nature. These are all, therefore, hallucinations. Just as it is a hallucination when we think that the fields are moving and not the railway train, exactly in the same manner is the hallucination of birth and death. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New York

Omnipresent is the Self of man. Where is it to go? Where is it not to go? It is everywhere. So all this childish dream and puerile illusion of birth and death, of heavens and higher heavens and lower worlds, all vanish immediately for the perfect. For the nearly perfect it vanishes after showing them the several scenes up to Brahmaloka. It continues for the ignorant. -Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New York

You are the veritable Gods of the universe; nay, there are not two -- there is but One. It is a
mistake to say, "you and I"; say "I". It is I who am eating in millions of mouths; how can I be hungry? It is I who am working through an infinite number of hands; how can I be inactive? It is I who am living the life of the whole universe; where is death for me? I am beyond all life, beyond all death. Where shall I seek for freedom? I am free by my nature. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

Is not the whole universe you? Where is there any one that is not you? You are the Soul of this universe. You are the sun, moon, and stars, it is you that are shining everywhere. The whole universe is you. Whom are you going to hate or to fight? Know, then, that thou art He, and model your whole life accordingly; and he who knows this and models his life accordingly will no more grovel in darkness. -Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

Every ounce of fame can only be bought at the cost of pound of peace and holiness.
- Swami Vivekananda

There is neither man nor woman; the soul is sexless, eternally pure. It is a lie to say that I am a
man or a woman, or to say that I belong to this country or that. All the world is my country, the whole universe is mine, because I have clothed myself with it as my body. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New York

Man, therefore, according to the Vedanta philosophy, is the greatest being that is in the
universe, and this world of work the best place in it, because only herein is the greatest and the best chance for him to become perfect. Angels or gods, whatever you may call them, have all to become men, if they want to become perfect. This is the great centre, the wonderful poise, and the wonderful opportunity -- this human life. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New York

According to the Advaita philosophy, there is only one thing real in the universe, which it calls
Brahman; everything else is unreal, manifested and manufactured out of Brahman by the power of Maya.
To reach back to that Brahman is our goal. We are, each one of us, that Brahman, that Reality,
plus this Maya. If we can get rid of this Maya or ignorance, then we become what we really are. - Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, US

We now see that all the various forms of cosmic energy, such as matter, thought, force,
intelligence and so forth, are simply the manifestations of that cosmic intelligence, or, as we shall call it henceforth, the Supreme Lord. Everything that you see, feel, or hear, the whole universe, is His creation, or to be a little more accurate, is His projection; or to be still more accurate, is the Lord Himself. -Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New-York

Religion is realisation; not talk, nor doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is
being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes. That is religion. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Pasadena, California

When you see man as God, everything, even the tiger, will be welcome. Whatever comes to you
is but the Lord, the Eternal, the Blessed One, appearing to us in various forms, as our father, and mother, and friend, and child -- they are our own soul playing with us. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

It is better that we know we are God and give up this fool's search after Him; and knowing that
we are God we become happy and contented. Give up all these mad pursuits, and then play your part in the universe, as an actor on the stage. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

Life is but a playground, however gross the play may be. However we may receive blows, and
however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angles, California

It is all He, and all I, at the same time. The soul has become pure. Then, and then alone we understand what love is. Love cannot come through fear, its basis is freedom. When we really begin to love the world, then we understand what is meant by brotherhood or mankind, and not before. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

Our thoughts, our words and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw round ourselves,
for good or for evil. Once we set in motion a certain power, Times we have to take the full consequences of it. This is the law of Karma. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

Build up your character, and manifest your real nature, the Effulgent, the Resplendent, the
Ever-pure, and call It up in everyone that you see. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

... this is the real, practical side of Vedanta. It does not destroy the world, but it explains it; it
does not destroy the person, but explains him; it does not destroy the individuality, but explains it by showing the real individuality. It does not show that this world is vain and does not exist, but it says, "Understand what this world is, so that it may not hurt you." - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

Purity, patience, and perseverance overcome all obstacles. All great things must of necessity be slow.
- Swami Vivekananda

In one word, the ideal of Vedanta is to know man as he really is, and this is its message,
worship your brother man, the manifested God, that if you cannot how can you worship a God who is unmanifested? - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

It is not ... that there are many worlds, it is not that there are many lives. All this manifoldness is
the manifestation of that One. That One is manifesting Himself as many, as matter, spirit, mind, thought, and everything else. It is that One, manifesting Himself as many. Therefore the first step for us to take is to teach the truth to ourselves and to others. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

The old religion said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God.
The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself. But it is not selfish faith, because the Vedanta, again, is the doctrine of oneness. It means faith in all, because you are all. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London mes

Wherever there is this false idea of reconciling fleshly vanities with the highest ideals, of
dragging down God to the level of man, there comes decay. Man should not be degraded to worldly slavery, but should be raised up to God. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I, London

The soul was never born and will never die, and all these ideas that we are going to die and are
afraid to die are mere superstitions. And all such ideas as that we can do this or can not do that are superstitions. We can do everything. The Vedanta teaches men to have faith in themselves first. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta I. London

He is in everything. He is everything. Every man and woman is the palpable, blissful, living God.
Who says God is unknown? Who says He is to be searched after? We have found God eternally. We have been living in Him eternally; everywhere He is eternally known, eternally worshipped. - Swami Vivekananda. Practical Vedanta II, London

There is, you must remember, all the difference of pole to pole between realisation and mere
talking. Any fool can talk. Even parrots talk. Talking is one thing, and realising is another. Philosophies, and doctrines, and arguments, and books, and theories, and churches, and sects, and all these things are good in their own way; but when that realisation comes, these things drops away.
- Swami Vivekananda, Jnana-Yoga, New York

… invented symbolism may good and helpful, but already better symbols exist than any we can
invent. You may invent an image through which to worship God, but a better image already exists, the living man. You may build a temple in which to worship God, and that may be good, but a better one, a much higher one, already exists, the human body. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

The noumenon is not something different from the phenomena, but it is the very noumenon
which has become the phenomena. There is a soul which is unchanging, and what we call feelings and perceptions, nay, even the body, are the very soul, seen from another point of view. We have got into the habit of thinking that we have bodies and souls and so forth, but really speaking, there is only one. -Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

The Impersonal God is a living God, a principle. The difference between personal and
impersonal is this, that the personal is only a man, and the impersonal idea is that He is the angel, the man, the animal, and yet something more which we cannot see, because impersonality includes all personalities, is the sum total of everything in the universe, and infinitely more besides. -Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta II, London

The history of the world shows that those who never thought of their little individuality were the
greatest benefactors of the human race, and that the more men and women think of themselves, the less are they able to do for others. One is unselfishness, and the other selfishness. Clinging on to little enjoyments, and to desire the continuation and repetition of this state of things is utter selfishness. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

The difference between dualism and monism is that when the ideal is put outside [of oneself], it
is dualism. When God is [sought] within, it is monism. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

My idea is to show that the highest ideal of morality and unselfishness goes hand in hand with
the highest metaphysical conception, and that you need not lower your conception to get ethics and morality, but, on the other hand, to reach a real basis of morality and ethics you must have the highest philosophical and scientific conceptions. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

Be not afraid. Think not how many times you fail. Never mind. Time is infinite. Go forward;
assert yourself again and again, and light must come. - Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angles, California

With the oldest theories, the Advaita is friendly. Dualism and all systems that had preceded it
are accepted by the Advaita not in a patronizing way, but with the conviction that they are true
manifestations of the same truth, and that they all lead to the same conclusions as the Advaita
has reached. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

The Vedanta also says that the cause of all this apparent evil is in ourselves. Do not blame any
supernatural being, neither be hopeless and despondent, nor think we are in a place from which we can never escape unless someone comes and lends us a helping hand. That cannot be, says the Vedanta. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

I wish that everyone of us had come to such a state that even in the vilest of human beings we
could see the Real Self within, and instead of condemning them, say, "Rise thou effulgent one, rise thou who art always pure, rise thou birthless and deathless, rise almighty, and manifest thy true nature. These little manifestations do not befit thee." This is the highest prayer that the Advaita teaches. -Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London

So if we are Advaitists, we must think from this moment that our old self is dead and gone. The
old Mr., Mrs., and Miss So-and-so are gone, they were mere superstitions, and what remains is the ever-pure, the ever-strong, the almighty, the all-knowing -- that alone remains for us, and then all fear vanishes from us. - Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta IV, London,

Don't look back -- forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite
patience – then alone can great deeds be accomplished. - Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Abhedananda from Reading, England (October 1895)

This is the gist of all worship - to be pure and to do good to others.
- Swami Vivekananda

The Hindoo occupies a unique position towards Buddhism. Like Christ, who antagonized the Jews, Buddha antagonized the prevailing religion of India; but while Christ was rejected by his countrymen, Buddha was accepted as God Incarnate. He denounced the priestcraft at the very doors of their temples, yet today he is worshipped by them.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Brooklyn

We have to go beyond the body, and beyond thought too. says the Advaita. And we have also seen that, according to Advaita. this freedom is not to be attained, it is already ours. We only forget it and deny it. Perfection is not to be attained, it is already within us. Immortality and bliss are not to be acquired. we possess them already. they have been ours all the time.
- Swami Vivekananda. Practical Vedanta IV, London

Kapila does not believe in the unity of all souls. His analysis, so far as it goes, is simply marvelous. He is the father of Indian thinkers: Buddhism and other systems are the outcome of his thought.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

Religion permeates the whole of man's life, not only the present, but the past, present, and future. It is, therefore, the eternal relation between the eternal soul and the eternal God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

A plant grows. Do you make the plant grow? Your duty is to put a hedge round it and see that no animal eats up the plant, and there your duty ends. The plant grows of itself. So it is in regard to the spiritual growth of every man. None can teach you; none can make a spiritual man of you. You have to teach yourself; your growth must come from inside.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Pasadena, California

To love because it is the nature of love to love is undeniably the highest and the most unselfish manifestation of love that may be seen in the world. Such love, working itself out on the plane of spirituality, necessarily leads to the attainment of Para-Bhakti.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Obedience, readiness, and love for the cause -- if you have these three, nothing can hold you back.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Shuddhananda from Almora (July 1897)

You are that Impersonal Being; that God for whom you have been searching all over the universe is all the time yourself -- yourself not in the personal sense but in the Impersonal. The man we know now, the manifested, is personalized, but the reality of this is the Impersonal. To understand the personal we have to refer it to the Impersonal, the particular must be referred to the general, and that Impersonal is the Truth, the Self of man.
- Swami Vivekananda, Practical Vedanta III, London

It [Jnana-Yoga] tells man that he is essentially divine. It shows to mankind the real unity of being, and that each one of us is the Lord God Himself, manifested on earth. All of us, from the lowest worm that crawls under our feet to the highest beings to whom we look up with wonder and awe all are manifestations of the same Lord.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Palena, California

Through high philosophy or low, through the most exalted mythology or through the most refined ritualism or the grossest, arrant fetishism, every sect, every soul, every nation, every religion, consciously or unconsciously, is struggling upward, towards God; every vision of truth that man has, is a vision of Him and of none else.
-Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Pasadena, California

All things are interpenetrated by that infinite ocean; their reality is that infinite; and whatever there is on the surface is but that infinite. The tree is infinite; so is everything that you see or feel -- every grain of sand, every thought, every soul, everything that exists, is infinite. Infinite is finite and finite infinite. This is our existence.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angles, California

Just as the Western ideal is to keep up luxury in practical life, so ours is to keep up the highest form of spirituality, to demonstrate that religion is not merely frothy words, but can be carried out, every bit of it, in this life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

... birth, death, misery, and the various tossings about to which we are subject in the world can only be overcome by knowing that which is real. What is real? That which never changes, the Self of man, the Self behind the universe. Then, again, it is said that it is very difficult to know Him. Knowing does not mean simply intellectual assent, it means realisation
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

It is also a significant fact that spiritual giants have been produced only in those systems of religion where there is an exuberant growth of rich mythology and ritualism.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

They are very sincere, these fanatics, the most sincere of human beings; but they are quite as irresponsible as other lunatics in the world. This disease of fanaticism is one of the most dangerous of all diseases. All the wickedness of human nature is roused by it. Anger is stirred up, nerves are strung high, and human beings become like tigers.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Pasadena, California

There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence, and that One Existence, when it passes through the forms of time, space, and causation, is called by different names, Buddhi, fine matter, gross matter, all mental and physical forms. Everything in the universe is that One, appearing in various forms.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York.

In India the attempt has been made from the earliest times to reach a science of religion and philosophy, for the Hindus do not separate these as is customary in Western countries. We regard religion and philosophy as but two aspects of one thing which must equally be grounded in reason and scientific truth.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

Thus sang a Vedantin, "I never had fear nor doubt. Death never came to me. I never had father or mother: for I was never born. Where are my foes?-- for I am All. I am the Existence and Knowledge and Bliss Absolute. I am It. I am It. Anger and lust and jealousy, evil thoughts and all these things, never came to me; for I am the Existence, the Knowledge, the Bliss Absolute. I am It. I am It."
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angles, California

All that is meant by dying or being born is simply changes in the plane of vision. Neither do you move, nor does that move upon which you project your vision. You are the permanent, the unchangeable. How can you come and go? It is impossible; you are omnipresent.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

In making money, or in worshipping God, or in doing anything, the stronger the power of concentration, the better will that thing be done. This is the one call, the one knock, which opens the gates of nature, and lets out floods of light. This, the power of concentration, is the only key to the treasure-house of knowledge. The system of Raja-Yoga deals almost exclusively with this.
-Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Pasadena, California

Our sacred motherland is a land of religion and philosophy - the birthplace of spiritual giants - the land of renunciation, where and where alone, from the most ancient to the most modern times, there has been the highest ideal of life open to man.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Pamban, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but with the flag of peace and love, the garb of the Sannyasin; not by the power of wealth, but by the power of the begging bowl. Say not that you are weak. The spirit is omnipotent.
- Swami Vivekananda Reply to the Madras Address

Misery comes because we think we are finite - we are little beings. And yet, how difficult it is to believe that we are infinite beings! In the midst of all this misery and trouble, when a little thing may throw me off my balance, it must be my care to believe that I am infinite. And the fact is that we are, and that consciously or unconsciously we are all searching after that something which is infinite; we are always seeking for something that is free.
-Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angles, California

"I am It! I am It!" "I am neither a man, nor a woman, nor a god, nor a demon; no, nor any of the animals, plants, or trees. I am neither poor nor rich, neither learned nor ignorant. All these things are very little compared with what I am: for I am It! I am It! Behold the sun and the moon and the stars: I am the light that is shining in them! I am the beauty of the fire! I am the power in the universe! For, I am It! I am It!"
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in Los Angles, California

The real Being who is behind, is that one God. We are all one there. As Self, there is only one in the universe. It is in me and you, and is only one; and that one Self has been reflected in all these various bodies as various different selves. But we do not know this; we think we are separate from each other and separate from Him. And so long as we think this, misery will be in the world. This is hallucination.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

In Advaita philosophy, the whole universe is all one in the Self which is called Brahman. That Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul. This very soul, therefore, is the Self in man.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

There are two worlds, the microcosm, and the macrocosm, the internal and the external. We get truth from both of these by means of experience. The truth gathered from internal experience is psychology, metaphysics, and religion; from external experience, the physical sciences. Now a perfect truth should be in harmony with experiences in both these worlds.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

The history of the world teaches us that wherever there have been fanatical reforms, the only result has been that they have defeated their own ends.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Victoria Hall Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Infinite divided by infinite, added to infinite, multiplied by infinite [remains] infinite. You are infinite; God is infinite. You are all infinite. There cannot be two existences, only one. The Infinite can never be made finite. You are never bound. That is all.... You are free already. You have reached the goal -- all there is to reach. Never allow the mind to think that you have not reached the goal...
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

The whole universe is you; the universe is your body; you are the universe both formed and unformed. You are the soul of the universe and its body also. You are God, you are the angels, you are man, you are animals, you are the plants, you are the minerals, you are everything; the manifestation of everything is you. Whatever exists is you. You are the Infinite.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

Every one of these Incarnations came as a living illustration of what they came to preach. Krishna, the preacher of the Gita, was all his life the embodiment of the Song Celestial; he was the great illustration of non-attachment.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

It is very well to say: Be contented with the things of the present. The cows and the dogs are, and so are all animals; and that is what makes them animals. So if man rests content with the present and gives up all search into the beyond, mankind will have to go back to the animal plane again. It is religion, the inquiry into the beyond, that makes the difference between man and animal.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

The sine qua non of acquiring spiritual truth for one's self or for imparting it to others is the purity of heart and soul. A vision of God or a glimpse of the beyond never comes until the soul is pure.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

If you can give a beginning to time, the whole concept of time will be destroyed. Try to think of a limit where time began, you have to think of time beyond that limit. Try to think where space begins, you will have to think of space beyond that. Time and space are infinite, and therefore have neither beginning nor end. This is a better idea than that God created the universe in five minutes and then went to sleep, and since then has been sleeping.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New York

The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; its great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes degenerates into hideous fanaticism. The fanatical crew in Hinduism, or Mohammedanism, or Christianity have always been almost exclusively recruited from these worshippers on the lower planes of Bhakti.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Sisters and Brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world. thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. … … The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come, and fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
- Swami Vivekananda at Parliament of Religions (11 Sept. 1893)

I teach only the Self, hidden in the heart of every individual and common to all. A handful of strong men knowing that Self and living in Its light would revolutionize the world, even today, as has been the case by single strong men before, each in his day.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'West Minster Gazette' Interview (23rd October 1895)

The soul is also sexless, we cannot say of the Atman that it is a man or a woman. Sex belongs to the body alone. All such ideas, therefore, as man or woman, are a delusion when spoken with regard to the Self, and are only proper when spoken of the body. So are the ideas of age. It never ages; the ancient One is always the same.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

There is but One Existence, and that One-Existence seen through different constitutions appears either as the earth, or heaven, or hell, or gods, or ghosts, or men, or demons, or world, or all these things. But among these many, "He who sees that One in this ocean of death, he who sees that One Life in this floating universe, who realises that One who never changes, unto him belongs eternal peace; unto none else, unto none else." This One Existence has to be realised.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

