vivekananda

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of
it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, 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.

Swami Vivekananda,Vedanta Philosophy
%
When I Asked God for Strength
He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face

When I Asked God for Brain & Brawn
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve

When I Asked God for Happiness
He Showed Me Some Unhappy People

When I Asked God for Wealth
He Showed Me How to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Favors
He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Peace
He Showed Me How to Help Others

God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed.

Swami Vivekananda
%
You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you,
none can make you spiritual.
There is no other teacher but your own soul.

Swami Vivekananda
%
In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart. 

Swami Vivekananda
%
In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure
that you are travelling in a wrong path

Swami Vivekananda
%
The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man
or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is
the most successful.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in
yourselves.

Swami Vivekananda
%
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 any thing
and everything, without even the guidance of any one. Stand up and
express the divinity within you.

Swami Vivekananda,Lectures from Colombo to Almora
%
Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to
carry that out in your life.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Be not Afraid of anything. You will do Marvelous work. it is Fearlessness that brings Heaven even in a moment.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The greatest sin is to think yourself weak
Swami Vivekananda,Pearls of Wisdom
%
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,Letters of Swami Vivekananda
%
They alone live, who live for others.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Anything that makes weak - physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject it as poison.
Swami Vivekananda
%
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you
think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

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

Swami Vivekananda
%
Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is Death.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.

Swami Vivekananda
%
arise,awake,stop not until your goal is achieved.

Swami Vivekananda
%
We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate.
The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled
catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have
their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of
the wind?....... We make our own destiny.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Learn Everything that is Good from Others, but bring it in, and in
your own way absorb it; do not become others.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to
God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this
bondage. Wake up and let it go.

Swami Vivekananda
%
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!