Now comes the question: Can religion really accomplish anything? It can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is, and will make of this human animal a god. That is what religion can do. Take religion from human society and what will remain? Nothing but a forest of brutes. Sense-happiness is not the goal of humanity. Wisdom (Jnana) is the goal of all life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in New-York

It is not given to all of us to be harmonious in the building up of our characters in this life: yet we know that the character is of the noblest type in which all these three -- knowledge and love and Yoga - are harmoniously fused. Three things are necessary for a bird to fly -- the two wings and the tail as a rudder for steering. Jnana (knowledge) is the one wing, Bhakti (Love) is the other, and Yoga is the tail that keeps up the balance.
- Swami Vivekananda Bhakti-Yoga

What is meant by Dâna? The highest of gifts is the giving of spiritual knowledge, the next is the giving of secular knowledge, and the next is the saving of life, the last is giving food and drink. He who gives spiritual knowledge, saves the soul from many and many a birth. He who gives secular knowledge opens the eyes of human beings towards spiritual knowledge, and far below these rank all other gifts, even the saving of life. Therefore it is necessary that you learn this and note that all other kinds of work are of much less value than that of imparting spiritual knowledge.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

If you want to be a Bhakta, it is not at all necessary for you to know whether Krishna was born in Mathura or in Vraja, what he was doing, or just the exact date on which he pronounced the teachings of the Gita. You only require to feel the craving for the beautiful lessons of duty and love in the Gita. All the other particulars about it and its author are for the enjoyment of the learned. Let them have what they desire.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

One ounce of the practice of righteousness and of spiritual Self-realisation outweighs tons and tons of frothy talk and nonsensical sentiments. Show us one, but one gigantic spiritual genius growing out of all this dry dust of ignorance and fanaticism; and if you cannot, close your mouths, open the windows of your hearts to the clear light of truth, and sit like children at the feet of those who know what they are talking about the sages of India.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

In spite of the sparkle and glitter of Western civilisation, in spite of all its polish and its marvellous manifestation of power, standing upon this platform, I tell them to their face that it is all vain. It is vanity of vanities. God alone lives. The soul alone lives. Spirituality alone lives. Hold onto that.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Ramnad, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

In human society, the nearer the man is to the animal, the stronger is his pleasure in the senses; and the higher and the more cultured the man is, the greater is his pleasure in intellectual and such other finer pursuits. So when a man gets even higher than the plane of the intellect, higher than that of mere thought, when he gets to the plane of spirituality and of divine inspiration, he finds there a state of bliss, compared with which all the pleasures of the senses, or even of the intellect, are as nothing.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Man never dies, nor is he ever born; bodies die, but he never dies.
- Swami Vivekananda

The world is just a playground, and we are here having good fun, having a game; and God is with us playing all the while, and we are with Him playing. God is our eternal playmate. How beautifully He is playing! The play is finished when the cycle comes to an end.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

We find, as a rule, that liberal and sympathetic sects lose the intensity of religious feeling, and in their hands, religion is apt to degenerate into a kind of politico-social club life. On the other hand, intensely narrow sectaries, whilst displaying a very commendable love of their own ideals, are seen to have acquired every particle of that love by hating every one who is not of exactly the same opinions as themselves. Would to God that this world was full of men who were as intense in their love as worldwide in their sympathies!
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

All the various movements that we see around us in society are caused by the various ideals in various souls trying to come out and become concretised; what is inside presses on to come outside. This perennially dominant influence of the ideal is the one force, the one motive power,that may be seen to be constantly working in the midst of mankind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Make your children strong from their very childhood; teach them not weakness, nor forms, but make them strong; let them stand on their feet -- bold, all-conquering, all-suffering; and first of all, let them learn of the glory of the soul. That you get alone in the Vedanta -- and there alone.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

To restrain the Indriyas (organs) from going towards the objects of the senses, to control them and bring them under the guidance of the will, is the very central virtue in religious culture. Then comes the practice of self-restraint and self-denial. All the immense possibilities of divine realisation in the soul cannot get actualized without struggle and without such practice on the part of the aspiring devotee.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

And all above,
Himala's daughter Uma, gentle, pure,
The Mother that resides in all as Power
And Life, who works all works and
Makes of One the world, whose mercy
Opens the gate to Truth and shows
The One in All, give thee untiring
Strength, which is Infinite Love.
- Swami Vivekananda, from "To The Awakened India' (poem)

Broadly speaking, the proper use of any of the faculties of our mind and body is termed virtue, and its improper application or waste is called vice.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, at Calcutta, Surendra Nath Sen Diary

Religion, which is the highest knowledge and the highest wisdom, cannot be bought, nor can it be acquired from books. You may thrust your head into all corners of the world, you may explore the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Caucasus, you may sound the bottom of the sea and pry into every nook of Tibet and the desert of Gobi, you will not find it anywhere until your heart is ready for receiving it and your teacher has come.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

The highest ideal of every man is called God. Ignorant or wise, saint or sinner, man or woman, educated or uneducated, cultivated or uncultivated, to every human being the highest ideal is God. The synthesis of all the highest ideals of beauty, of sublimity, and of power gives us the completest conception of the loving and lovable God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

The greatest purifier among all such things, a purifier without which no one can enter the regions of this higher devotion (Para-Bhakti), is renunciation. This frightens many; yet, without it, there cannot be any spiritual growth. In all our Yogas this renunciation is necessary. This is the stepping-stone and the real centre and the real heart of all spiritual culture - renunciation. This is religion -- renunciation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

When the modern tremendous theories of evolution and conservation of energy and so forth are dealing death blows to all sorts of crude theologies, what can hold any more the allegiance of cultured humanity but the most wonderful, convincing, broadening, and ennobling ideas that can be found only in that most marvelous product of the soul of man, the wonderful voice of God, the Vedanta?
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Colombo, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

... religion and religion alone is the life of India, and when that goes India will die, in spite of politics, in spite of social reforms, in spite of Kubera's wealth poured upon the head of every one of her children ... ...
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Ramnad, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Every sect of every religion presents only one ideal of its own to mankind, but the eternal Vedantic religion opens to mankind an infinite number of doors for ingress into the inner shrine of divinity, and places before humanity an almost inexhaustible array of ideals, there being in each of them a manifestation of the Eternal One.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

He [a Bhakta] must know that all the various sects of the various religions are the various manifestations of the glory of the same Lord. "They call You by so many names; they divide You, as it were, by different names, yet in each one of these is to be found Your omnipotence ... You reach the worshipper through all of these, neither is there any special time so long as the soul has intense love for You. You are so easy of approach, it is my misfortune that I cannot love You."
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

To worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other rewards equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Love is always for love's sake. The Bhakta loves because he cannot help loving. ...
... Ask not anything in return for your love; let your position be always that of the giver; give your love unto God, but do not ask anything in return even from Him.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Man can think of divine things only in his own human way; to us the Absolute can be expressed only in our relative language. The whole universe is to us a writing of the Infinite in the language of the finite. Therefore Bhaktas make use of all the common terms associated with the common love of humanity in relation to God and His worship through love.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

If you know that you are positively other than your body, you have then none to fight with or struggle against; you are dead to all ideas of selfishness. So the Bhakta declares that we have to hold ourselves as if we are altogether dead to all the things of the world; and that is indeed self-surrender. Let things come as they may. This is the meaning of "Thy will be done"-- not going about fighting and struggling and thinking all the while that God wills all our own weaknesses and worldly ambitions.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

The Lord is the great magnet, and we are all like iron filings; we are being constantly attracted by Him, and all of us are struggling to reach Him. All this struggling of ours in this world is surely not intended for selfish ends. Fools do not know what they are doing: the work of their life is, after all, to approach the great magnet. All the tremendous struggling and fighting in life is intended to make us go to Him ultimately and be one with Him.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

India's contribution to the sum total of human knowledge has been spirituality, philosophy.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madurai, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

There are three steps, therefore, in our knowledge of things; the first is that each thing is individual and separate from every other; and the next step is to find that there is a relation and correlation between all things; and the third is that there is only one thing which we see as many.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Bhakti-Yoga is the science of higher love. It shows us how to direct it; it shows us how to control it, how to manage it, how to use it, how to give it a new aim, as it were, and from it obtain the highest and most glorious results, that is, how to make it lead us to spiritual blessedness. Bhakti-Yoga does not say, "Give up"; it only says, "Love; love the Highest!"-- and everything low naturally falls off from him, the object of whose love is the Highest.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Man is a compound of animality, humanity, and divinity. - Swami Vivekananda

In everyone is God, the Atman; all else is but dream, an illusion. - Swami Vivekananda

There is really but one Self in the universe, all else is but Its manifestations. - Swami Vivekananda

Giving up the senses makes a nation survive. - Swami Vivekananda

It is the same feeling of love, well or ill directed, that impels one man to do good and to give all he has to the poor, while it makes another man cut the throats of his brethren and take away all their possessions. The former loves others as much as the latter loves himself. The direction of the love is bad in the case of the latter, but it is right and proper in the other case.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Whosoever seeks pleasure in objects will get it, but he must take the pain with it. - Swami Vivekananda

... it is better to have internal purity alone when minute attention to external observances is not practicable. But woe unto the man and woe unto the nation that forgets the real, internal, spiritual essentials of religion and mechanically clutches with death-like grasp at all external forms and never lets them go. The forms have value only so far as they are expressions of the life within. If they have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

When the heart is purified and cleansed and filled to the brim with the divine nectar of love, all other ideas of God become simply puerile and are rejected as being inadequate or unworthy. Such is indeed the of Para-Bhakti or Supreme Love; and the perfected Bhakta no more goes to see God in temples and churches; he knows no place where he will not find Him.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

If there is any land on this earth that can lay claim to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to which all souls on this earth must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending its way Godward must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness, above all, the land of introspection and of spirituality -- it is India.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Colombo, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Of Ramakrishna, you may aver, my brother, that he was an Incarnation or whatever else you may like but fie on him who has no devotion for the Mother.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Shivananda from US (1894)

All things in the universe are of divine origin and deserve to be loved; it has, however, to borne in mind that the love of the whole includes the love of the parts. This whole is the God of the Bhaktas, and all the other Gods, Fathers in Heaven, or Rulers, or Creators, and all theories and doctrines and books have no purpose and no meaning for them, seeing that they have through their supreme love and devotion risen above those things altogether.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

There is no sin nor virtue: there is only ignorance. By realisation of non-duality this ignorance is dispelled. - Swami Vivekananda

Love and fear are incompatible; God is never to be feared by those who love Him. The commandment, "Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain", the true lover of God laughs at. How can there be any blasphemy in the religion of love? The more you take the name of the Lord, the better for you, in whatever way you may do it. You are only repeating His name because you love Him.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

He who wants to serve the father must serve the children first. He who wants to serve Shiva must serve His children must serve all creatures in this world first. It is said in the Shastra that those who serve the servants of God are His greatest servants. So you will bear this in mind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Rameswaram, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The Vedas, grammar, astronomy, etc., all these are secondary; that is supreme knowledge which makes us realise the Unchangeable One. ...
Not belief in doctrines, not going to thousands of temples, nor bathing in all the rivers in the world, but becoming Times the Rishi, the Mantra-drashta - that is freedom, that is salvation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The debt which the world owes to our Motherland is immense. Taking country with country, there is not one race on this earth to which the world owes so much as to the patient Hindu, the mild Hindu. "The mild Hindu" sometimes is used as an expression of reproach; but if ever a reproach concealed a wonderful truth, it is in the term, "the mild Hindu", who has always been the blessed child of God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Colombo, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Let the Persian or the Greek, the Roman, mes the Arab, or the Englishman march his battalions, conquer the world, and link the different nations together, and the philosophy and spirituality of India is ever ready to flow along the new-made channels into the veins of the nations of the world. The Hindu's calm brain must pour out its own quota to give to the sum total of human progress. India's gift to the world is the light spiritual.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Colombo, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

In Bhakti-Yoga the central secret is, ... to know that the various passions and feelings and emotions in the human heart are not wrong in themselves; only they have to be carefully controlled and given a higher and higher direction, until they attain the very highest condition of excellence. The highest direction is that which takes us to God; every other direction is lower.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

When the real history of India will be unearthed, it will be proved that, as in matters of religion, so in fine arts, India is the primal Guru of the whole world.
- Swami Vivekananda

This is one of our greatest duties, and you will find that the more you work to help others, the more you help yourselves. The one vital duty incumbent on you, if you really love your religion, if you really love your country, is that you must struggle hard to be up and doing, with this one great idea of bringing out the treasures from your closed books and delivering them over to their rightful heirs.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Those that love God through fear are the lowest of human beings, quite undeveloped as men. They worship God from fear of punishment. He is a great Being to them, with a whip in one hand and the sceptre in the other; if they do not obey Him, they are afraid they will be whipped. It is a degradation to worship God through fear of punishment; such worship is, if worship at all, the crudest form of the worship of love. So long as there is any fear in the heart, how can there be love also? Love conquers naturally all fear.
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

The mass of knowledge called the Vedanta was discovered by personages called Rishis, and the Rishi is defined as a Mantra-drashta, a seer of thought; not that the thought was his own. Whenever you hear that a certain passage of the Vedas came from a certain Rishi, never think that he wrote it or created it out of his mind; he was the seer of the thought which already existed; it existed in the universe eternally. This sage was the discoverer; the Rishis were spiritual discoverers.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The only commentary, the authoritative commentary on the Vedas, has been made once and for all by Him who inspired the Vedas -- by Krishna in the Gita.
-Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

He plays in every atom; He is playing when He is building up earths, and suns, and moons; He is playing with the human heart, with animals, with plants. We are His chessmen; He puts the chessmen on the board and shakes them up. He arranges us first in one way and then in another, and we are consciously or unconsciously helping in His play. And, oh, bliss! we are His playmates!
- Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti-Yoga

Wherever there is love, wherever there is a spark of joy, know that to be a spark of His presence because He is joy, blessedness, and love itself. Without that there cannot be any love.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

Remember the words of Jesus: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" This very moment let every one 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!"
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

What is the difference between the highest man and the lowest worm that crawls under your feet? Ignorance. That makes all the difference.For inside that little crawling worm is lodged infinite power, and knowledge, and purity - the infinite divinity of God Himself. It is unmanifested; it will have to be manifested.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Paramakudi, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Europe, the centre of the manifestation of material energy, will crumble into dust within fifty years if she is not mindful to change her position, to shift her ground and make spirituality the basis of her life. And what will save Europe is the religion of the Upanishads.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Paramakudi (February 1897), Lectures From Colombo to Almora [words spoken before the two World Wars started in Europe]

I have been criticised, from one end of the world to the other, as one who preaches the diabolical idea that there is no sin! Very good. The descendants of these very men will bless me as the preacher of virtue, her of and not of sin. I am the teacher of virtue, not of sin. I glory in being the preacher of light, and not of darkness.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The secret of a true Hindu's character lies in the subordination of his knowledge of European sciences and learning, of his wealth, position, and name, to that one principal theme which in inborn in every Hindu child - the spirituality and purity of the race.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Ramnad, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

From out of many voices, consonant and dissentient, from out of the medley of sounds filling the Indian atmosphere, rises up supreme, striking, and full, one note, and that is renunciation. Give up! That is the watchword of the Indian religions. This world is a delusion of two days. The present life is of five minutes. Beyond is the Infinite, beyond this world of delusion; let us seek that.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Ramnad, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

This is the motherland of philosophy, of spirituality, and of ethics, of sweetness, gentleness, and love. These still exist, and my experience of the world leads me to stand on firm ground and make the bold statement that India is still the first and foremost of all the nations of the world in these respects.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Ramnad, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

What makes this creation? God. What do I mean by the use of the English word God? Certainly not the word as ordinarily used in English -- a good deal of difference. There is no other suitable word in English. I would rather confine myself to the Sanskrit word Brahman. He is the general Time cause of all these manifestations. What is this Brahman? He is eternal, eternally pure, eternally awake, the almighty, the all-knowing, the all-merciful, the omnipresent, the formless, the partless.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

O ye modern Hindus, de-hypnotise yourselves. The way to do that is found in your own sacred books. Teach yourselves, teach every one his real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Ours is the religion Spiritual Prophet of Modern of which Buddhism with all its greatness is a rebel child, and of which Christianity is a very patchy imitation.
- Swami Vivekananda, = Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The prayers of those that are pure in mind and body will be answered by Shiva, and those that are impure and yet try to teach religion to others will fail in the end. External worship is only a symbol of internal worship; but internal worship and purity are the real things. Without them, external worship would be of no avail. Therefore you must all try to remember this.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Rameswaram, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions. I have formulated the idea and have given my life to it. If I do not achieve success, some better one will come after me to work it out, and I shall be content to struggle. - Swami Vivekananda

The Sannyasin, as you all know, is the ideal of the Hindu's life, and every one by our Shastras is compelled to give up. Every Hindu who has tasted the fruits of this world must give up in the latter part of his life, and he who does not is not a Hindu and has no more right to call himself a Hindu. We know that this is the ideal - to give up after seeing and experiencing the vanity of things.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Ramnad, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The agnostic does not want to go to heaven, because he has none; while the Bhakta does not want to go to heaven, because he thinks it is child's play. What he wants is God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Who reduced the Bhangis and the Pariahs to their present degraded condition? Heartlessness in our behavior and at the same time preaching wonderful Advaitism -- is it not adding insult to injury?
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

Religion is realisation, and you must make the sharpest distinction between talk and realisation. What you perceive in your soul is realisation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

This [Impersonal God] teaches us not to think ourselves as weak, but as strong, omnipotent, omniscient. No matter that I have not expressed it yet, it is in me. All knowledge is in me, all power, all purity, and all freedom. Why cannot I express this knowledge? Because I do not believe in it. Let me believe in it, and it must and will come out. This is what the idea of the Impersonal teaches.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Jaffna, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

My Master's message to mankind is "Be spiritual and realise truth for yourself."
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

Religion is not going to church, or putting marks on the forehead, or dressing in a peculiar fashion; you may paint yourselves in all the colours of the rainbow, but if the heart has not been opened, if you have not realised God, it is all vain. If one has the colour of the heart, he does not want any external colour. That is the true religious realisation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

I must again draw your attention to the fact that cursing and vilifying and abusing do not and cannot produce anything good. They have been tried for years and years, and no valuable result has been obtained. Good results can be produced only through love, through sympathy. -Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

My ideal is growth, expansion, development on national lines. As I look back upon the history of my country, I do not find in the whole world another country which has done quite so much for the improvement of the human mind. Therefore I have no words of condemnation for my nation. I tell them, "You have done well; only try to do better." Great things have been done in the past in this land, and there is both time and room for greater things to be done yet.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

This ship of our nation, O Hindus, has been usefully plying here for ages. Today, perhaps, it has sprung a leak; today, perhaps, it has become a little worn out. And if such is the case, it behooves you and me to try our best to stop the leak and holes. Let us tell our countrymen of the danger, let them awake and help us. I will cry at the top of my voice from one part of this country to the other, to awaken the people to the situation and their duty.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The command is the same to you all, that you must make progress without stopping, and that from the highest man to the lowest Pariah, every one in this country has to try and become the ideal Brahmin. This Vedantic ideal is applicable not only here but over the whole world. Such is our ideal of caste as meant for raising ern Time all humanity slowly and gently towards the realisation of that great ideal of the spiritual man who is non-resisting, calm, steady, worshipful, pure, and meditative. In that ideal there is God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Brave, bold men, these are what we want. What we want is vigour in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures from Colombo to Almora

Our ideal of high birth, therefore, is different from that of others. Our ideal is the Brahmin of spiritual culture and renunciation. By the Brahmin ideal what do I mean? I mean the ideal Brahmin-ness in which worldliness is altogether absent and true wisdom is abundantly present. That is the ideal of the Hindu race.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

I must frankly tell you that Spiritual Prop of Modes rimes I am neither a caste-breaker nor a mere social reformer. I have nothing to do directly with your castes or with your social reformation. Live in any caste you like, but that is no reason why you should hate another man or another caste. It is love and love alone that I preach, and I base my teaching on the great Vedantic truth of the sameness and omnipresence of the Soul of the Universe.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

There is a great opening for the Vedanta to do beneficent work both here and elsewhere. This wonderful idea of the sameness and omnipresence of the Supreme Soul has to be preached for the amelioration and elevation of the human race here as elsewhere.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

We have lost faith in ourselves. Therefore to preach the Advaita aspect of the Vedanta is necessary to rouse up the hearts of men, to show them the glory of their souls. It is, therefore, that I preach this Advaita; and I do so not as a sectarian, but upon universal and widely acceptable grounds.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Kumbakonam, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

I want the intensity of the fanatic plus the extensity of the materialist. Deep as the ocean, broad as the infinite skies, that is the sort of heart we want. Let us be as progressive as any nation that ever existed, and at the same time as faithful and conservative towards our traditions as Hindus alone know how to be.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madurai, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Apart from all its merits as the greatest philosophy, apart from its wonderful merit as theology, as showing the path of salvation to mankind, the Upanishadic literature is the most wonderful painting of sublimity that the world has. Here comes out in full force that individuality of the human mind, that introspective, intuitive Hindu mind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

We have to understand that this consciousness is only the name of one link in the infinite chain. Being is not identical with consciousness, but consciousness is only one part of Being. Beyond consciousness is where the bold search lies. Consciousness is bound by the senses. Beyond that, beyond the senses, men must go in order to arrive at truths of the spiritual world, and there are even now persons who succeed in going beyond the bounds of the senses. These are called Rishis, because they come face to face with spiritual truths.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Reason, theories, documents, doctrines, books, religious ceremonies, are all helps to religion: religion itself consists in realisation. -Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

In Western language, a man gives up the ghost, but in our language a man gives up his body. The Western man is a body first, and then he has a soul; with us a man is a soul and spirit, and he has a body. Therein lies a world of difference.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Asia produces giants in spirituality just as the Occident produces giants in politics, giants in science.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

It is not Bhakti if we worship God with the desire for a son; it is not Bhakti if we worship with the desire to be rich; it is not Bhakti even if we have a desire for heaven; it is not Bhakti if a man worships with the desire of being saved from the tortures of hell. Bhakti is not the outcome of fear or greediness. He is the true Bhagavata who says, "O God, I do not want a beautiful wife, I do not want knowledge or salvation. Let me be born and die hundreds of times. What I want is that I should be ever engaged in Thy service." It is at this stage -- and when a man sees God in everything, and everything in God -- that he attains perfect Bhakti.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Sialkote, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Like the gentle dew that falls unseen and unheard, and yet brings into blossom the fairest of roses, has been the contribution of India to the thought of the world. Silent, unperceived, yet omnipotent in its effect, it has revolutionised the thought of the world, yet nobody knows when it did so.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Shri Ramakrishna never spoke a harsh word against anyone. So beautifully tolerant was he that every sect thought that he belonged to them. He loved everyone. To him all religions were true. He found a place for each one. He was free, but free in love, not in "thunder". The mild type creates, the thundering type spreads.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Mystery mongering and superstition are always signs of weakness. These are always signs of degradation and of death. Therefore beware of them; be strong, and stand on your own feet.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo To Almora

It was given to me to live with a man who was as ardent a dualist, as ardent an Advaitist, as ardent a Bhakta, as a Jnani. And living with this man first put it into my head to understand the Upanishads and the texts of the scriptures from an independent and better basis than by blindly following the commentators; of Modern Time and in my opinion and in my researches, I came to the conclusion that these texts are not at all contradictory. So we need have no fear of text-torturing at all!
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

National union in India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces. A nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Religion is not in books, nor in theories, nor in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in reasoning. It is being and becoming. Ay, my friends, until each one of you has become a Rishi and come face to face with spiritual facts, religious life has not begun for you. Until the superconscious opens for you, religion is mere talk, it is nothing but preparation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Vairagya is finding out that desires are but gilded balls of poison. - Swami Vivekananda

It is foolish to attempt to prove that the whole of the Vedas is dualistic. It is equally foolish to attempt to prove that the whole of the Vedas is non-dualistic. They are dualistic and non-dualistic both.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Only by worshipping the Self can freedom be won. Even personal God is but the Self objectified. "Intense search after my own reality is Bhakti", says Shankara.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Remain unattached. The heart's love is due to only One. To whom? To Him who never changes. Who is that One? It is God.Do not make the mistake of giving the heart to anything that is changing, because that is misery.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

Seek the science of the maker and not that of the made. - Swami Vivekananda

Why is it that organisations are so powerful? Do not say organisation is material. Why is it, to take a case in point, that forty millions of Englishmen rule three hundred millions of people here? What is the psychological explanation? These forty millions put their wills together and that means infinite power, and you three hundred millions have a will each separate from the other. Therefore to make a great future in India, the whole secret lies in organisation, accumulation of power, co-ordination of wills.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Wave after wave of barbarian conquest has rolled over this devoted land of ours. "Allah Ho Akbar!" has rent the skies for hundreds of years, and no Hindu knew what moment would be his last. This is the most suffering and the most subjugated of all the historic lands of the world. Yet we still stand practically the same race, ready to face difficulties again and again if necessary; and not only so, of late there have been signs that we are not only strong, but ready to go out, for the sign of life is expansion.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This sentence alone would save mankind if all books and prophets were lost. This purity of heart will bring the vision of God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The duty of every aristocracy is to dig its own grave, and the sooner it does so, the better. The more it delays, the more it will fester and the worse death it will die. It is the duty of the Brahmin, therefore, to work for the salvation of the rest of mankind in India. If he does that, and so long as he does that, he is a Brahmin, but he is no Brahmin when he goes about making money.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

To be unselfish, perfectly selfless, is salvation itself; for the man within dies, and God alone remains.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

Ours is the only scripture in the world that declares, not even by the study of the scriptures can the Atman be realised -- not talks, not lecturing, none of that, but It is to be realised. It comes from the teacher to the disciple. When this insight comes to the disciple, everything is cleared up and realisation follows.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Dualist, qualified-monist, monist, Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta, even the Buddhist and the Jain and others -- whatever sects have arisen in India -- are all at one in this respect that infinite power is latent in this Jivatman (individualised soul); from the ant to the perfect man there is the same Atman in all, the difference being only in manifestation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Sarala Ghosal, Editor, 'Bharati' in Bengali

When man finds that all search for happiness in matter is nonsense, then religion begins.All human knowledge is but a part of religion. - Swami Vivekananda

Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that, look forward, march forward and make India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Our ancestors were great. We must first recall that. We must learn the elements of our being, the blood that courses in our veins; we must have faith in that blood and what it did in the past; and out of that faith and consciousness of past greatness, we must build an India yet greater than what she has been.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Sita -- to say that she was pure is a blasphemy. She was purity itself embodied the most beautiful character that ever lived on earth.
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do anything and everything without even the guidance of any one. All power is there. Stand up and express the divinity within you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Our scriptures declare again and again that even the knowledge of the external senses is not religion. That is religion which makes us realise the unchangeable One, and that is the religion for ever one. He who realises transcendental truth, he who realises the Atman in his own nature, he who comes face to face with God, sees God alone in everything, has become a Rishi.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

As human beings, we have to see the trinity of existence -- god, man, nature; and we cannot do otherwise. - Swami Vivekananda

We must, ... remember that our religion lays down distinctly and clearly that every one who wants salvation must pass through the stage of Rishihood -- must become a Mantra-drashta, must see God. That is salvation; that is the law laid down by our scriptures.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Do not talk much, but feel the spirit within you; then you are a Jnani. This is knowledge, all else is ignorance. All that is to be known is Brahman. It is the all. . . .
- Swami Vivekananda, - Inspired Talks

Whether you are an Advaitin, whether you are a qualified monist or dualist, it does not matter much. But let me draw your attention to one thing which unfortunately we always forget: that is -- "O man, have faith in yourself." That is the way by which we can have faith in God.
- Swami Vivekananda, At Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

So long as we have a body and so long as we are deluded by the idea of our identity with the body, so long as we have five senses and see the external world, we must have a Personal God. For if we have all these ideas, we must take, as the great Ramanuja has proved, all the ideas about God and nature and the individualised soul; when you take the one you have to take the whole triangle -- we cannot avoid it. Therefore as long as you see the external world, to avoid a Personal God and a personal soul is arrant lunacy.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

No claim is made by the doer of great deeds, only by lazy worthless fools. - Swami Vivekananda

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Life is short, but the soul is immortal and eternal, and one thing being certain, death, let us therefore take up a great ideal and give up our whole life to it. Let this be our determination, and may He, the Lord, who "comes again and again for the salvation of His own people", to quote from our scriptures -- may the great Krishna bless us and lead us all to the fulfilment of our aims!
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Madras, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvellous work. The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment. Therefore, "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached."
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad -- then pour the soul out at the feet of the Lord, and then will come power, help, and indomitable energy.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Alasinga Perumal from New York

The Vedanta, whether we know it or not, has penetrated all the sects of India, and what we call Hinduism, this mighty banyan with its immense, almost infinite ramifications, has been throughout interpenetrated by the influence of the Vedanta. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we think the Vedanta, we live in the Vedanta, we breathe the Vedanta, and we die in the Vedanta, and every Hindu does that.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Ramanuja's important work is the conversion of Jains and Buddhists to Hinduism. He is a great advocate of image-worship. He introduced love and faith as potent means of salvation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

The great glory of Shankaracharya was his preaching of the Gita. It is one of the greatest works that this great man did among the many noble works of his noble life -- the preaching of the Gita and writing the most beautiful commentary upon it. And he has been followed by all founders of the orthodox sects in India, each of whom has written a commentary on the Gita.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Really speaking, there is naught -- neither volition, nor desire. He is all. He-She-the Mother, is playing, and we are like dolls, Her helpers in this play. Here, She puts one now in the garb of a beggar, another moment in the garb of a king, the next moment in the garb of a saint, and again in the garb of a devil. We are putting on different garbs to help the Mother Spirit in Her play.
- Swami Vivekananda, Sadhanas or Preparations for Higher Life, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Dualism and other isms are very good as means of worship, very satisfying to the mind, and maybe, they have helped the mind onward; but if man wants to be rational and religious at the same time, Advaita is the one system in the world for him.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Renunciation conquered India in days of yore, it has still to conquer India. Still it stands as the greatest and highest of Indian ideals -- this renunciation. The land of Buddha, the land of Ramanuja, of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the land of renunciation, the land where, from the days of yore, Karma Kanda was preached against, and even today there are hundreds who have given up everything, and become Jivanmuktas -- ay, will that land give up its ideals? Certainly not.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Take away the form and shape, and you and I are all one. But we have to guard against the word, "I". Generally people say, "If I am the Brahman, why cannot I do this and that?" But this is using the word in a different sense. As soon as you think you are bound, no more you are Brahman, the Self, who wants nothing, whose light is inside. All His pleasures and bliss are inside; perfectly satisfied with Himself, He wants nothing, expects nothing, perfectly fearless, perfectly free. That is Brahman. In That we are all one.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

What was there in this country of before Buddha's advent? Only a number of religious principles recorded on bundles of palm leaves -- and those too known only to a few. It was Lord Buddha who brought them down to the practical field and showed how to apply them in the everyday life of the people. In a sense, he was the living embodiment of true Vedanta.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

Himalayas stand for that renunciation, and the grand lesson we shall ever teach to humanity will be renunciation. ...
These mountains are associated with on the best memories of our race; if these Himalayas are taken away from the history of religious India, there will be very little left behind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Almora, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Bold has been my message to the people of the West, bolder is my message to you, my beloved countrymen. - Swami Vivekananda

The mighty word that came out from the sky of spirituality in India was Anubhuti, realisation, and ours are the only books which declare again and again: "The Lord is to be seen ". Bold, brave words indeed, but true to their very core; every sound, every vibration is true. Religion is to be realised, not only heard; it is not in learning some doctrine like a parrot. Neither is it mere intellectual assent -- that is nothing; but it must come into us.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

From the lowest worm that crawls under our feet to the noblest and greatest saints, all have this infinite power, infinite purity, and infinite everything. Only the difference is in the degree of manifestation. The worm is only manifesting just a little bit of that energy, you have manifested more, another god-man has manifested still more: that is all the difference. But that infinite power is there all the same. Says Patanjali: [Sanskrit] "Like the peasant irritating his field."
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Follies there are, weakness there must be, but remember your real nature always -- that is the only way to cure the weakness, that is the only way to cure the follies.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

When the senses, without being extremely attached, without jealousy, or without delusion, work in the world, such work or collection of impressions is called pure food, according to Shankaracharya. When pure food is taken, the mind is able to take in objects and think about them without attachment, jealousy or delusion; then the mind becomes pure, and then there is constant memory of God in that mind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Every Prophet is a creation of his own times, the creation of the past of his race; he himself is the creator of the future.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

Very few indeed are there who understand and appreciate, far less live and move, in the grandeur of the full blaze of the light of Vedanta, because the first step for the pure Vedantist is to be Abhih, fearless. Weakness has got to go before a man dares to become a Vedantist, and we know how difficult that is.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

God Himself is the highest goal of man; see Him, enjoy Him. We can never conceive anything higher, because God is perfection. We cannot conceive of any higher enjoyment than that of love, but this word love has different meanings. It does not mean the ordinary selfish love of the world; it is blasphemy to call that love. The love for our children and our wives is mere animal love; that love which is perfectly unselfish is the only love, and that is of God. It is a very difficult thing to attain to.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

If one says the Lord is causing everything to be done, and wilfully persists in wrong-doing, it only brings ruin on him.That is the origin of self-deception. - Swami Vivekananda

Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the faults you suffer from, you are the sole and only cause.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

What makes the difference between man and man is the difference in this Shraddha and nothing else. What makes one man great and another weak and low is this Shraddha. My Master used to say, he who thinks himself weak will become weak, and that is true. This Shraddha must enter into you. Whatever of material power you see manifested bynes the Western races is the outcome of this Shraddha, because they believe in their muscles, and if you believe in your spirit, how much more will it work!
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

If a man, day and night, thinks he is miserable, low, and nothing, nothing he becomes. If you say, yea, yea, "I am, I am", so shall you be; and if you say "I am not", think that you are not, and day and night meditate upon the fact that you are nothing, ay, nothing shall you be. That is the great fact which you ought to remember. We are the children of the Almighty, we are sparks of the infinite, divine fire. How can we be nothings? We are everything, ready to do everything, we can do everything, and man must do everything.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

You must see God. The spirit must be realised, and that is practical religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

It is very good to be born in a church, but it is very bad to die there. To make it clearer, it is very good to be born in a certain sect and have its training -- it brings out our higher qualities; but in the vast majority of cases we die in that little sect, we never come out or grow. That is the great danger of all these worships of Pratikas.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

One defect which lay in the Advaita was its being worked out so long on the spiritual plane only, and nowhere else; now the time has come when you have to make it practical. It shall no more be a Rahasya, a secret, it shall no more live with monks in cave and forests, and in the Himalayas; it must come down to the daily, everyday life of the people; it shall be worked out in the palace of the king, in the cave of the recluse; it shall be worked out in the cottage of the poor, by the beggar in the street, everywhere; anywhere it can be worked out.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

"That science is the greatest which makes us know Him who never changes!" The science of nature, changeful, evanescent, the world of death, of woe, of misery, may be great, great indeed; but the science of Him who changes not, the Blissful One, where alone is peace, where alone is life eternal, where alone is perfection, where alone all misery ceases -- that, according to our ancestors, was the sublimest science of all. -Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The true man is he who is strong as strength itself and yet possesses a woman's heart. - Swami Vivekananda

Consciousness is the name of the surface only of the mental ocean, but within its depths are stored up all our experiences, both pleasant and painful.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

"Me and mine" is a superstition; we have lived in it so long that it is well-nigh impossible to shake it off. Still we must get rid of it if we would rise to the highest.
- Swami Vivekananda, Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

Mark you, your Vedas are not inspired, but expired, not that they came from anywhere outside, but they are the eternal laws living in every soul. The Vedas are in the soul of the ant, in the soul of the god. The ant has only to evolve and get the body of a sage or a Rishi, and the Vedas will come out, eternal laws expressing themselves. This is the one great idea to understand that our power is already ours, our salvation is already within us.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The more and more you are the witness of anything in life, the more you enjoy it. And this is Ananda; and, therefore, infinite bliss can only be yours when you have become the witness of this universe; then alone you are a Mukta Purusha. It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

In religion lies the vitality of India, and so long as the Hindu race do not forget the great inheritance of their forefathers, there is no power on earth to destroy them.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to Maharaja of Khetri'