Swami Vivekananda,Raja-Yoga
%
whatever you think that you will be.
if you think yourself weak,weak you will be;
if you think yourself strong,you will be
Swami Vivekananda
%
Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it
will come back to you, but do not think of that now.
Swami Vivekananda
%
All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because
oneness is the secret of everything.
Swami Vivekananda
%
We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to
be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been
the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever
we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions; so
we have to know how to act.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Each work has to pass through these stages - ridicule, opposition, and
then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be
misunderstood.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you
cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their
own way.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Do one thing at a Time, and while doing it put your whole Soul into it
to the exclusion of all else.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Shri Ramakrishna use to say, "As Long as I Live, so long do I
learn". That man or that society which has nothing to learn is already
in the jaws of death.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Never say, "O Lord, I am a miserable sinner."  Who will help you?  You
are the help of the universe.  What in this universe can help you?
What can prevail over you?  You are the God of the universe; where can
you seek for help?  Never help came from anywhere but from yourself.
In your ignorance, every prayer that you made and that was answered,
you thought was answered by some Being, but you answered the prayer
yourself unknowingly.  The help came from yourself, and you fondly
imagined that someone was sending help to you.  There is no help for
you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe.  Like
the silkworm, you have built a cocoon around yourself.  Who will save
you?  Burst your own cocoon and come out as a beautiful butterfly, as
the free soul.  Then alone you will see Truth.
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of
knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up
to it.
Swami Vivekananda
%
How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them!
When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leave
them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves. Plants
always remain small under a big tree.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Give up the idea that by ruling over others you can do any good to
them.  But you can do just as much as you can in the case of the
plant: you can supply the growing seed with the materials for the
making up of its body, bringing to it the earth, the water, the air,
that it wants.  It will take all that it wants by its own nature, it
will assimilate and grow by its own nature.
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
%
All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put
our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.
Swami Vivekananda
%
There is no God separate from you, no God higher than you, the real
'you'.  All the gods are little beings to you, all the ideas of God
and Father in heaven are but your own reflection.  God Himself is your
image.  'God created man after His own image.'  That is wrong.  Man
creates God after his own image.  That is right.  Throughout the
universe we are creating gods after our own image.  We create the god
and fall down at his feet and worship him; and when this dream comes,
we love it!
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
Desire, ignorance, and inequalitythis is the trinity of bondage.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Education is the manifestation of perfection already existing in man.
Swami Vivekananda
%
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.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a
conscious dreamer, that is all.
Swami Vivekananda
%
beleive in yourself and the world will be at your feet
Swami Vivekananda
%
The cheerful mind perseveres and the strong mind hews its way through
a thousand difficulties.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and
in every living being.
Swami Vivekananda
%
He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions
said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new
religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity
by controlling nature, 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
%
The only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of
fearlessness. Either in this world or in the world of religion, it is
true that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear
that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And
what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature.
Swami Vivekananda
%
All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind;
the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Be strong! ... You talk of ghosts and devils. We are the living
devils. The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is
weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it is strength, go
down into hell and get hold of it! There is salvation only for the
brave. "None but the brave deserves the fair." None but the bravest
deserves salvation.
Swami Vivekananda
%
There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more
concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point
Swami Vivekananda
%
This is a 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
%
Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be
perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a
single church or temple.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The brain and muscles must develop simultaneously. Iron nerves with an
intelligent brain and the whole world is at your feet.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Don't look backforward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite
daring, and infinite patiencethen alone can great deeds be
accomplished.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as
your own existence.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Man is to become divine by realizing the divine.  Idols or temples, or
churches or books, are only the supports, the help of his spiritual
childhood.
Swami Vivekananda,Complete Works
%
The earth is enjoyed by heroesthis is the unfailing truth. Be a
hero. Always say, I have no fear.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or
her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every
work into one that suits their taste.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing
by helping to stamp out the false ego.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Desire can be eradicated from the roots by firmly imbibing the four
attributes of: Jnan, Atmanishtha, Vairagya, Dharma and the full
fledged devotion to God.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The very reason for nature's existence is for the education of the soul.
Swami Vivekananda,Karma Yoga: the Yoga of Action
%
The Tapas and the other hard Yogas that were practiced in other Yugas
do not work now. What is needed in this Yuga is giving, helping
others.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Liberty is the first condition of growth.  It is wrong, a thousand
times wrong, if any of you dares to say, 'I will work out the
salvation of this woman or child.
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
%
Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak
mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds,
we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.
Swami Vivekananda
%
By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in
our hands, we make ourselves stronger
Swami Vivekananda
%
The powers of the mind are like the rays of the sun when they are
concentrated they illumine.
Swami Vivekananda
%
If a man can realize his divine nature with the help of an image,
would it be right to call that a sin? Nor, even when he has passed
that stage, should he call it an error. [...] man is not traveling
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 to grasp
and realize 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
%
The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human
body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see
God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds
vanishes, and I am free.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will
be purified, and God will be in them.
Swami Vivekananda
%
This World will always continue to be a mixture of Good and Evil. Our
duty is to sympathize with the weak and to Love even the wrongdoer.
Swami Vivekananda
%
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobodys property; no race, no
individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of
all souls.
Swami Vivekananda
%
We must also remember that in every little village-god and every
little superstitious custom is that which we are accustomed to call
our religious faith.  But local customs are infinite and
contradictory.  Which are we to obey, and which not to obey?  The
Brahmin of Southern India, for instance, would shrink in horror at the
sight of another Brahmin eating meat; a Brahmin in the North thinks it
a most glorious and holy thing to dohe kills goats by the hundred in
sacrifice.  If you put forward your custom, they are equally ready
with theirs.  Various are the customs all over India, but they are
local.  The greatest mistake made is that ignorant people always think
that this local custom is the essence of our religion.
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
%
ARISE, AWAKE AND STOP NOT TILL THE GOAL IS REACHED
Swami Vivekananda
%
Devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The tender plant of spirituality will die if exposed too early to the
action of a constant change of ideas and ideals.  Many people, in the
name of what may be called religious liberalism, may be seen feeding
their idle curiosity with a continuous succession of different ideals.
With them, hearing new things grows into a kind of disease, a sort of
religious drink-mania.  They want to hear new things just by way of
getting a temporary nervous excitement, and when one such exciting
influence has had its effect on them, they are ready for another.
Religion is with these people a sort of intellectual opium-eating, and
there it ends.
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
%
Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvellous work. 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 all our
woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a
moment. Therefore, "arise, awake and stop not until the goal is
reached.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do
not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not
believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the
truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Now is wanted intense Karma-Yoga with unbounded courage and
indomitable strength in the heart. Then only will the people of the
country be roused.
Swami Vivekananda
%
If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even
for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true;
this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else is mere
moonshine. . . .
Swami Vivekananda
%
A good practice carried to an extreme and worked in accordance with
the letter of the law becomes a positive evil.
Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
%
A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in
a year than a mob in a century.
Swami Vivekananda
%
God is present in every Jiva; there is no other God besides that. Who
serves Jiva serves God indeed.
Swami Vivekananda
%
This attachment of Love to God is indeed one that does not bind the
soul but effectively breaks all its bondages.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Have Faith in Man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one
or a most ignorant one.
Swami Vivekananda
%
The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and most
natural way to reach the great divine end in view; it's great
disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes degenerates into
hideous fanaticism.  The fanatical crew in Hinduism, Mohammedanism, or
Christianity, have always been almost exclusively recruited from these
worshippers [sic] on the lower planes of Bhakti.  That singleness of
attachment (Nishtha) to a loved object, without which no genuine love
can grow, is very often also the cause of the denunciation of
everything else.  All the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion
or country have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e., by
hating every other ideal.  Herein is the explanation of why the same
man who is so lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so devoted to
his own ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he
sees or hears anything of any other ideal.

Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
The Heart and core of everything here is good, that whatever may be
the surface waves, deep down and underlying everything, there is an
infinite basis of Goodness and Love.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The Older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in
manliness. This is my new gospel.

Swami Vivekananda
%
If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced,
I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have
would have vanished.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his
own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as
near as possible to the Truth.

Swami Vivekananda
%
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.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The knowing ones must have pity on the ignorant.
One who knows is willing to give up his body even for an ant,
because he knows that the body is nothing.

Swami Vivekananda
%
A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along
with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times
float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean
of Life and Bliss.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The more we grow in Love, Virtue and Holiness, the more we see Love,
Virtue and Holiness outside.

Swami Vivekananda
%
After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The
more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the
other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us
forget our true nature; both are chains--one iron, one gold; behind
both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are
states, and states must ever change; but the nature of the Atman is
bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash
away the dross and see it.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity
has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the
greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be
not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Do not believe in a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do
not believe in a thing because another man has said it was true. Do
not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out
the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.

Swami Vivekananda
%
God did not give me everything that i wanted. But, He gave me
everything that i needed!

Swami Vivekananda
%
If the Student thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better
Student. If the Lawyer thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better
Lawyer, and so on.

Swami Vivekananda
%
But there is yet time to change our ways.  Give up all those old
discussions, old fights about things which are meaningless, which are
nonsensical in their very nature.  Think of the last six hundred or
seven hundred years of degradation when grown-up men by hundreds have
been discussing for years whether we should drink a glass of water
with the right hand or the left, whether the hand should be washed
three times or four times, whether we should gargle five or six times.
What can you expect from men who pass their lives in discussing such
momentous questions as these and writing most learned philosophies on
them!  There is a danger of our religion getting into the kitchen.  We
are neither Vedantists, most of us now, nor Pauranics, nor Tantrics.
We are just "Don't-touchists".  Our religion is in the kitchen.  Our
God is the cooking-pot, and our religion is, "Don't touch me, I am
holy".  If this goes on for another century, every one of us will be
in a lunatic asylum.  It is a sure sign of softening of the brain when
the mind cannot grasp the higher problems of life; all originality is
lost, the mind has lost all its strength, its activity, and its power
of thought, and just tries to go round and round the smallest curve it
can find.

Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
Be Grateful to the Man you help, think of Him as God. Is it not a
great privilege to be allowed to worship God by helping our fellow
men?

Swami Vivekananda
%
Take Risks in Your Life If u Win, U Can Lead! If u Lose, U Can Guide!

Swami Vivekananda,Raja-Yoga
%
This universe is the wreckage of the infinite on the shores of the
finite.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Things do not grow better; they remain as they are. It is we who grow
better, by the changes we make in ourselves.

Swami Vivekananda
%
As different streams having different sources all mingle their waters
in the sea, so different tendencies, various though they appear,
crooked or straight, all lead to God.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect -
but there is something behind the will which is free.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Religion is being and becoming. Religion is the manifestation of the
Divinity already in man.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Though our castes and institutions are apparently linked with our
religion, they are not so.  These institutions have been necessary to
protect us as a nation, and when this necessity for self-preservation
will no more exist, they will die a natural death.  But the older I
grow, the better I seem to think of these time-honored institutions of
India.  There was a time when I used to think that many of them were
useless and worthless; but the older I grew, the more I seem to feel a
diffidence in cursing any one of them, for each one of them is the
embodiment of the experience of centuries.  A child of but yesterday,
destined to die the day after tomorrow, comes to me and asks me to
change all my plans; and if I hear the advice of that baby and change
all my surroundings according to his ideas, I myself should be a fool,
and no one else.  Much of the advice that is coming to us from
different countries is similar to this.  Tell these wiseacres: "I will
hear you when you have made a society yourselves.  You cannot hold on
to one idea for two days, you quarrel and fail; you are born like
moths in the spring and die like them in five minutes.  You come up
like bubbles and burst like bubbles too.  First form a stable society
like ours.  First make laws and institutions that remain undiminished
in their power through scores of centuries.  Then will be the time to
talk on the subject with you, but till then, my friend, you are only a
giddy child.

Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
Above all, beware of compromises.  I do not mean that you are to get
into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own
principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others' "fads"
through the greed of getting supporters.  Your Atman is the support of
the universewhose support do you stand in need of?

Swami Vivekananda,Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
Why should a Man be Moral? Because this strengthens his will.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The help which tends to make us spiritually strong is the highest
help, next to it comes intellectual help and after that comes physical
help.