Form is the grosser and name the finer state of a single manifesting power called thought. But these three are one; it is the Unity and the Trinity, the three degrees of existence of Modern Times of the same thing. Finer, the more condensed, and most condensed. Wherever the one is, the others are there also. Wherever name is, there is form and thought.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

... even if a thousand births have to be taken in order to relieve the sorrows of the world, surely I will take them. If by my doing that, even a single soul may have a little bit of his grief relieved, why, I will do it. Well, what avails it all to have only one's own liberation? All men should be taken along with oneself on that way.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

Would to God that the whole world were Advaitists tomorrow, not only in theory, but in realisation. But if that cannot be, let us do the next best thing; let us take the ignorant by the hand, lead them always step by step just as they can go, and know that every step in all religious growth in India has been progressive. It is not from bad to good, but from good to better.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Religion does not consist in erecting temples, or building churches, or attending public worship. It is not to be found in books, or in words, or in lectures, or in organizations. Religion consists in realisation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. He is there. He is the soul of all souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

To think that this world is the aim and end of life is brutal and degrading. Any man who starts in life with that idea degenerates himself. He will never rise higher, he will never catch this glimpse from behind, he will always be a slave to the senses. He will struggle for the dollar that will get him a few cakes to eat. Better die than live that life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

All the love of the world is hypocrisy and hollowness. A finite subject cannot love, nor a finite object be loved. When the object of the love of a man is dying every moment, and his mind is also constantly changing as he grows, what eternal love can you expect to find in the world? There cannot be any real love but in God: why then all these loves? These are mere stages.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

The object of life is to learn the laws of spiritual progress. - Swami Vivekananda

This world is full of babies to whom eating and drinking, and all these little cakes are everything. They will dream of these cakes, and their idea of future life is where these cakes will be plentiful. ... Each one of us has an ideal of heaven just as we want it to be; but in course of time, as we grow older and see higher things, we catch higher glimpses beyond.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti Yoga, New York

We always forget that this world is a means to an end, and not an end itself. If this were the end we should be immortal here in our physical body; we should never die. But we see people every moment dying around us, and yet, foolishly, we think we shall never die; and from that conviction we come to think that this life is the goal. That is the case with ninety-nine per cent of us. This notion should be given up at once.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Many turn out to be heroes when they have got some great task to perform. Even a coward easily gives up his life, and the most selfish man behaves disinterestedly, when there is a multitude to cheer them on; but blessed indeed is he who manifests the same unselfishness and devotion to duty in the smallest of acts, unnoticed by all -- and it is you who are actually doing this, ye ever-trampled labouring classes of India! I bow to you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Memoirs of European Travel

As soon as extreme attachment comes, a man loses himself, he is no more master of himself, he is a slave. If a woman is tremendously attached to a man, she becomes a slave to that man. There is no use in being a slave. There are higher things in this world than becoming a slave to a human being. Love and do good to everybody, but do not become a slave. In the first place, attachment degenerates us, individually, and in the second place, makes us extremely selfish.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Wherever you are, this is the highest: "I and my Father are one." Realise it. If an image helps, images are welcome. If worshipping a great man helps you, worship him. If worshipping Mohammed helps you, go on. Only be sincere; and if you are sincere, says Vedantism, you are sure to be brought to the goal. None will be left. Your heart, which contains all truth, will unfold itself chapter after chapter, till you know the last truth, that "I and my Father are one."
- Swami Vivekananda, At Pasadena, California

The hand was made to give always. Give the last bit of bread you have even if you are starving. You will be free in a moment if you starve yourself to death by giving to another. Immediately you will be perfect, you will become God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

It is diabolical to say that all animals are created for men to be killed and used in any way man likes. It is the devil's gospel, not God's. Think how diabolical it is to cut them up to see whether a nerve quivers or not, in a certain part of the body.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Do you think that man, the Infinite Spirit was born to be a slave to his eyes, his nose, and his ears? There is an Infinite, Omniscient Spirit behind that can do everything, break every bond; and that Spirit we are, and we get that power through love. This is the ideal we must remember.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall enjoy the earth. - Swami Vivekananda

It is now many years since I found Hinduism to be the most perfectly satisfying religion in the world. Hence I feel sad at heart when I see existing among my own countrymen, professing a peerless faith, such a widespread indifference to our religion -- though I am very well aware of the unfavourable materialistic conditions in which they pass their lives -- owing to the diffusion of European modes of thoughts in this, our great motherland.
- Swami Vivekananda, At Dacca, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

There is no time to deliver a long discourse on "Renunciation", but I shall very briefly characterise it as "the love of death". Worldly people love life. The Sannyasin is to love death. Are we to commit suicide then? Far from it. ... ...
What is the love of death then? We must die, that is certain; let us die then for a good cause. Let all our actions -- eating, drinking, and everything that we do -- tend towards the sacrifice of our self.
- Swami Vivekananda, At Belur Math, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

You must bear in mind that religion does not consist in talk, or doctrine, or books, but in realisation; it is not learning, but being ...
No amount of doctrines or philosophies or ethical books, that you may have stuffed into your brain, will matter much, only what you are and what you have realised.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

To preach the doctrine of Shraddha or genuine faith is the mission of my life. Let me repeat to you that this faith is one of the potent factors of humanity and of all religions. First, have faith in yourselves. Know that though one may be a little bubble and another may be a mountain-high wave, yet behind both the bubble and the wave there is the infinite ocean. Therefore there is hope for every one.
- Swami Vivekananda, At Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The secret of Advaita is: Believe in yourselves first, and then believe in anything else. In the history of the world, you will find that only those nations that have believed in themselves have become great and strong. In the history of each nation, you will always find that only those individuals who have believed in themselves have become great and strong.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

I know, my son, I shall have to come and manufacture men out of you. I know that India is only inhabited by women and eunuchs. So do not fret. I will have to get means to work there. I do not put myself in the hands of imbeciles. You need not worry, do what little you can. I have to work alone from top to bottom.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasing Perumal from US (July 1895)

Know yourself as you are - infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will vanish. That alone will never vanish. It is eternal.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

The loom of the fabric of Aryan civilisation is a vast, warm, level country, interspersed with broad, navigable rivers. The cotton of this cloth is composed of highly civilised, semi-civilised, and barbarian tribes, mostly Aryan. Its warp is Varnashramachara, and its woof, the conquest of strife and competition in nature.
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with immense practicality. You must be prepared to go into deep meditation now, and the next moment you must be ready to go and cultivate these fields (Swamiji said, pointing to the meadows of the Math).
- Swami Vivekananda, At Belur Math Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The body is the objective view of what we call mind (subjective). We, the Self, are beyond both body and mind; we are "Atman", the eternal, unchangeable witness. The body is crystallised thought.
- Swami Vivekananda, Six Lessons on Raja-Yoga, US

Advaita is to be worked out practically. Let us bring it down from heaven unto the earth; this is the present dispensation. Ay, the voices of our forefathers of old are telling us to bring it down from heaven to the earth. Let your teachings permeate the world, till they have entered into every pore of society, till they have become the common property of everybody, till they have become part and parcel of our lives, till they have entered into our veins and tingle with every drop of blood there.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

... mark you this -- the most marvelous historical fact that all the nations of the world have to sit down patiently at the feet of India to learn the eternal truths embodied in her literature. India dies not.
- Swami Vivekananda, At Calcutta, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

The same God whom the ignorant man saw outside nature, the same whom the little-knowing man saw as interpenetrating the universe, and the same whom the sage realises as his own Self, as the whole universe itself -- all are One and the same Being, the same entity seen from different standpoints, seen through different glasses of Maya, perceived by different minds, and all the difference was caused by that. Not only so, but one view must lead to the other.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Whether you know it or not, through all hands you work, through all feet you move, you are the king enjoying in the palace, you are the beggar leading that miserable existence in the street; you are in the ignorant as well as in the learned, you are in the man who is weak, and you are in the strong; know this and be sympathetic. And that is why we must not hurt others.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Mark you, let us all be honest. If we cannot follow the ideal, let us confess our weakness, but not degrade it; let not any try to pull it down.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

What is salvation? To live with God. Where? Anywhere. Here this moment. One moment in infinite time is quite as good as any other moment.
- Swami Vivekananda, At Pasadena, California

Ay, the Buddhists say that ninety per cent of these vices that you see in every society are on account of this idea of a Personal God; this is an awful idea of the human being that the end and aim of this expression of life, this wonderful expression of life, is to become like a dog. Says the Buddhist to the Vaishnava, if your ideal, your aim and goal is to go to the place called Vaikuntha where God lives, and there stand before Him with folded hands all through eternity, it is better to commit suicide than do that.
- Swami Vivekananda, Address at Lahore, Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Infinite power of the spirit brought to bear upon matter evolves material development, made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and made to act upon itself makes of man a God.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

Time is but the method of our thinking, but we are the eternally present tense. - Swami Vivekananda

And what your European Pundits say about the Aryan's swooping down from some foreign land, snatching away the lands of the aborigines and settling in India by exterminating them, is all pure nonsense, foolish talk! Strange, that our Indian scholars, too, say amen to them; and all these monstrous lies are being taught to our boys! This is very bad indeed.
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

Religion does not consist in believing any number of doctrines or dogmas, in going to churches or temples, in reading certain books. Have you seen God? Have you seen the soul? If not, are you struggling for it? It is here and now, and you have not to wait for the future. What is the future but the present illimitable? What is the whole amount of time but one second repeated again and again? Religion is here and now, in this present life.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at New York

Unselfish and genuine zeal for real scholarship and honest earnest thought must again become dominant in the life of our countrymen if they are ever to rise to occupy among nations a rank worthy of their own historic past.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'On Dr Paul Deussen' - Article in Brahmavadin, 1896

Every Hindu that goes out to travel in foreign parts renders more benefit to his country than hundreds of men who are bundles of superstitions and selfishness, and whose one aim in life seems to be like that of the dog in the manger. The wonderful structures of national life which the Western nations have raised, are supported by the strong pillars of character, and until we can produce numbers of such, it is useless to fret and fume against this or that power.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written from Chicago (Sept 1894)

There may be millions of radii converging towards the same centre in the sun. The further they are from the centre, the greater is the distance between any two. But as they all meet at the centre, all difference vanishes. There is such a centre, which is the absolute goal of mankind. It is God. We are the radii. The distances between the radii are the constitutional limitations through which alone we can catch the vision of God..
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

The Indian nation cannot be killed. Deathless it stands and it will stand so long as that spirit shall remain as the background, so long as her people do not give up their spirituality.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

The drama, in India, was a very holy thing. Drama and music are themselves held to be religion. Any song -- whether it be a love-song or otherwise -- if one's whole soul is in that song, one attains salvation, one has nothing else to do. They say it leads to the same goal as meditation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

All this false love of mystery should be knocked on the head the first time it comes into your mind. No one who is the least bit impure will ever become religious. Do not try to cover festering sores with masses of roses. Do you think you can cheat God? None can. Give me a straightforward man or woman; but Lord save me from ghosts, flying angels, and devils. Be common, everyday, nice people.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

All attempts to herd together human beings by means of armies, force, or arguments, to drive them pell-mell into the same enclosure and make them worship the same God have failed, and will fail always, because it is constitutionally impossible to do so. Not only so, there is the danger of arresting their growth.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Does not God know what we are going to be? He knows we are all going to be perfect, sooner or later. He has patience, infinite patience. We must love Him, and everyone that lives -- only in and through Him.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

It is all right for those who have plenty of money and position to let the world roll on such, but I call him a traitor who, having been educated, nursed in luxury by the heart's blood of the downtrodden millions of toiling poor, never even takes a thought for them.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Sri Haridas Desai from Chicago (November 1894)

The ideal of all religions, all sects, is the same -- the attaining of liberty and cessation of misery. Wherever you find religion, you find this ideal working in one form or other. Of course in lower stages of religion it is not so well expressed; but still, well or ill-expressed, it is the one goal to which every religion approaches. -- physical, mental, spiritual. All of us want to get rid of misery; we are struggling to attain to liberty. This is the whole idea upon which the world is working.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

I believe in thinking independently. I believe in becoming entirely free from the holy teachers; pay all reverence to them, but look at religion as an independent research. I have to find my light, just as they found theirs. Their finding the light will not satisfy us at all. You have to become the Bible, and not to follow it, excepting as paying reverence to it as a light on the way, as a guide-post, a mark: that is all the value it has.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

No religion on earth preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as Hinduism, and no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a fashion as Hinduism.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Massachusetts (August 1893)

Let each one of us pray day and night for the down-trodden millions in India who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny -- pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich. I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor, I love the poor. Him I call a Mahatman (great soul) whose heart bleeds for the poor, otherwise he is a Duratman (wicked soul). Let us unite our wills in continued prayer for their good.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (1894)

The South [India] has Hinduism alive during the Mohammedan rule and even for some time previous to it. It was in the South that Shankaracharya was born, among that caste who wear a tuft on the front of the head and eat food prepared with coconut oil: this was the country that produced Ramanuja: it was also the birthplace of Madhva Muni. Modern Hinduism owes its allegiance to these alone.
- Swami Vivekananda, Memoirs of European Travel

Hate not the most abject sinner, look not to his exterior. Turn thy gaze inward, where resides the Paramatman. Proclaim to the whole world with trumpet voice, "There is no sin in thee, there is no misery in thee; thou art the reservoir of omnipotent power. Arise, awake, and manifest the Divinity within!"
- Swami Vivekananda, Gita Class at Alambazar Math, Calcutta

Europe has always been the source of social, and Asia of spiritual power; and the whole history of the world is the tale of the varying combinations of those two powers. Slowly a new leaf is being turned in the story of humanity. The signs of this are everywhere.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to ET Sturdy from New York (1895)

Man stands in materialism; you and I are materialists. Our talking about God and Spirit is good; but it is simply the vogue in our society to talk thus: we have learnt it parrot-like and repeat it. So we have to take ourselves where we are as materialists, and must take the help of matter and go on slowly until we become real spiritualists, and feel ourselves spirits, understand the spirit, and find that this world which we call the infinite is but a gross external form of that world which is behind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

The extremely ignorant do not worship God, not being developed enough to feel the need for so doing. Those that have attained the highest knowledge also do not worship God -- having realised and become one with God. God never worships God. Between these two poles of existence, if anyone tells you he is not going to worship God as man, take care of him. He is an irresponsible talker, he is mistaken; his religion is for frothy thinkers, it is intellectual nonsense.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

We are prone to concretize. How could we be here if we did not concretize? We are concreted spirits, and so we find ourselves here on this earth.Concretization has brought us here, and will take us out. Going after things of the senses has made us human beings, and we are bound to worship personal beings, whatever we may say to the contrary.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

There is something much higher than life even. This life is inferior, material. Why should I live at all? I am something higher than life. Living is always slavery. We always get mixed up. . . . Everything is a continuous chain of slavery.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at San Francisco

[You may] pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are, [but] unless you realise the soul there is no freedom. Not talking, theorising, argumentation, but realisation. That I call practical religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

We have no business to look at the faults of others: it does no good. We must not even think of them. Our business is with the good. We are not here to deal with faults. Our business is to be good.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at San Francisco

Bhakti is divided into two portions. One is called Vaidhi, formal or ceremonial; the other portion is called Mukhya, supreme. The word Bhakti covers all the ground between the lowest form of worship and the highest form of life. All the worship that you have seen in any country in the world, or in any religion, is regulated by love.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

You are perfectly correct in saying that we will have to learn many things from Japan. The help that Japan will give us will be with great sympathy and respect, whereas that from the West unsympathetic and destructive. Certainly it is very desirable to establish a connection between India and Japan.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Josephine Macleod from Belur Math (June 1901)

And then Prahlada replied, "That intense love, O Lord, which the ignorant bear to worldly things, may I have the same love for Thee; may I have the same intensity of love for Thee, but only for love's sake!"
- Swami Vivekananda, The Story of Prahlada, at California

If you want to love, love God. Who cares for these things of the world? This world is utterly false; all the great teachers of the world found that out; there is no way out of it but through God. He is the goal of our life; all ideas that the world is the goal of life are pernicious. This world and this body have their own value, a secondary value, as a means to an end; but the world should not be the end.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

The Vaishnavas of the Chaitanya sect form merely a recension of the Madhva sect; the religious reformers of the North such as Kabir, Dadu, Nanak, and Ramsanehi are all an echo of Shankaracharya; there you find the disciples of Ramanuja occupying Ayodhya and other places. These Brahmins of the South do not recognise those of the North as true Brahmins, nor accept them as disciples, and even to the other day would not admit them to Sannyasa.
- Swami Vivekananda, Memoirs of European Travel

Unfortunately, too often we make the world the end and God the means. We find people going to church and saying, "God, give me such and such; God, heal my disease." They want nice healthy bodies; and because they hear that someone will do this work for them, they go and pray to Him. It is better to be an atheist than to have such an idea of religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga,

As the loving wife thinks of her departed husband, with the same love we must desire the Lord, and then we will find God and all books and the various sciences would not be able to teach us anything. By reading books we become parrots; no one becomes learned by reading books. If a man reads but one word of love, he indeed becomes learned. So we want first to get that desire.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Man must realise God, feel God, see God, talk to God. That is religion. The Indian atmosphere is full of stories of saintly persons having visions of God. Such doctrines form the basis of their religion; and all these nes ancient books and scriptures are the writings of persons who came into direct contact with spiritual facts.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

So long as our needs are confined within the narrow limits of this physical universe, we cannot have any need for God; it is only when we have become satiated with everything there that we look beyond for a supply. It is only when the need is there that the demand will come. Have done with this child's play of the world as soon as you can, and then you will feel the necessity of something beyond the world, and the first step in religion will come.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

From highest Brahman to the yonder worm, And to the very minutest atom, Everywhere is the same God, the All-love; Friend, offer mind, soul, body, at their feet. These are His manifold forms before thee, Rejecting them, where seekest thou for God? Who loves all beings without distinction, He indeed is worshipping best his God.
- Swami Vivekananda, from "To A Friend' - poem in Bengali

Spiritual truth is purity. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". In that one sentence is the gist of all religions. If you have learnt that, all that has been said in the past and all that it is possible to say in the future, you have known; you need not look into anything else, for you have all that is necessary in that one sentence; it could save the world, were all the other scriptures lost.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

All ideas and feelings coming out of the fullness of the heart are known by their fruits - practical works. - Swami Vivekananda

The individual's life is in the life of the whole, the individual's happiness is in the happiness of the whole; apart from the whole, the individual's existence is inconceivable -- this is an eternal truth and is the bed-rock on which the universe is built. To move slowly towards the infinite whole, bearing a constant feeling of intense sympathy and sameness with it, being happy with its happiness and being distressed in its affliction, is the individual's sole duty. Not only is it his duty, but in its transgression is his death, while compliance with this great truth leads to life immortal.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Modern India' - an article written in Bengali for Udbodhan

Your Atman is the support of the universe - whose support do you stand in need of? - Swami Vivekananda

Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral. Try to be moral, try to be brave, try to be sympathising.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter

Man has an idea that there can be only one religion, that there can be only one Prophet, and that there can be only one Incarnation; but that idea is not true. By studying the lives of all these great Messengers, we find that each, as it were, was destined to play a part, and a part only; that the harmony consists in the sum total and not in one note.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

I am ashamed of my own nation when I compare their beggarly, selfish, unappreciative, ignorant ungratefulness with the help, hospitality, sympathy, and respect which the Americans have shown to me, a representative of a foreign religion. Therefore come out of the country, see others, and compare.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Sri Haridas Desai from Chicago (November 1894)

What is in the word, unless it has the Power behind? What matters it what language you speak, and how you arrange your language? What matters it whether you speak correct grammar or with fine rhetoric? What matters it whether your language is ornamental or not? The question is whether or not you have anything to give. It is a question of giving and taking, and not listening.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Unselfish Work is True Renunciation', Notes of Class Talks and Lectures, Vol VI

Remember! the message of India is always "Not the soul for nature, but nature for the soul! - Swami Vivekananda

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.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

Better that you had no learning, better that you never read a book in your life. These are not at all necessary for salvation -- neither wealth, nor position nor power, not even learning; but what is necessary is that one thing, purity. "Blessed are the pure in heart," for the spirit in its own nature is pure.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to "Kidi" from Chicago

The life of every man is, in a manner, the life of the past. It comes to him through heredity, through surroundings, through education, through his own reincarnation -- the past of the race. In a manner, the past of the earth, the past of the whole world is there, upon every soul. What are we, in the present, but a result, an effect, in the hands of that infinite past? What are we but floating wavelets in the eternal current of events, irresistibly moved forward and onward and incapable of rest?
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

Machines never made mankind happy, and never will make. He who is trying to make us believe this, will claim that happiness is in the machine; but it is always in the mind. That man alone who is the lord of his own mind can become happy, and none else.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

Who dares misery love, And hug the form of Death, Dance in Destruction's dance, To him the Mother comes.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Kali The Mother' poem

A man may be intellectual, or devotional, or mystic, or active; the various religions represent one or the other of these types. Yet it is possible to combine all the four in one man, and this is what future humanity is going to do.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

The only service to be done for our lower classes is to give them education, to develop their lost individuality. That is the great task between our people and princes.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Maharaja of Mysore from Chicago

Be strong and stand up and seek the God of Love. This is the highest strength. What power is higher than the power of purity? Love and purity govern the world. This love of God cannot be reached by the weak; therefore, be not weak, either physically, mentally, morally or spiritually. The Lord alone is true. Everything else is untrue; everything else should be rejected for the sake of the Lord. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Serve the Lord and Him alone.
- Swami Vivekananda, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

Philosophers might fret and sneer, and priests ply their trade even at the point of the sword, but truth comes to those alone who worship at her [i.e. truth's] shrine for her sake only, without fear and without shopkeeping.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reincarnation' - Article contributed to Metaphysical Magazine, New York

We do not only tolerate but accept every religion, and with the Lord's help I am trying to preach it to the whole world.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Haridas V Desai from Chicago (January 1894)

If one word remains true in the saying, it is, give up everything for the sake of the Lord. This is a hard and long task, but you can begin it here and now. Bit by bit we must go towards it.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

As regards those of you that think that you understand Truth and Divinity and God in only one Prophet in the world, and not in any other, naturally, the conclusion which I draw is that you do not understand Divinity in anybody; you have simply swallowed words and identified yourself with one sect, just as you would in party politics, as a matter of opinion; but that is no religion at all.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California Times

Systems of philosophy mean nothing to mankind, or at best only intellectual gymnastics, unless they are joined to religion and can get a body of men struggling to bring them down to practical life with more or less success. Even systems having not one positive hope, when taken up by groups and made somewhat practical, had always a multitude; and the most elaborate positive systems of thought withered away without it.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba'

To learn this central secret that the Truth may be one and yet many at the same time, that we may have different visions of the same Truth from different standpoints, is exactly what must be done. Then, instead of antagonism to anyone, we shall have infinite sympathy with all.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

I am the infinite blue sky. Over me pass these clouds of various colours, remain a moment, and vanish. I am the same eternal blue. I am the witness, the same eternal witness of all. I see, therefore nature exists. I do not see, therefore she does not. Not one of us could see or speak if this infinite unity were broken for a moment.
- Swami Vivekananda, Lecture in New York June 1900

One man who manifests the ideal in his life is more powerful than legions whose words can paint it in the most beautiful colours and spin out the finest principles.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba'

We should work in the best way we can, without dragging the ideal down. Here is the ideal. When a man has no more self in him, no possession, nothing to call "me" or "mine",has given himself up entirely, destroyed himself as it were -- in that man is God Himself; for in him self-will is gone, crushed out, annihilated. That is the ideal man.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

The power of suffering is infinitely greater than the power of doing; the power of love is infinitely of greater potency than the power of hatred.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on My Master'

If a man throws aside the vanities of the world we hear him called mad. But such men are the salt of the earth. Out of such madness have come the powers that have moved this world of ours, and out of such madness alone will come the powers of the future, that are going to move the world.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

We have to sense God to be convinced that there is a God. We must sense the facts of religion to know that they are facts. Nothing else, and no amount of reasoning, but our own perception can make these things real to us, can make my belief firm as a rock. That is my idea, and that is the Indian idea.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

In the long run this power of meditation separates ourselves from the body, and then the soul knows itself as it is -- the unborn, the deathless, and birthless being. No more is there any misery, no more births upon this earth, no more evolution.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

The mind and the body, in fact all the various phenomena of nature, are in a condition of incessant change. But the highest aspiration of our spirit is to find out something that does not change, that has reached a state of permanent perfection. And this is the aspiration of the human soul after the Infinite!
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

Darkness and light, enjoyment of the world and enjoyment of God will never go together. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Let people try it if they will, and I have seen millions in every country who have tried; but after all, it comes to nothing.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

Even luxuries are arranged according to ideas and ideals, to make them reflect as much of thought-life as possible - and this is Art.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba'

Without dispassion for the world, without renunciation, without giving up the desire for enjoyment, absolutely nothing can be accomplished in the spiritual life. - Swami Vivekananda

Self-sacrifice, indeed, is the basis of all civilisation. - Swami Vivekananda

What is this creation for? Just fun. We forget this and begin to quarrel and endure misery. We are the playmates of the Mother. - Swami Vivekananda

Can anyone, my dear friend, have faith or resignation in the Lord, unless he himself is a hero? Never can hatred and malice vanish from one's heart unless one becomes a hero, and unless one is free from these, how can one become truly civilised?
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

Our salutations go to all the past Prophets whose teachings and lives we have inherited, whatever might have been their race, clime erreg Our salutations go to all those Godlike men and women who are working to help humanity, whatever be their birth, colour, or race. Our salutations to those who are coming in the future -- living Gods to work unselfishly for our descendants.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

Our mind and bodies are dependent on the external world, and this dependence varies according to the nature of their relation to it; but the indwelling spirit is free, as God is free, and is able to direct in a greater or lesser degree, according to the state of their development, the movements of our minds and bodies.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

In the midst of all our weakness there is a moment of pause and the voice rings: "Give up all that thou hast; give it to the poor and follow me." This is the one ideal he [Christ] preaches, and this has been the ideal preached by all the great Prophets of the world: renunciation. What is meant by renunciation? That there is only one ideal in morality: unselfishness. Be selfless. The ideal is perfect unselfishness.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Los Angles

The spirit of the highest is related to the spirit of the lowest, and the germ of infinite perfection exists in all. We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavor to see the good that dwells in everything.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

Ignorance sees manifold. Knowledge realises one... Reducing the many into one is science. The whole of the universe has been demonstrated into one. That science is called the science of Vedanta. The whole universe is one. The one runs through all this seeming variety....
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at San Francisco

It is true that external nature is majestic, with its mountains, and oceans, and rivers, and with its infinite powers and varieties. Yet there is a more majestic internal nature of man, higher than the sun, moon and stars, higher than this earth of ours, higher than the physical universe, transcending these little lives of ours; and it affords another field of study.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on My Master'

It [Religion] has made man what he is, and will make of this human animal a God. That is what religion can do. Take off religion from human society, what will remain? Nothing but a forest of brutes.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at New York

He must be made of stone whose mind does not melt at the sight of Kashi and its Lord! - Swami Vivekananda

The soul that reigns within is independent and creates the desire for freedom. If we are not free, how can we hope to make the world better? We hold that human progress is the result of the action of the human spirit. What the world is, and what we ourselves are, are the fruits of the freedom of the spirit.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

Every human personality may be compared to a glass globe. There is the same pure white light -- an emission of the divine Being -- in the centre of each, but the glass being of different colors and thickness, the rays assume diverse aspects in the transmission.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

Impress upon your children that true religion is positive and not negative, that it does not consist in merely refraining from evil, but in a persistent performance of noble deeds. True religion comes not from the teaching of men or the reading of books; it is the awakening of the spirit within us, consequent upon pure and heroic action.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Brooklyn

Great men have died. Weak men have died. Gods have died. Death -- death everywhere. This world is a graveyard of the infinite past, yet we cling to this [body]: "I am never going to die".
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

Truth, purity, and unselfishness -- wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition. - Swami Vivekananda

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love. - Swami Vivekananda

Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly. Why degrade the soul to the level of animals? You not only hurt yourselves thereby, but you injure society, and make danger for those that come after you. Stand up and reason out, having no blind faith. Religion is a question of being and becoming, not of believing.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at New York

Work hard, be steady, and have faith in the Lord. Set to work, ... Keep the motto before you -- "Elevation of the masses without injuring their religion".
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Madras Disciples from Chicago (January 1894)

Of the West, the goal is individual independence, the language money-making education, the means politics; of India, the goal is Mukti, the language the Veda, the means renunciation.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Modern India' an article written in Bengali for Udbodhan

Each work has to pass through these stages -- ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance.Each man who thinks ahead of his time is sure to be misunderstood.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Maharaja of Khetri from US (July 1895)

First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods. "Be and make." Let this be our motto. Say not man is a sinner. Tell him that he is a God. Even if there were a devil, it would be our duty to remember God always, and not the devil.
- Swami Vivekananda, Reply to the Madras Address

Who commits mistakes, the path of truth is attainable by him only. Trees never make mistakes, nor do stones fall into error; animals are hardly seen to transgress the fixed laws of nature; but man is prone to err, and it is man who becomes God-on-earth.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Modern India' - an article written in Bengali for Udbodhan

It is more blessed, in my opinion, even to go wrong, impelled by one's free will and intelligence than to be good as an automaton. - Swami Vivekananda

My noble Prince, this life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Maharaja of Mysore from Chicago

I am the spirit -- the soul no instrument can pierce, no sword can cut asunder, no fire can burn, no air can dry. Unborn and uncreated, without beginning and without end, deathless, birthless and omnipresent -- that is what I am; and all misery comes just because I think this little lump of clay is myself.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

... Try to be pure and unselfish -- that is the whole of religion...
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Govinda Sahay

The growth of man can only be gauged by his power of living in the higher atmosphere where the senses are left behind, the amount of the pure thought-oxygen his lungs can breathe in, and the amount of time he can spend on that height.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba'

My Master used to say: "Religion can be given and taken more tangibly, more really than anything else in the world." Be therefore spiritual first; have something to give, and then stand before the world and give it. Religion is not talk, or doctrines or theories; nor is it sectarianism. Religion cannot live in sects and societies. It is the relation between the soul and God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk on 'My Master'

The impulsions from the plane of unconsciousness are what we call instinct, and when the same impulsions come from the plane of consciousness, we call it reason. But there is a still higher plane, superconsciousness in man. This is apparently the same as unconsciousness, because it is beyond the plane of consciousness, but it is above consciousness and not below it. It is not instinct, it is inspiration.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at New York

While I am on earth, Shri Ramakrishna is working through me. So long as you believe in this there is no danger of any evil for you.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Ramakrishnananda (1895)

There is death, you know, inevitable death, in water, in air, in the palace, in the prison -- death everywhere. What makes you fearless? When you have realised what you are -- that infinite spirit, deathless, birthless. Him no fire can burn, no instrument kill, no poison hurt.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

What is education? Is it book-learning? No. Is it diverse knowledge? Not even that. The training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become fruitful is called education.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Mrinalini Bose from Deoghar in Bengali

The lower the animal, the more is its enjoyment in the senses, the more it lives in the senses. Civilisation, true civilisation, should mean the power of taking the animal-man out of his sense-life -- by giving him visions and tastes of planes much higher -- and not external comforts. - Swami Vivekananda 'Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba'

Monotheism like absolute monarchy is quick in executing orders, and a great centralisation of force, but it grows no farther, and its worst feature is its cruelty and persecution. All nations coming within its influence perish very soon after a flaring up of a few years.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'India's Message to the World'

People in these days are apt to take up religion as a means to some social or political end. Beware of this. Religion is its own end. That religion which is only a means to worldly well-being is not religion, whatever else it may be; and it is sheer blasphemy against God and man to hold that man has no other end than the free and full enjoyment of all the pleasure of his senses.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'On Profssor Max Muller' - Article for Brahmavadin, from London, 1896

Excepting the infinite spirit, everything else is changing. There is the whirl of change. Permanence is nowhere except in yourself. There is the infinite joy, unchanging. Meditation is the gate that opens that to us. Prayers, ceremonials, and all the other forms of worship are simply kindergartens of meditation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Alameda, California

It is the design of the Eternal that there is nothing in this world to satisfy my soul, nothing in the heavens above, and nothing beneath. Before the desire of my soul, the stars and the worlds, upper and lower, the whole universe, is but a hateful disease, nothing but that. That is the meaning. … All nature is crying through all the atoms for one thing -- its perfect freedom.
- Swami Vivekananda, - Talk at Alameda, California

My children, the secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice. To be good and to do good -- that is the whole of religion. "Not he that crieth 'Lord', 'Lord', but he that doeth the will of the Father".
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Govinda Sahay

The only way of getting our divine nature manifested is by helping others to do the same. - Swami Vivekananda

"Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die." Be of good cheer and believe that we are selected by the Lord to do great things, and we will do them. Hold yourself in readiness, i.e. be pure and holy, and love for love's sake. Love the poor, the miserable, the down-trodden, and the Lord will bless you.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (November 1893)

Ignorance, inequality, and desire are the three causes of human misery, and each follows the other in inevitable union. Why should a man think himself above any other man, or even an animal? It is the same throughout: [Sanskrit] -- "Thou art the man, Thou the woman, Thou art the young man, Thou the young woman."
- Swami Vivekananda, Reply to Maharaja of Khetri'

Let us wipe off first that mark which nature always puts on the forehead of a slave -- the stain of jealousy. Be jealous of none. Be ready to lend a hand to every worker of good. Send a good thought for every being in the three worlds.
- Swami Vivekananda, Reply to the Madras Address'

Say, brother; "The soil of India is my highest heaven, repeat and pray day and night, the good of India is my good," and "O Thou Lord of Gauri, O Thou Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of Strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and make me a Man!"
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Modern India' - an article written in Bengali for Udbodhan

The Hindu drank in with his mother's milk that this life is as nothing -- a dream! In this he is at one with the Westerners; but the Westerner sees no further and his conclusion is that of the Charvaka -- to "make hay while the sun shines". "This world being a miserable hole, let us enjoy to the utmost what morsels of pleasure are left to us." To the Hindu, on the other hand, God and soul are the only realities, infinitely more real than this world, and he is therefore ever ready to let this go for the other.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'The Social Conference Address'

They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams As father, mother, children, wife, and friend. The sexless Self! whose father He? whose child? Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One? The Self is all in all, none else exists; And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!"
- Swami Vivekananda, "THE SONG OF THE SANNYASIN', Composed at the Thousand Island Park, NY, July, 1895

If one be asked to point out the system of thought towards which as a centre all the ancient and modern Indian thoughts have converged, if one wants to see the real backbone of Hinduism in all its various manifestations, the Sutras of Vyasa will unquestionably be pointed out as constituting all that.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

Tyaga (renunciation) is never liked by the higher classes of Bengal. Their tendency is for Bhoga (enjoyment) How can they get a deep insight into spiritual things? "By renunciation alone immortality was reached." How can it be otherwise?
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

Our solution is unworldliness - renunciation. This is the theme of Indian life-work, the burden of her eternal songs, the backbone of her existence, the foundation of her being, the raison d'etre of her very existence -- the spiritualisation of the human race. In this her life-course she has never deviated, whether the Tartar ruled or the Turk, whether the Mogul ruled or the English.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'India's Message to the World'

Push on with the organization. Nothing else is necessary but these -- love, sincerity, and patience. What is life but growth, i.e. expansion, i.e. love? Therefore all love is life, it is the only law of life; all selfishness is death, and this is true here or hereafter.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Alasinga Perumal from New York

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself. - Swami Vivekananda

Strength is in goodness, in purity. - Swami Vivekananda

The universe is - objectified God. - Swami Vivekananda

The dwelling-place of the Jivatman, this body, is a veritable means of work, and he who converts this into an infernal den is guilty, and he who neglects it is also to blame.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Balaram Basu

Work hundreds of lives out, search every corner of your mind for ages - and still you will not find one noble religious idea that is not already imbedded in that infinite mine of spirituality [Vedas]
- Swami Vivekananda, Reply to the Madras Address