Swami Vivekananda,Karma Yoga: the Yoga of Action
%
It is the Level-headed Man, the Calm Man, of Good Judgement and cool
nerves, of Great sympathy and love, who does good work and so does
good to himself.

Swami Vivekananda
%
So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every
person a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not
the least heed to them!

Swami Vivekananda
%
Never forget the glory of human nature! We are the greatest
god.. Christs and Buddhas are but waves in the boundless ocean which I
AM.

Swami Vivekananda
%
We are allowed to worship him. Stand in that reverent attitude to the
whole universe, and then will come perfect non attachment

Swami Vivekananda
%
We must be Bright and Cheerful, long faces do not make Religion

Swami Vivekananda
%
The whole universe is only the self with variations, one tune made
bearable by variations. Sometimes there are discords, but they only
make the subsequent harmony more perfect.

Swami Vivekananda
%
God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed.

Swami Vivekananda,Swami Vivekananda
%
Put the good before them, see how eagerly they take it, see how the
divine that never dies, that is always living in the human...

Swami Vivekananda
%
Of one hundred persons who take up the spiritual life, eighty turn out
to be charlatans, fifteen insane, and only five, maybe, get a glimpse
of the real truth. Therefore beware.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Curiously enough, it seems that at times the spiritual side prevails,
and then the materialistic sidein wave-like motions following each
other. ...At one time the full flood of materialistic ideas prevails,
and everything in this lifeprosperity, the education which procures
more pleasures, more foodwill become glorious at first and then that
will degrade and degenerate.  Along with the prosperity will rise to
white heat all the inborn jealousies and hatreds of the human race.
Competition and merciless cruelty will be the watchword of the day.
To quote a very commonplace and not very elegant English proverb,
"Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost", becomes the
motto of the day.  Then people think that the whole scheme of life is
a failure.  And the world would be destroyed had not spirituality come
to the rescue and lent a helping hand to the sinking world.  Then the
world gets new hope and finds a new basis for a new building, and
another wave of spirituality comes, which in time again declines.  As
a rule, spirituality brings a class of men who lay exclusive claim to
the special powers of the world.  The immediate effect of this is a
reaction towards materialism, which opens the door to scores of
exclusive claims, until the time comes when not only all the spiritual
powers of the race, but all its material powers and privileges are
centered in the hands of a very few; and these few, standing on the
necks of the masses of the people, want to rule them.  Then society
has to help itself, and materialism comes to the rescue.

Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda: v. 3
%
GOD is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in
this and next life.

Swami Vivekananda
%
If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if
not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the
better.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the
greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin; to
say that you are weak, or others are weak.

Swami Vivekananda
%
When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an
actual physical or mental state.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Serve man Serve god.

Swami Vivekananda
%
What is now wanted is a combination of the greatest heart with the
highest intellectuality, of infinite love with infinite knowledge.

Swami Vivekananda
%
All who have actually attained any real religious experience never
wrangle over the form in which the different religions are
expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so
they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not
speak in the same tongue.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Anything that brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it
not with the toes of your feet.

Swami Vivekananda
%
The Land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness,
towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness - it is India.

Swami Vivekananda
%
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.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of
it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, 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.

Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda
%
The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor is 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. 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 the exclusive survival of his own religion at the
expense 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
%
He who struggles is better than he who never attempts.
Swami Vivekananda
%
A little of the infinite is projected into consciousness, and that we
call our world.
Swami Vivekananda,Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.
%
strength is life,weakness is death.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Arise
Awake
Dont stop till
the goal
is reached
Swami Vivekananda
%
One infinite - pure and holy - beyond thoughts and beyond qualities -
bow down to thee
Swami Vivekananda
%
Arise,awake and donot stop until the goal is reached.
Swami Vivekananda
%
Vairagya or renunciation is the turning point in all the various
Yogas.  The Karmi (worker) renounces the fruits of his work.  The
Bhakta (devotee) renounces all little loves for the almighty and
omnipresent love.  The Yogi renounces his experiences, because his
philosophy is that the whole Nature, although it is for the experience
of the soul, at last brings him to know that he is not in Nature, but
eternally separate from Nature.  The Jnani (philosopher) renounces
everything, because his philosophy is that Nature never existed,
neither in the past, nor present, nor will It in the future.

Swami Vivekananda,The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.

Swami Vivekananda,Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
%
This human body is the greatest body in the universe, and a human
being the greatest being. Man is higher than all animals, than all
angels; none is greater than man. Even the Devas (gods) will have to
come down again and attain to salvation through a human body. Man
alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas.

Swami Vivekananda
%
Animals cannot have any high thoughts; nor can the Angels or Devas
attain to direct freedom without human birth.

Swami Vivekananda
%