It is knowledge that opens the door to regions of wonder, knowledge that makes a god of an animal: and that knowledge which brings us to That, "knowing which everything else is known" (the heart of all knowledge -- whose pulsation brings life to all sciences -- the science of religion) is certainly the highest, as it alone can make man live a complete and perfect life in thought. Blessed be the land which has styled it "supreme science"!
- Swami Vivekananda, "Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba"

Three things are necessary to make every man great, every nation great:
1. Conviction of the powers of goodness.
2. Absence of jealousy and suspicion.
3. Helping all who are trying to be and do good.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Haridas V Desai from Chicago (January 1894)

What we call extraordinary, superconscious inspiration is only the result of a higher development
of ordinary consciousness, gained by long and continued effort. The difference between the
ordinary and the extraordinary is merely one of degree in manifestation. Conscious efforts lead
the way to superconscious illumination.
- Swami Vivekananda, in an article written for Udbodhan

Those amongst us who are not yet fit, but who hope to be fit, to reach to that absolutely pure
Paramahamsa state - for them the acquirement of Rajas or intense activity is what is most
beneficial now. Unless a man passes through Rajas, can he ever attain to that perfect Sattvika
state? How can one expect Yoga or union with God, unless one has previously finished with his
thirst for Bhoga or enjoyment?
- Swami Vivekananda, Introductory article in Bengali written for Udbodhan (Jan 1899)

Generalisation is the essence of knowledge. Generalisation is impossible without a storage of
similarities. Even the fact of comparison is impossible without previous experience. Knowledge
thus is impossible without previous knowledge - and knowledge necessitating the existence of
both thought and matter, both of them are without beginning.
- Swami Vivekananda, found in an unfinished article

One Ramachandra is born after thousands of Agnivarnas pass away! Many kings show us the
life of Chandashoka; Dharmashokas are rare! The number of kings like Akbar, in whom the
subjects find their life, is far less than that of kings like Aurangzeb who live on the blood of their
people!
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Modern India' - an Bengali article written for Udbodhan

Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the world wants is character.
The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every
word tell like thunderbolt.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Miss Noble (Sister Nivedita) from London (June 1896)
Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And this truth is with us!
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to ET Sturdy from New York (August 1895)

One cannot serve the God of Truth who leans upon somebody. Be still, my soul! Be alone! and
the Lord is with you. Life is nothing! Death is a delusion! All this is not, God alone is! Fear not,
my soul! Be alone.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from New York (February 1895)

Say, "Peace to all: From me no danger be To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high. In
those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all!
All life both here and there, do I renounce, All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and
fears." Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!"
-Swami Vivekananda, "THE SONG OF THE SANNYASIN', Composed at the Thousand Island Park, NY, July, 1895

Coming and going is all pure delusion. The soul never comes nor goes. Where is the place to
which it shall go when all space is in the soul? When shall be the time for entering and departing
when all time is in the soul?
- Swami Vivekananda, - in a Letter to Mrs. Ole Bull from Brooklyn (January 1895)

You have not yet understood the wonderful significance of Mother's life -- none of you. But
gradually you will know. Without Shakti (Power) there is no regeneration for the world. Why is it
that our country is the weakest and the most backward of all countries?-- because Shakti is held
in dishonour there. Mother has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India; and making
her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and Maitreyis be born into the world.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Shivananda from US (1894)

Look not up in that attitude of fear towards that infinite starry vault as if it would crush you. Wait!
In a few hours more, the whole of it will be under your feet. Wait, money does not pay, nor
name; fame does not pay, nor learning. It is love that pays; it is character that cleaves its way
through adamantine walls of difficulties.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Alasinga Perumal from New York

… to realise God, the Brahman, as the Dvaitins say, or to become Brahman, as the Advaitins
say -- is the aim and end of the whole teaching of the Vedas; and every other teaching, therein
contained, represents a stage in the course of our progress thereto. And the great glory of
Bhagavan Bhashyakara Shankaracharya is that it was his genius that gave the most wonderful
expression to the ideas of Vyasa.
- Swami Vivekananda, Reply to the Madras Address

Know you are the Infinite, then fear must die. Say ever, "I and my Father are one.'
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

These two gigantic rivers (Aryans and Yavanas), issuing from far-away and different mountains
(India and Greece), occasionally come in contact with each other, and whenever such
confluence takes place, a tremendous intellectual or spiritual tide, rising in human societies,
greatly expands the range of civilisation and confirms the bond of universal brotherhood among
men.
- Swami Vivekananda, Introductory article in Bengali written for Udbodhan (Jan 1899)

I do not believe in a God or religion which cannot wipe the widow's tears or bring a piece of
bread to the orphan's mouth. However sublime be the theories, however well-spun may be the
philosophy -- i do not call it religion so long as it is confined to books and dogmas.
-Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Washington DC (October 1894)
Worldliness and realisation of God cannot go together.
- Swami Vivekananda

Sitting in luxurious homes, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and doling out a little amateur
religion may be good for other lands, but India has a truer instinct.
It intuitively detects the mask. You must give up. Be great. No great work can be done without
sacrifice.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world
Nor that can give. In books and temples vain
Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds
The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament,
Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say - --
"Om Tat Sat, Om!"
- Swami Vivekananda, "THE SONG OF THE SANNYASIN' Composed at the Thousand Island
Park, New York, July, 1895

Let us know that all that is negative, all that is destructive, all that is mere criticism, is bound to
pass away; it is the positive, the affirmative, the constructive that is immortal, that will remain for
ever. Let us say, "We are" and "God is" and "We are God", "Shivoham, Shivoham", and march on.
Not matter but spirit.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

The one idea the Hindu religions differ in from every other in the world, the one idea to express
which the sages almost exhaust the vocabulary of the Sanskrit language, is that man must
realise God even in this life. And the Advaita texts very logically add, "To know God is to
become God."
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to the Madras Address'

I am grateful to the lands of the West for the many warm hearts that received me with all the
love that pure and disinterested souls alone could give; but my life's allegiance is to this my
motherland; and if I had thousand lives, every moment of the whole series would be
consecrated to your service, my countrymen, my friends.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'India's Message to the World'

I will compare truth to a corrosive substance of infinite power. It burns its way in wherever it falls
-- in soft substance at once, hard granite slowly, but it must.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from New York (February 1895)

My son, hold fast! Do not care for anybody to help you. Is not the Lord infinitely greater than all
human help? Be holy -- trust in the Lord, depend on Him always, and you are on the right track;
nothing can prevail against you....
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (1894)

Multitude counts for nothing. A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men can do more in a
year than a mob in a century.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to ET Sturdy from New York (August 1895)

Wisdom, knowledge, wealth, men, strength, prowess, and whatever else nature gathers and
provides us with, are all only for diffusion, when the moment of need is at hand. We often forget
this fact, put the stamp of "mine only" upon the entrusted deposits, and pari passu, we sow the
seed of our own ruin!
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Modern India' - an article written in Bengali for Udbodhan

I am no politician or political agitator. I care only for the Spirit -- when that is right everything will
be righted by itself... … no political significance be ever attached falsely to any of my writings or sayings.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from USA (September 1894)

The power of the ideal is in the practical. Its work on us is in and through the practical. Through
the practical, the ideal is brought down to our sense-perception, changed into a form fit for our
assimilation. of the practical we make the steps to rise to the ideal. On that we build our hopes;
it gives us courage to work.
- Swami Vivekananda, Sketch of The Life of Pavhari Baba

Those that want to help mankind must take their own pleasure and pain, name and fame, and
all sorts of interests, and make a bundle of them and throw them into the sea, and then come to
the Lord. This is what all the Masters said and did.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mrs. Ole Bull from New York (March 1895)

Infinite perfection is in every man, though unmanifested. Every man has in him the potentiality of
attaining to perfect saintliness, Rishihood, or to the most exalted position of an Avatara, or to the
greatness of a hero in material discoveries. It is only a question of time and adequate
well-guided investigation, etc., to have this perfection manifested.
- Swami Vivekananda, an article written for Udbodhan

My name should not be made prominent; it is my ideas that I want to see realised. The disciples
of all the prophets have always inextricably mixed up the ideas of the Master with the person,
and at last killed the ideas for the person.
The disciples of Shri Ramakrishna must guard against doing the same thing. Work for the idea,
not the person. The Lord bless you.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from US (January 1895)

Infinite patience, infinite purity, and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good
cause.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from New York (May 1895)

Not a drop will be in the ocean, not a twig in the deepest forest, not a crumb in the house of the
god of wealth, if the Lord is not merciful. Streams will be in the desert and the beggar will have
plenty, if He wills it. He seeth the sparrow's fall.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mrs. Ole Bull from New York (April 1895)

Love makes no distinction between man and man, between an Aryan and a Mlechchha,
between a Brahmana and a Pariah, nor even between a man and a woman. Love makes the
whole universe as one's own home.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter from US (May 1895)

The more I have been opposed, the more my energy has always found expression. I have been
driven and worshipped by princes.
I have been slandered by priests and laymen alike. But what of it? Bless them all! They are my
very Self, and have they not helped me by acting as a spring-board from which my energy could
take higher and higher flights?
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to E T Sturdy from New York (August 1895)

Onward! Upon ages of struggle a character is built. Be not discouraged. One word of truth can
never be lost; for ages it may be hidden under rubbish, but it will show itself sooner or later.
Truth is indestructible, virtue is indestructible, purity is indestructible.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (1894)

Work on, be lions; and the Lord will bless you. I shall work incessantly until I die, and even after
death I shall work for the good of the world. Truth is infinitely more weighty than untruth; so is
goodness. If you possess these, they will make their way by sheer gravity.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to G G Narasimhachariar from Chicago (January 1895)

Every action that helps a being manifest its divine nature more and more is good, every action
that retards it is evil.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Brahmananda (1895)
Desire, ignorance, and inequality this is the trinity of bondage. Denial of the will to live, knowledge, and same-sightedness is the trinity of liberation. Freedom is the goal of the universe.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from Thousand Island Park (June 1895)

Neither numbers nor powers nor wealth nor learning nor eloquence nor anything else will
prevail, but purity, living the life, in one word, anubhuti, realisation.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to ET Sturdy from New York (August 1895)

"Youth and beauty vanish, life and wealth vanish, name and fame vanish, even the mountains
crumble into dust. Friendship and love vanish. Truth alone abides." God of Truth, be Thou alone my guide!
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from New York (February 1895)

True, that spiritual illumination shines of itself in a pure heart, and, as such, it is not something
acquired from without; but to attain this purity of heart means long struggle and constant
practice. ...
... hard Tapasya, or practice of austerities in the shape of devout contemplation and constant
study of a subject is at the root of all illumination in its respective spheres.
- Swami Vivekananda, an article written for Udbodhan

At the Beginning, I the Omniscient One, I am! The moving and the un-moving, All this Creation
comes into being By the unfoldment of My power supreme. I play with My own Maya, My Power
Divine. The One, I become the many, to behold My own Form.
- Swami Vivekananda, from 'A Song I Sing to Thee' - poem in Bengali

Meddle not with so-called social reform, for there cannot be any reform without spiritual reform
first. Who told you that I want social reform? Not I. Preach the Lord -- say neither good nor bad about the superstitions and diets.Do not lose heart, do not lose faith in your Guru, do not lose faith in God. So long as you possess these three, nothing can harm you, my child.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from New York (1895)

If you want any good to come, just throw your ceremonials overboard and worship the Living
God, the Man-god -- every being that wears a human form -- god in His universal as well as
individual aspect. The universal aspect of God means this world, and worshipping it means
serving it -- this indeed is work, not indulging in ceremonials.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to his Brother Disciples from USA (1894)

Liberty is the first condition of growth. Your ancestors gave every liberty to the soul, and religion
grew. They put the body under every bondage, and society did not grow. The opposite is the
case in the West -- every liberty to society, none to religion. Now are falling off the shackles from
the feet of Eastern society as from those of Western religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from USA (September 1894)

All souls that ever have been, are, or shall be, are all in the present tense and -- to use a
material simile -- are all standing at one geometrical point. Because the idea of space does
occur in the soul, therefore all that were ours, are ours, and will be ours, are always with us,
were always with us, and will be always with us.
We are in them. They are in us.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mrs. Ole Bull from Brooklyn (January 1895)

Believe, believe, the decree has gone forth, the fiat of the Lord has gone forth. India must rise,
the masses and the poor are to be made happy. Rejoice that you are the chosen instruments in
His hands. The flood of spirituality has risen. I see it is rolling over the land resistless, boundless,
all-absorbing.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (May 1894)

The faculty of organisation is entirely absent in our nature [i.e. Indians], but this has to be
infused. The great secret is - absence of jealousy. Be always ready to concede to the opinions
of your brethren, and try always to conciliate. That is the whole secret. Fight on bravely! Life is
short! Give it up to a great cause.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from USA (July 1894)

Do not be afraid of a small beginning, great things come afterwards. Be courageous. Do not try
to lead your brethren, but serve them. The brutal mania for leading has sunk many a great ship
in the waters of life. Take care especially of that, i.e. be unselfish even unto death, and work.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (May 1894)

No man, no nation, my son, can hate others and live; India's doom was sealed the very day they
invented the word MLECHCHHA and stopped from communion with others. Take care how you
foster that idea. It is good to talk glibly about the Vedanta, but how hard to carry out even its
least precepts!
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Washington DC (October 1894)

Do you mean to say I am born to live and die one of those caste-ridden, superstitious,
merciless, hypocritical, atheistic cowards that you find only amongst the educated Hindus? I
hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense. I do not believe in any politics. God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Paris (September 1895)

My whole ambition in life is to set in motion a machinery which will bring noble ideas to the door
of everybody, and then let men and women settle their own fate. Let them know what our
forefathers as well as other nations have thought on the most momentous questions of life. Let
them see specially what others are doing now, and then decide. We are to put the chemicals
together, the crystallisation will be done by nature according to her laws.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Madras Disciples from Chicago (January 1894)

... let those belonging to the upper ten, who do not earn their livelihood by manual labour, not
take meat; but the forcing of vegetarianism upon those who have to earn their bread by
labouring day and night is one of the causes of the loss of our national freedom. Japan is an
example of what good and nourishing food can do.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Sarala Ghosal, Editor, Bharati in Bengali

… on the one hand, my vision of the future of Indian religion and that of the whole world, my
love for the millions of beings sinking down and down for ages with nobody to help them, nay,
nobody with even a thought for them; on the other hand, making those who are nearest and
dearest to me miserable; I choose the former. "Lord will do the rest." He is with me, I am sure of
that if of anything. So long as I am sincere, nothing can resist me, because He will be my help.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Haridas V. Desai from Chicago (January 1894)

"Liberty of thought and action is the only condition of life, of growth and well-being." Where it
does not exist, the man, the race, the nation must go down. Caste or no caste, creed or no
creed, any man, or class, or caste, or nation, or institution which bars the power of free thought
and action of an individual - even so long as that power does not injure others is devilish and
must go down.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Madras Disciples from Chicago (January 1894)

Are you perfectly unselfish? If so, you are irresistible. It is character that pays everywhere. It is
the Lord who protects His children in the depths of the sea. Your country requires heroes; be
heroes! God bless you!
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Washington DC (October 1894)

One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else.
Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the Law, it will be, alas, for ages to
come. The earth's bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for
the welfare of all. Buddhas by the hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Miss Noble (Sister Nivedita) from London (June 1896)

Who works? Whose work? There is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.
Neither I nor thou nor you -- it is all He the Lord, all One.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mrs Ole Bull from Switzerland (August 1896)

I have experienced even in my insignificant life that good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can
conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of
millions of hypocrites and brutes.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Sarala Ghoshal of from Darjeeling (April 1897)

Come out if you can of this network of foolishness they call this world.
Then I will call you indeed brave and free. If you cannot, cheer those that dare dash this false
God, society, to the ground and trample on its unmitigated hypocrisy; if you cannot cheer them,
pray, be silent, but do not try to drag them down again into the mire with such false nonsense as
compromise and becoming nice and sweet.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from New York (February 1895)

External nature is only internal nature writ large. - Swami Vivekananda

Material science can only give worldly prosperity, whilst spiritual science is for eternal life. If
there be no eternal life, still the enjoyment of spiritual thoughts as ideas is keener and makes a
man happier, whilst the foolery of materialism leads to competition and undue ambition and
ultimate death, individual and national.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from Darjeeling (April 1897)

What queer humility is this to say, "I know nothing!" "I am nothing!" This is pseudo-renunciation
and mock-modesty, I tell you. Off with such a self-debasing spirit. "If I do not know, who on earth
does!" What have you been doing so long if you now plead ignorance? These are the words of
an atheist -- the humility of a vagabond wretch. We can do everything, and will do everything!
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Brahmananda (1895)

It is the heart, the heart that conquers, not the brain. Books and learning, Yoga and meditation
and illumination -- all are but dust compared with love. It is love that gives you the supernatural
powers, love that gives you Bhakti, love, again, that leads to emancipation.
love that gives illumination, and
This indeed is worship, worship of the Lord in the human tabernacle ...
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Akhandananda from Almora (June 1897)

... what is there to be desired in this little mud-puddle of a world, with its ever-recurring misery,
disease, and death? "He who has given up all desires, he alone is happy."
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to J J Goodwin from Switzerland (August 1896)

The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.
- Swami Vivekananda

There is but one basis of well-being, social, political or spiritual – to know that I and my brother
are one. This is true for all countries and all people. And Westerners, let me say, will realise it
more quickly than Orientals, who have almost exhausted themselves in formulating the idea and
producing a few cases of individual realisation.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to E T Sturdy from New York (August 1895)

We may read books, hear lectures, and talk miles, but experience is the one teacher, the one
eye-opener. It is best as it is. We learn, through smiles and tears we learn. We don't know why,
but we see it is so; and that is enough.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from Pasadena (February 1900)

Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong,
that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything
else.
- Swami Vivekananda

All expansion is life, all contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore
love for love's sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Brahmananda (1895)

"From me all difference has fallen, all right or wrong, all delusion and ignorance has vanished, I
am walking in the path beyond the qualities." What law I obey, what disobey? From that height
the universe looks like a mud-puddle.
Hari Om Tat Sat. He exists; nothing else does. I in Thee and Thou in me. Be Thou Lord my
eternal refuge! Peace, Peace, Peace!
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from Thousand Island Park (June 1895)

Without renunciation religion can never stand. - Swami Vivekananda

Music is the highest art and, to those who understand, is the highest worship.
- Swami Vivekananda

Say it day and night; Think always "Soham, Soham"; this is almost as good as liberation.
realisation will come as the result of this continuous cogitation. This absolute and continuous
remembrance of the Lord is what is meant by Bhakti.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The Vedanta is the rationale of all religions. Without the Vedanta every religion is superstition;
with it everything becomes religion.
- Swami Vivekananda

We are Shiva, we are immortal knowledge beyond the senses. Infinite power is back of
everyone; pray to Mother, and it will come to you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

My master used to say that these names, as Hindu, Christian, etc., stand as great bars to all
brotherly feelings between man and man. We must try to break them down first. They have lost all their good powers and now only stand as baneful influences under whose black magic even the best of us behave like demons. Well, we will have to work hard and must succeed.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mrs. Ole Bull from New York (March 1895)

I have clear light now, free of all hocus-pocus. I want to give them dry, hard reason, softened in the
sweetest syrup of love and made spicy with intense work, and cooked in the kitchen of Yoga, so that even a baby can easily digest it.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to E T Sturdy from New York (February 1896)

What is the use of talking of one's mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For
what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only
with the strong and the powerful.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Karma-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Great enterprise, boundless courage, tremendous energy, and, above all, perfect obedience –
these are the only traits that lead to individual and national regeneration. These traits are
altogether lacking in us [i.e. Indians].
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Akhandananda from London (November 1895)

Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the
seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge,
power, and activity, has Its seat.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Swami Akhandananda from California (February 1900)

Why weepest thou, brother? There is neither death nor disease for thee. Why weepest thou,
brother? There is neither misery nor misfortune for thee. Why weepest thou, brother? Neither change nor death was predicated of thee. Thou art Existence Absolute.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Jnana-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

The soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere (limitless), but whose centre is in some
body. Death is but a change of centre. God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, and
whose centre is everywhere. When we can get out of the limited centre of body, we shall realise
God, our true Self.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Jnana-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Q.-- What should be our highest ideal of character?
A.-- Renunciation.
- Swami Vivekananda, Selections from the Math Diary
Through fanaticism and bigotry a religion can be propagated very quickly, no doubt, but the
preaching of that religion is firm-based on solid ground, which gives everyone liberty to his
opinions and thus uplifts him to a higher path, though this process is slow.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Bhakti-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Seek the Highest, always the Highest, for in the Highest is eternal bliss. If I am to hunt, I will
hunt the lion. If I am to rob, I will rob the treasury of the king. Seek the Highest.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Jnana-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

All souls are playing, a some consciously, some unconsciously. Religion is learning to play consciously. - Swami Vivekananda

Q.- How can one have Bhakti?
A.- There is Bhakti within you, only a veil of lust-and-wealth covers it, and as soon as that is
removed Bhakti will manifest by itself.
- Swami Vivekananda," Selections from the Math Diary

We have a place for struggle in the Vedanta, but not for fear. All fears will vanish when you
begin to assert your own nature. If you think that you are bound, bound you will remain. If you
think you are free, free you will be.
- Swami Vivekananda, Law and Freedom, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Q. -- How is harmonious development of character to be best effected?
A.-- By association with persons whose character has been so developed.
- Swami Vivekananda, Selections from the Math Diary

Of Jnana and Bhakti he who advocates one and denounces the other cannot be either a Jnani
or a Bhakta, but he is a thief and a cheat.
- Swami Vivekananda

In criticizing another, we always foolishly take one especially brilliant point as the whole of our
life and compare that with the dark ones in the life of another. Thus we make mistakes in
judging individuals.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Bhakti-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Only the fools rush after sense-enjoyments. … ... Death lies in the senses. Life on the plane of
the Spirit is the only life, life on any other plane is mere death; the whole of this life can be only
described as a gymnasium. We must go beyond it to enjoy real life.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Bhakti-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East. - Swami Vivekananda
The Vedanta teaches that Nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for
death to reach it. Nirvana is the realisation of the Self; and after having once known that, if only
for an instant, never again can one be deluded by the mirage of personality.
- Swami Vivekananda, On the Vedanta Philosophy, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

This is to let you know "I am very happy". Not that I am getting into a shadowy optimism, but my
power of suffering is increasing. I am being lifted up above the pestilential miasma of this world's
joys and sorrows; they are losing their meaning. It is a land of dreams; it does not matter
whether one enjoys or weeps; they are but dreams, and as such, must break sooner or later.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from San Francisco (March 1900)

We put all our energies to concentrate and get attached to one thing; but the other part, though
equally difficult, we seldom pay any attention to the faculty of detaching ourselves at a moment's
notice from anything. Both attachment and detachment perfectly developed make a man great
and happy.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Sister Nivedita from San Francisco (March 1900)

Religion is that which does not depend upon books or teachers or prophets or saviours, and that
which does not make us dependent in this or in any other lives upon others. In this sense
Advaitism of the Upanishads is the only religion.
But saviours, books, prophets, ceremonials, etc. have their places.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Mary Hale from Los Angles (June 1900)

Men run after a few dollars and do not think anything of cheating a fellow-being to get those
dollars; but if they would restrain themselves, in a few years they would develop such
characters as would bring them millions of dollars -- if they wanted them. Then their will would
govern the universe. But we are all such fools!
- Swami Vivekananda, On Karma-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in our hands now, we make
ourselves stronger; and improving our strength in this manner step by step, we may even reach
a state in which it shall be our privilege to do the most coveted and honored duties in life and in
society.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Karma-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

As long as touch-me-not-ism is your creed and the kitchen-pot your deity, you cannot rise
spiritually. All the petty differences between religion and religion are mere word-struggles, nonsense. Everyone thinks, "This is my original idea", and wants to have things his own way. That is how struggles come.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Bhakti-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

There is really no difference between matter, mind, and Spirit. They are only different phases of experiencing the One. This very world is seen by the five senses as matter, by the very wicked as hell, by the good as heaven, and by the perfect as God.
- Swami Vivekananda, On Jnana-Yoga, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

The real Vedantist alone will give up his life for a fellow-man without any compunction, because
he knows he will not die. As long as there is one insect left in the world, he is living; as long as
one mouth eats, he eats. So he goes on doing good to others; and is never hindered by the
modern ideas of caring for the body.
- Swami Vivekananda, On the Vedanta Philosophy, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and end of all religions, is but one -- re-union with God,
or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity which is every man's true nature. But while the
aim is one, the method of attaining may vary with the different temperaments of men.
- Swami Vivekananda, The Goal and Methods of Realisation, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

The Vedanta says that you are pure and perfect, and that there is a state beyond good and evil,
and that is your own nature. It is higher even than good. Canang Special Opnet of Modern Time
Good is only a lesser differentiation than evil. We have no theory of evil. We call it ignorance.
- Swami Vivekananda, On the Vedanta Philosophy, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect
is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, at Calcutta, Surendra Nath Sen Diary

What we want are Western science coupled with Vedanta, Brahmacharya as the guiding motto, and also Shraddha and faith in one's own self.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

Q.-- What is Tapasya?
A.-- Tapasya is threefold -- of the body, of speech, and of mind.
The first is service of others; the second, truthfulness; and third, control and concentration.
- Swami Vivekananda

There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion -- I am God -- cannot be made with
regard to the sense-world. If you say in the sense-world that you are God, what is to prevent
your doing wrong? So the affirmation of your divinity applies only to the noumenal.
- Swami Vivekananda, On the Vedanta Philosophy, Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Spirituality can never be attained until materiality is gone. - Swami Vivekananda

Man is born to conquer nature and not to follow it. - Swami Vivekananda

One party says thought is caused by matter, and the other says matter is caused by thought.
Both statements are wrong; matter and thought are coexistent. There is a third something of
which both matter and thought are products.
- Swami Vivekananda

The root of evil is in the illusion that we are bodies. This, if any, is the original sin.
- Swami Vivekananda

The motive is the measure of your work. What motive can be higher than that you are God, and
that the lowest man is also God? - Swami Vivekananda

Any sect that may help you to realise God is welcome. Religion is the realising of God.
- Swami Vivekananda

Jnana, Bhakti, Yoga and Karma -- these are the four paths which lead to salvation. One must
follow the path for which one is best suited; but in this age special stress should be laid on
Karma-yoga.
- Swami Vivekananda

Shankaracharya had caught the rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence. … his whole life's
work is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and the Upanishads.
- Swami Vivekananda

Of all the scriptures of the world it is the Vedas alone that declare that even the study of the
Vedas is secondary. The real study is "that by which we realise the Unchangeable. And that is
neither reading, nor believing, nor reasoning, but superconscious perception, or Samadhi.
- Swami Vivekananda

It is child's talk that a man dies and goes to heaven. We never come nor go. We are where we are. All the souls that have been, are, and will be, are on one geometrical point.
- Swami Vivekananda

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material. - Swami Vivekananda

In the efflux of time the light of Vedanta now and then seems as if about to be extinguished, and
when that happens, the Lord has to incarnate Himself in the human body; He then infuses such
life and strength into religion that it goes on again for some time with irresistible vigour. That life
and strength has come into it again.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

A true Christian is a true Hindu, and a true Hindu is a true Christian. - Swami Vivekananda

… no one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching.
Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge -- even in a boy it is so -- and it requires
only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

Religion is the idea which is raising the brute unto man, and man unto God. - Swami Vivekananda

Jesus came to publicans and sinners and lived with them. He never set himself on a pedestal.
Only sinners see sin. See not man, see only the Lord.
- Swami Vivekananda, Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

… mind can never turn to God until the desire for lust and wealth has gone from it, be the man a
householder or a Sannyasin. Know this for a fact, that as long as the mind is caught in these, so
long true devotion, firmness, and Shraddha (faith) can never come.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

The trouble with the nations of the West is that they are young, foolish, fickle, and wealthy. What
mischief can come of one of these qualities; but when all three, all four, are combined, beware!"
- Swami Vivekananda

To satisfy our smaller desires and have done with them for ever, to relinquish the greater ones
and by discrimination -- that is the way. Without renunciation God can never be realised – [Sanskrit]- even if Brahma himself enjoined otherwise!
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

Think always, "I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free; how can I do anything evil? Can I
ever be befooled like ordinary men with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?" Strengthen
the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant. All you can do is on the negative
side you can only help. It is a manifestation from within; it develops its own nature -- you can
only take away obstructions.
- Swami Vivekananda

Look here -- we shall all die! Bear this in mind always, and then the spirit within will wake up.
Then only, meanness will vanish from you, practicality in work will come, you will get new vigour
in mind and body, and those who come in contact with you will also feel that they have really got
something uplifting from you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, at Belur Math, recorded by Surendra Nath Das Gupta

You have to grow from inside out. None can teach none can make you spiritual. There is no
other teacher but your own soul.
- Swami Vivekananda

Religion is not a thing of imagination but of direct perception. He who has seen even a single
spirit is greater than many a book-learned Pandit.
- Swami Vivekananda

Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

- Swami Vivekananda

Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true. - Swami Vivekananda

This world is the great gymnasium where we come make ourselves strong. - Swami Vivekananda

Study the history of the whole world, and you will see that every high ideal you meet with
anywhere had its origin in India. From time immemorial India has been the mine of precious ideas to human society; giving birth to high ideas herself, she has freely distributed them broadcast over
the whole world.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, at Calcutta, recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

When you think you are a body, you are apart from the universe; when you think you are a soul,
you are a spark from the great Eternal Fire; when you think you are the Atman (Self), you are
All.
- Swami Vivekananda

Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it. Think day and night,
"I am of the essence of that Supreme Existence-knowledge-bliss what fear and anxiety have I?
This body, mind, and intellect are all transient, and That which is beyond these is myself."
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

It is a most glorious dispensation of the Lord that there are so many religions in the world; and
would to God that these would increase every day, until every man had a religion unto himself!
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Methods and Purpose of Religion' - Talk in England

As men, we must have a God; as God, we need none. This is why Shri Ramakrishna constantly
saw the Divine Mother ever present with him, more real than any other thing around him; but in
Samadhi all went but the Self.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The householder must earn money with great effort and enthusiasm, and by that must support
and bring comforts to his own family and to others, and perform good works as far as possible.
If you cannot do that, how do you profess to be a man? You are not a householder even -- what
to talk of Moksha for you!!
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

The Vedas were the first to find and proclaim the way to Moksha, and from that one source, the
Vedas, was taken whatever any great Teacher, say, Buddha or Christ, afterwards taught.
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

We read many books, but that does not bring us knowledge. We may read all the Bibles in the
world, but that will not give us religion. Theoretical religion is easy enough to get, any one may
get that. What we want is practical religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'The Practice of Religion' - Talk at Almeda, California

With every man, there is an idea; the external man is only the outward manifestation, the mere
language of this idea within. Likewise, every nation has a corresponding national idea. This idea
is working for the world and is necessary for its preservation.
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

All that I am, all that the world itself will some day be, is owing to my Master, Shri Ramakrishna,
who incarnated and experienced and taught this wonderful unity which underlies everything,
having discovered it alike in Hinduism, in Islam, and in Christianity.
- Swami Vivekananda

The ideal woman in India is the mother, the mother first, and the mother last. The word woman
calls up to the mind of the Hindu, motherhood; and God is called Mother.
- Swami Vivekananda, Six Lessons on Raja-Yoga, US

Enjoyment lies not in physical development, but in the culture of the mind and the intellect.
- Swami Vivekananda

The fear of God is the beginning of religion, but the love of God is the end of religion.
- Swami Vivekananda

Hearing, seeing, or tasting etc. is the mind in different states of action. - Swami Vivekananda

First, we have to understand that there are not any good qualities which are the privileged
monopoly of one nation only. Of course, as with individuals, so with nations, there may be a
prevalence of certain good qualities, more or less in one nation than in another.
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

… until a man becomes a prophet, religion is mockery and a byword unto him. We must see
religion, feel it, realise it in a thousand times more intense a sense than that in which we see the
wall.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Methods and Purpose of Religion' - Talk in England

The will can never be free, because it is the slave of cause and effect. But the "I" behind the will
is free; and this is the Self.
"I am free"-- that is the basis on which to build and live. And freedom means immortality.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Freedom of The Self, Notes of Class Talks and Lectures

The Upanisads declare: "He the Lord has interpenetrated the universe. It is all His." "He the
Omnipresent, the One without a second, the One without a body, pure, the great poet of the
universe, whose metre is the suns and stars, is giving to each what he deserves" (Isha
Upanishad, 8, adapted).
- Swami Vivekananda, "Thoughts on the Vedas and Upanishads", Notes of Class Talks and
Lectures

Yoga means the method of joining man and God. When you understand this, you can go on with
your own definitions of man and God, and you will find the term Yoga fits in with every definition.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Introduction to Jnana-Yoga' - Talk in New York

Religion is fundamental in the very soul of humanity; and as all life is the evolution of that which
is within, it, of necessity, expresses itself through various peoples and nations.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'The Vedanta Philosophy and Christianity' - Talk in California

We must get beyond emotionalism if we want the power to renounce. Emotion belongs to the animals. They are creatures of emotion entirely.
- Swami Vivekananda

All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the
sense-life -- the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the
world.
- Swami Vivekananda, "The Importance of Psychology' Talk in California

Does man make laws, or do laws make man? Does man make money, or does money make
man? Does man make name and fame, or name and fame make man?
Be a man first, my friend, and you will see how all those things and the rest will follow of
themselves after you.
- Swami Vivekananda, The East and The West

We are for ever trying to make our weakness look like strength, our sentiment like love, our
cowardice like courage, and so on.
- Swami Vivekananda

The term "social progress" has as much meaning as "hot ice" or "dark light". There is no such
thing, ultimately, as "social progress"!
Things are not bettered, but we are bettered, by making changes in them.
- Swami Vivekananda

The law is never separate from the phenomena, the principle from the person. The law is the
method of action or poise of every single phenomenon within its scope.
- Swami Vivekananda

Really speaking, the institution of Sannyasa originated with Buddha; it was he who breathed life into the dead bones of this institution.
- Swami Vivekananda

It is very easy to point out the defects of institutions, all being more or less imperfect, but he is
the real benefactor of humanity who helps the individual to overcome his imperfections under
whatever institutions he may live.
The individuals being raised, the nation and its institutions are bound to rise.
- Swami Vivekananda

Happiness presents itself before man, wearing the crown of sorrow on its head. He who
welcomes it must also welcome sorrow.
- Swami Vivekananda, Sayings and Utterances

It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body - to cast it off like a disused garment.
But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is
one with God.
- Swami Vivekananda

The love the father or mother has for the child, [the love] the wife [has] for the husband, the
husband for the wife, the friend for the friend, all these loves concentrated into one must be
given to God.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Divine Love', Talk in California

Bhakti-Yoga is the path of systematised devotion for the attainment of union with the Absolute. It
is the easiest and surest path to or realisation. Love to God is the one essential to be perfect in
this path.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'On Bhakti-Yoga', Notes of Class Talks and Lectures

Everything in time, space, and causation is bound. The soul is beyond all time, all space, all
causation. That which is bound is nature, not the soul. Therefore proclaim your freedom and be
what you are -- ever free, ever blessed.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'How to Become Free', Notes of Class Talks and Lectures

Unless there is love, philosophy becomes dry bones, psychology becomes a sort of [theory],
and work becomes mere labor. [If there is love], philosophy becomes poetry, psychology becomes [mysticism], and work the most delicious thing in creation.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Divine Love' - Talk in California

There is no new religious idea preached anywhere which is not found in the Vedas.
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts. If I had
to do my education over again and had any voice in the matter, I would not study facts at all. I
would develop the power of concentration and detachment, and then with a perfect instrument I
could collect facts at will.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Concentration and Breathing' - Talk in California

To all external appearances, unconsciousness and superconsciousness are the same; but they
differ as a lump of clay from a lump of gold.
- Swami Vivekananda

What is material, and what is not? When the world is the end and God the means to attain that
end, that is material. When God is the end andes the world is only the means to attain that end,
spirituality has begun.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Formal Worship' - Talk in California

Chemistry ceases to improve when one element is found from which all others are deductible.
Physics ceases to progress when one force is found of which all others are manifestations. So
religion ceases to progress when unity is reached, which is the case with Hinduism.
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

When I use the words "man-making religion", I do not mean books, nor dogmas, nor theories. I
mean the man who has realised, has fully perceived, something of that infinite presence in his
own heart.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Formal Worship' - Talk in California

In Vedanta the chief advantage is that it was not the work of one single man; and therefore,
naturally, unlike Buddhism, or Christianity, or Mohammedanism, the prophet or teacher did not
entirely swallow up or overshadow the principles. The principles live, and the prophets, as it
were, form a secondary group, unknown to Vedanta.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Methods and Purpose of Religion' - Talk in England

The fault with all religions like Christianity is that they have one set of for all. But Hindu religion
is suited to all grades of religious aspiration and progress. It contains all the ideals in their
perfect form.
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

Vedanta declares that religion is here and now, because the question of this life and that life, of
life and death, this world and that world, is merely one of superstition and prejudice.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Methods and Purpose of Religion' - Talk in England

We must be as broad as the skies, as deep as the ocean; we must have the zeal of the fanatic,
the depth of the mystic, and the width of the agnostic.
- Swami Vivekananda, Lessons on Bhakti-Yoga', Class Notes in England

Raja-yoga is the only science of religion that can be demonstrated; and only what I myself have
proved by experience, do I teach.
- Swami Vivekananda

A man desiring to be perfect takes a thorn of virtue and with it takes off the thorn of vice. He still
lives, and virtue alone being left, the momentum of action left to him must be of virtue. A bit of
holiness is left to the Jivanmukta, and he lives, but everything he does must be holy.
- Swami Vivekananda, - Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

Each is an infinite circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
- Swami Vivekananda

The Hindus have cultivated the power of analysis and abstraction. No nation has yet produced a grammar like that of Panini.
- Swami Vivekananda, Notes taken at Madras (1892-93)

Everybody is hypnotized already. The work of attaining freedom, of realising one's real nature,
consists in de-hypnotization.
- Swami Vivekananda

Never talk about the faults of others, no matter how bad they may be. Nothing is ever gained by
that. You never help one by talking about his fault; you do him an injury, and injure yourself as
well.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Concentration', Notes of Class Talks and Lectures

"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." The word "repent" is in Greek "metanoeite"
("meta" means behind, after, beyond) and means literally "go beyond knowledge"-- the
knowledge of the (five) senses -- "and look within where you will find the kingdom of heaven".
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Lessons on Raja-Yoga', Class Notes in England

In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return.
Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no
conditions, and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

We are in the sun and in the stars as much as here. Spirit is beyond space and time and is
everywhere. Every mouth praising the Lord is my mouth, every eye seeing is my eye. We are confined nowhere; we are not body, the universe is our body.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Really good and evil are one and are in our own mind. When the mind is self-poised, neither
good nor bad affects it. Be perfectly free; then neither can affect it, and we enjoy freedom and
bliss. Evil is the iron chain, good is the gold one; both are chains. Be free, and know once for all
that there is no chain for you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

"When the bee sucks honey, honey, the Lord is eating." Knowing that the Lord is everywhere,
the sages give up praising and blaming. Know that nothing can hurt you. How? Are you not
free? Are you not Atman? He is the Life of our lives, the hearing of our ears, the sight of our
eyes.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Every force completes a circuit. The force we call man starts from the Infinite God and must
return to Him.
- Swami Vivekananda

We are striving "to be" and nothing more, no "I" even just pure crystal, reflecting all, but ever the
same. When that state is reached, there is no more doing; the body becomes a mere
mechanism, pure without care for it; it cannot become impure.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

We go through the world like a man pursued by a policeman and see the barest glimpses of the
beauty of it. All this fear that pursues us comes from believing in matter. Matter gets its whole
existence from the presence of mind behind it. What we see is God percolating through nature.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The whole body of supersensuous truths, having no beginning or end, and called by the name
of the Vedas, is ever-existent. The Creator Himself is creating, preserving, and destroying the
universe with the help of these truths.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna'

Three things are the special gifts of God to man -- the human body, the desire to be free, and
the blessing of help from one who is already free.
- Swami Vivekananda

Our life is "[Sanskrit] -- for the sake of our self-liberation as well as for the good of the world". So what are you sitting idle for? Arise, awake; wake up yourselves, and awaken others. Achieve the consummation of human life before you pass off --"Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached."
-Swami Vivekananda to his brother disciples, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat
Chandra Chakravarty

Give up all self, all egotism; get out of anger, lust, give all to God. "I am not, but Thou art; the old
man is all gone, only Thou remainest." "I am Thou." Blame none; if evil comes, know the Lord is
playing with you and be exceeding glad.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Life and death are only different names for the same fact, the two sides of the one coin. Both
are Maya, the inexplicable state striving at one time to live, and a moment later to die. Beyond
this is the true nature, the Atman.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Sin may be said to be the feeling of every kind of weakness. From this weakness spring jealousy, malice, and so forth. Hence weakness is sin. The Self within is always shining forth resplendent. Turning away from that people say "I", "I", "I", with their attention held up by this material body, this queer cage of flesh and bones. This is the root of all weakness.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

God is the only real existence, there cannot be two. There is but One Soul, and I am That.
- Swami Vivekananda

The three missionary religions are the Buddhist, Mohammedan, and Christian. The three older
ones, Hinduism, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, never sought to make converts. Buddhists never
killed, but converted three-quarters of the world at one time by pure gentleness.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The whole sky is the censer of God, and sun and moon are the lamps. What temple is needed?
All eyes are Thine, yet Thou has not an eye; all hands are Thine; yet Thou hast not a hand.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The Perfect never becomes imperfect. It is in the darkness, but is not affected by the darkness.
God's mercy goes to all, but is not affected by their wickedness. The sun is not affected by any
disease of our eyes which may make us see it distorted.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Good is near Truth, but is not yet Truth. After learning not to be disturbed by evil, we have to
learn not to be made happy by good. We must find that we are beyond both evil and good; we
must study their adjustment and see that they are both necessary.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Let nothing stand between God and your love for Him. Love Him, love Him, love Him; and let
the world say what it will. Love is of three sorts one demands, but gives nothing; the second is
exchange; and the third is love without thought of return – love like that of the moth for the light.
- Swami Vivekananda, - Inspired Talks

Behind every creature is the "Mother", pure, lovely, never changing. "Mother, manifested as light
in all beings, we bow down to Thee!" She is equally in suffering, hunger, pleasure, sublimity.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Religion, the great milch cow, has given many kicks, but never mind, it gives a great deal of
milk. The milkman does not mind the kick of the cow which hives much milk.
Religion is the greatest child to be born, the great "moon of realisation"; let us feed it and help it
grow, and it will become a giant.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The authority of the Vedas extends to all ages, climes and persons; that is to say, their
application is not confined to any particular place, time, and persons. The Vedas are the only
exponent of the universal religion.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna'

Never quarrel about religion. All quarrels and disputation religion simply show that spirituality is
not present. Religious quarrels are always over the husks. When purity, when spirituality goes,
leaving the soul dry, quarrels begin, and not before.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Concentration', Notes of Class Talks and Lectures

… there comes a time for everyone to realise the Self. For everyone is Brahman. The distinction
of higher and lower is only in the degree of manifestation of that Brahman. In time, everyone will
have perfect manifestation. Hence the Shastras say, "[Sanskrit] -- in time, That is realised in
one's self."
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

The Guru is your own higher Self. - Swami Vivekananda

... the Infinite Itself is self-existent, eternal, and unchangeable. The passage of time makes no
mark whatever on the dial of eternity. In its supersensuous region, which cannot be comprehended at all by the human understanding, there is no past and there is no future.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Notes on Vedanta', Notes of Class Talks and Lectures

Prophets preach, but the Incarnations like Jesus, Buddha, Ramakrishna, can give religion;
one glance, one touch is enough. That is the power of the Holy Ghost, the "laying on of hands"; the power was actually transmitted to the disciples by the Master -- the "chain of Guru-power". That, the real baptism, has been handed down for untold ages. lord the thing
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

While we recognise a God, it is really only the Self which we have separated ourselves from and
worship as outside of us; but it is our true Self all the time -- the one and only God.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Renunciation is the very soul of the Upanishads. Illumination born of discriminative reflection is
the ultimate aim of Upanishadic knowledge.
- Swami Vivekananda

Everyone can go on abiding by some observances and formalities. Everyone can fulfill certain
injunctions and prohibitions, but how few have this longing for realisation! This intense longing --
becoming mad after realising God or getting the knowledge of the Self – is real spirituality.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

Veda means the sum total of eternal truths; the Vedic Rishis experienced those truths; they can
be experienced only by seers of the supersensuous and not by common men like us. That is
why in the Vedas the term Rishi means "the seer of the truth of the Mantras", and not any
Brahmin with the holy thread hanging down the neck.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

Liberation or Samadhi -- all this consists in simply doing away with the obstacles to the
manifestation of Brahman. Otherwise the Self is always shining forth like the sun. The cloud of
ignorance has only veiled it. Remove the cloud and the sun will manifest. Then you get into the
state of “[Sanskrit] " ("the knot of the heart is broken") etc.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, Recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

"What if you have controlled the mind, what if you have not? What if you have money, what if
you have not? You are the Atman ever pure. Say, 'I am the Atman. No bondage ever came near
me. I am the changeless sky; clouds of belief may pass over me, but they do not touch me.'
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks, From "Avadhuta Gita"

Kant's great achievement was the discovery that "time, space, and causation are modes of
thought," but Vedanta taught this ages ago and called it "Maya."
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

All religion is going beyond reason, but reason is the only guide to get there. Instinct is like ice,
reason is the water, and inspiration is the subtlest form or vapour; one follows the other.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

No law can make you free, you are free. Nothing can give you freedom, if you have it not
already. The Atman is self-illumined. Cause and effect do not reach there, and this disembodiedness is freedom. Beyond what was, or is, or is to be, is Brahman.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

It is impossible to find God outside of ourselves. Our own souls contribute all the divinity that is
outside of us. We are the greatest temple. The objectification is only a faint imitation of what we
see within ourselves.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

No action can give you freedom; only knowledge can make you free, Knowledge is irresistible;
the mind cannot take it or reject it. When it comes, the mind has to accept it; so it is not a work
of the mind; only, its expression comes in the mind.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

But this is my summing up:
Asia laid the germs of civilisation, Europe developed man, and America is developing the
woman and the masses. It is the paradise of the woman and the labourer.
Now contrast the American masses and women with ours, and you get the idea at once.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal from Chicago (November 1893)

Religion includes concrete, the more generalised and the ultimate unity. Do not stick to
particularisations. Get to the principle, to the One....
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Work or worship is to bring you back to your own nature. It is an entire illusion that the Self is the
body; so even while living here in the body, we can be free.
The body has nothing in common with the Self. Illusion is taking the real for the unreal -- not
"nothing at all".
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Dis-identify yourself with the body, and all pain will cease. This is the secret of healing. The
universe is a case of hypnotisation; de-hypnotise yourself and cease to suffer.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

See only God in every man, woman and child; see it by the antarjyotis, "inner light", and seeing
that, we can see naught else.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

He [Krishna] is the first man, way before Buddha, to open the door of religion to every caste.
That wonderful mind! That tremendously active life! Buddha's activity was on one plane, the
plane of teaching. He could not keep his wife and child and become a teacher at the same time.
Krishna preached in the midst of the battlefield.
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk in San Francisco

See Christ, then you you will be a Christian. All else is talk; the less talking the better.
- Swami Vivekananda

We cannot conscientiously and with peace, joy, and happiness, take up any duty of our lives
without listening to the message of Krishna: "Be not afraid even if there is evil in your work, for
there is no work which has no evil." "Leave it unto the Lord, and do not look for the results."
- Swami Vivekananda, Talk at Pasadena, California

Do not spend your energy in talking, but meditate in silence; and do not let the rush of the
outside world disturb you. When your mind is in the highest state, you are unconscious of it.
Accumulate power in silence and become a dynamo of spirituality.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The idea of the world is an obstruction covering the idea of God and is to be removed, but it
does have an existence.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Feel the wonderful atmosphere of freedom. You are free, free, free! Oh, blessed am I! Freedom
am I! I am the Infinite! In my soul I can find no beginning and no end. All is my Self. Say this
unceasingly.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Shri Krishna spoke the Gita, establishing Himself in the Atman.
Those passages of the Gita where He speaks with the word "I", invariably indicate the Atman:
"Take refuge in Me alone" means, "Be established in the Atman".
- Swami Vivekananda

The chief cause of India's ruin has been the monopolising of the whole education and
intelligence of the land, by dint of pride and royal authority, among a handful of men.
If we are to rise again, we shall have to do it in the same way, i.e. by spreading education
among the masses.
- Swami Vivekananda, Written to Sarala Ghosal, Editor, Bharati in Bengali

This idea of wonderful liberality joined with eternal energy and progress must spread over India.
It must electrify the whole nation and must enter the very pores of society in spite of the horrible
ignorance, spite, caste-feeling, old boobyism, and jealousy which are the heritage of this nation
of slaves.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a Letter to Haridas V Desai from Chicago (January 1894)

You, Rajputs, have been the glories of ancient India. With your degradation came national
decay, and India can only be raised if the descendants of the Kshatriyas co-operate with the
descendants of the Brahmins, not to share the spoils of pelf and power, but to help the weak, to
enlighten the ignorant, and to restore the lost glory of the holy land of their forefathers.
- Swami Vivekananda, 'Reply to Maharaja of Khetri'

In us are two -- the God-soul and the man-soul. The sages know that the latter is but the
shadow, that the former is the only real Sun.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

"No thought, no word, no deed, creates a bondage for me. I am beyond the senses, I am
knowledge and bliss"
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks, From "Avadhuta Gita"

No man should be judged by his defects. The great virtues a man has are his especially, his
errors are the common weaknesses of humanity and should never be counted in estimating his
character.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

"No one was ever bound, none was ever free. There is none but me. I am the Infinite, the
Ever-free. Talk not to me! What can change me, the essence of knowledge! Who can teach,
who can be taught?"
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks, From "Avadhuta Gita"

The universe is this Holy One and He alone. Talk not of Yoga to make you pure; you are pure by
your very nature. None can teach you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks, From “Avadhuta Gita"

Morality is the struggle of the bound will to get free and is the proof that we have come from
perfection...
- Swami Vivekananda

That which seems to be the will is the Atman behind, it is really free. - Swami Vivekananda

All purifying action deals conscious or unconscious blows on delusion. To call another a sinner
is the worst thing you can do... Good action done ignorantly produces the same result and helps
to break the bondage.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on
no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free. The full sponge can absorb no more.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Philosophy in India means that through which we see God, the rationale of religion; so no Hindu
would ever ask for a link between religion and philosophy.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Without the attainment of the fullness of Knowledge or Divine Love, such a state of absolute
reliance on the Lord does not come. He who is truly and sincerely reliant on the Lord goes
beyond all idea of the duality of good and bad.
- Swami Vivekananda, Conversations and Dialogues, recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

The dead body resents nothing; let us make our bodies dead and cease to identify ourselves
with them.
- Swami Vivekananda

Jnana teaches that the world should be given up, but not on that account to be abandoned. To
be in the world, but not of it, is the true test of the Sannyasin.
- Swami Vivekananda, Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to
the winds.
- Swami Vivekananda

Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious
conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Jehovah, Allah, Agni, but it is
only the Self, the "I". . .
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

We are the greatest God that ever was or ever will be. Christs and Buddhas are but waves on
the boundless ocean which I am. Bow down to nothing but your own higher Self. Until you know
that you are that very God of gods, there will never be any freedom for you.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

It is blasphemy to think that if Jesus had never been born, humanity would not have been
saved. It is horrible to forget thus the divinity in human nature, a divinity that must come out.
Never forget the glory of human nature.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The great prophets who do the fighting have to be less perfect than those who live silent lives of
holiness, thinking great thoughts and so helping the world. These men, passing out one after
another, produce as final outcome the man of power who preaches.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

He who gets the whole must have the parts too. Dualism is included in Advaitism (monism).
- Swami Vivekananda

Give as the rose gives perfume, because it is its own nature, utterly unconscious of giving.
- Swami Vivekananda

Be perfectly hopeless, that is the highest state. What is there to hope for? Burst asunder the
bonds of hope, stand on your Self, be at rest, never mind what you do, give up all to God, but
have no hypocrisy about it.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

It is bad to stay in the church after you are grown up spiritually. Come out and die in the open air
of freedom.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The higher the moral nature, the higher the perception and the stronger the will.
- Swami Vivekananda

Even to look on one who has given up has a purifying effect. Stand up for God; let the world go.
Have no compromise.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

"Drinking the cup of desire, the world becomes mad." Day and night never come together, so
desire and the Lord can never come together. Give up desire.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Can a leader be made my brother? A leader is born. Do you understand? And it is a very difficult
task to take on the role of a leader. ...
There must not be a shade of jealousy or selfishness, then you are a leader. First, by birth, and
secondly, unselfish -- that's a leader.
- Swami Vivekananda, in a letter to Swami Ramakrishnananda from Chicago

True philosophy is the systematising of certain perceptions. Intellect ends where religion begins.
Inspiration is much higher than reason, but it must not contradict it. Reason is the rough tool to
do the hard work; inspiration is the bright light which shows us all truth.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Through practice comes Yoga, through Yoga comes knowledge, through knowledge love, and
through love, bliss.
- Swami Vivekananda, Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

What you only grasp intellectually may be overthrown by a new argument; but what you realise
is yours for ever. Talking, talking religion is but little good. Put God behind everything -- man,
animal, food, work; make this a habit.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

The Christian idea of heaven is a place of intensified enjoyment. How can that be God? All this
desire to go to heaven is a desire for enjoyment. This has to be given up. The love of the Bhakta
must be absolutely pure and unselfish, seeking nothing for itself either here or hereafter.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Remember always that only the free have free will; all the rest are in bondage and are not
responsible for what they do. Will as will is bound.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better. Childish ideas are for babies and savages; and these are not all in the nursery and the forests, some of them have fallen into the pulpits.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Take every one where he stands and push him forward. Religious teaching must always be
constructive, not destructive.
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Of all the great religious teachers the world has known, only Lao-tze, Buddha, and Jesus
transcended the golden rule and said, "Do good to your enemies", "Love them that hate you."
- Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks