Bringing Soul Into World

When a man comes in physical contact with his wife, the circumstances she controls through what prayers and through what vows! 
For that which brings forth the child is the holiest symbol of God himself. It is the greatest prayer between man and wife, the prayer that is going to bring into the world another soul fraught with a tremendous power for good or for evil. 

Is it a joke? Is it a simple nervous satisfaction? 
Is it a brute enjoyment of the body? 
Says the Hindu: no, a thousand times, no! 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                      ‘Women of India’, Talk at Shakespeare 
                        Club House, Pasadena, California 

Superconscious Illumination

You Yourself

The more you approach your real Self, the more this delusion vanishes. The more all differences and divisions disappear, the more you realise all as the one Divinity. 

God exists; but He is not the man sitting upon a cloud. He is pure Spirit. Where does He reside? Nearer to you than your very self. He is the Soul. How can you perceive God as separate and different from yourself? 

When you think of Him as some one separate from yourself, you do not know Him. He is you yourself. That was the doctrine of the prophets of India.  

                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    ‘Buddha’s Message to the World’, 
                     Talk at San Francisco   

Sattva Through Rajas

Jnani's Meditation

The Jnani's meditation is of two sorts: 
(1) to deny and think away everything we are not; 
(2) to insist upon what we really are -- the Atman, the One Self -- existence, Knowledge, and Bliss. 

The true rationalist must go on and fearlessly follow his reason to its farthest limits. It will not answer to stop anywhere on the road. When we begin to deny, all must go until we reach what cannot be thrown away or denied, which is the real "I". 

That "I" is the witness of the universe, it is unchangeable, eternal, infinite. Now, layer after layer of ignorance covers it from our eyes, but it remains ever the same.  

                      - Swami Vivekananda, 
                         Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

Eternal Thought and Matter

Greater Tirtha

Disciple: Sir, the Shastras tell us of various special influences attaching to places of pilgrimage. How far is this claim true?

Swamiji: When the whole world is the Form Universal of the Eternal Atman, the Ishvara (God), what is there to wonder at in special influences attaching to particular places? 
There are places where He manifests Himself specially, either spontaneously or through the earnest longing of pure souls, and the ordinary man, if he visits those places with eagerness, attains his end quite easily. 
Therefore it may lead to the development of the Self in time to have recourse to holy places. 

But know it for certain that there is no greater Tirtha (holy spot) than the body of man. Nowhere else is the Atman so manifest as here. 

                    - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Conversations and Dialogues, 
                        recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty

Dharmashoka and Chandashoka

Religion and Social Reforms

We believe that nowhere throughout the Vedas, Darshanas, or Puranas, or Tantras, is it ever said that the soul has any sex, creed, or caste. 
Therefore we agree with those who say, "What has religion to do with social reforms?" 

But they must also agree with us when we tell them that religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities. 

                          - Swami Vivekananda, 
                             Written to “Kidi” from Chicago

Lifeless Mockeries

Awakening Brahman Within

Man can only think of his ideal as a human being. When buffeted by sorrow in this world of disease and death he is driven to desperation and helplessness, then he seeks refuge with someone, relying on whom he may feel safe. 

But where is that refuge to be found? 

The omnipresent Atman which depends on nothing else to support It is the only Refuge. At first man does not find that. 
When discrimination and dispassion arise in the course of meditation and spiritual practices, he comes to know it. 

But in whatever way he may progress on the path of spirituality, everyone is unconsciously awakening Brahman within him. But the means may be different in different cases. 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    Conversations and Dialogues, 
                     recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty  

Triple Bonds

God Through Son

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
The Hindu calls this Maya, the manifestation of God, because it is the power of God. 

The Absolute reflecting through the universe is what we call nature. The Word has two manifestations -- the general one of nature, and the special one of the great Incarnations of God -- Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Ramakrishna. 

Christ, the special manifestation of the Absolute, is known and knowable. The absolute cannot be known: we cannot know the Father, only the Son. We can only see the Absolute through the "tint of humanity", through Christ. 

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                   Inspired Talks 

Life is Nothing!

Christ - Power of Purity

The action of healing men at a glance is forgotten, but His saying, "Blessed are the pure in heart", that lives today. 
These words are a gigantic magazine of power -- inexhaustible. So long as the human mind lasts, so long as the name of God is not forgotten, these words will roll on and on and never cease to be. 

These are the powers Jesus taught, and the powers He had. The power of purity; it is a definite power. So in worshipping Christ, in praying to Him, we must always remember what we are seeking. 
Not those foolish things of miraculous display, but the wonderful powers of the Spirit, which make man free, give him control over the whole of nature, take from him the badge of slavery, and show God unto him. 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, New York

All Life I Renounce

True Bhakta

Bhakti differs from your Western idea of religion in that Bhakti admits no elements of fear, no Being to be appeased or propitiated. 

There are even Bhaktas who worship God as their own child, so that there may remain no feeling even of awe or reverence. 

There can be no fear in true love, and so long as there is the least fear, Bhakti cannot even begin. In Bhakti there is also no place for begging or bargaining with God. The idea of asking God for anything is sacrilege to a Bhakta. He will not pray for health or wealth or even to go to heaven.

- Swami Vivekananda, 

   Inspired Talks 

All Space and Time in Soul

Duty

Duty of any kind is not to be slighted. A man who does the lower work is not, for that reason only, a lower man than he who does the higher work; a man should not be judged by the nature of his duties, but by the manner in which he does them.
His manner of doing them and his power to do them are indeed the test of a man.

 A shoemaker who can turn out a strong, nice pair of shoes in the shortest possible time is a better man, according to his profession and his work, than a professor who talks nonsense every day of his life. 

- Swami Vivekananda,
     On Karma-Yoga,
     Notes from Lectures and Discourses

Body and Soul

Apart from the most primitive system of doing away with the dead, amongst nations advanced to a certain extent, the method of doing away with the bodies of the dead is a great indication of their idea of the soul.

Wherever we find the idea of a departed soul closely connected with the idea of the dead body, we always find the tendency to preserve the body, and we also find burying in some form or other. On the other hand, with those in whom the idea has developed that the soul is a separate entity from the body and will not be hurt if the dead body is even destroyed, burning is always the process resorted to.

           -  Swami Vivekananda,
               The Nature of the Soul and Its Goal

Innate Moral Standard

Women in statesmanship, managing territories, governing countries, even making war, have proved themselves equal to men--if not superior. 

In India I have no doubt of that. Whenever they have had the opportunity, they have proved that they have as much ability as men, with this advantage--that they seldom degenerate. They keep to the moral standard, which is innate in their nature. 

And thus as governors and rulers of their state, they prove--at least in India--far superior to men. John Stuart Mill mentions this fact.  

                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    ‘The Women of India’ – Talk at 
                     Cambridge (December 17, 1894) 

Holy Mother Tithi Puja

Discrimination and Meditation

Disciple: Now, sir, please tell me about the utility of Raja-yoga and Bhakti-yoga.

Swamiji: Striving in these paths also some attain to the realisation of Brahman. 
The path of Bhakti or devotion of God is a slow process, but is easy of practice. In the path of Yoga there are many obstacles; perhaps the mind runs after psychic powers and thus draws you away from attaining your real nature. 

Only the path of Jnana is of quick fruition and the rationale 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 practised. 

By means of discrimination and meditation, the goal or Brahman has to be reached. One is sure to reach the goal by practising in this way. 
This, in my opinion, is the easy path ensuring quick success. 

                   - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Conversations and Dialogues, 
                        recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty  

Character and Love

Triputibheda - Transcending the Triad

Disciple: … but meditation must base itself on some object?

Swamiji: You yourself will be the object of your meditation. Think and meditate that you are the omnipresent Atman. 
"I am neither the body, nor the mind, nor the Buddhi (determinative faculty), neither the gross nor the subtle body"-- by this process of elimination, immerse your mind in the transcendent knowledge which is your real nature. 

Kill the mind by thus plunging it repeatedly in this. Then only you will realise the Essence of Intelligence, or be established in your real nature. Knower and known, meditator and the object meditated upon will then become one, and the cessation of all phenomenal superimpositions will follow. 

This is styled in the Shastras as the transcendence of the triad or relative knowledge (Triputibheda). There is no relative or conditioned knowledge in this state. When the Atman is the only knower, by what means can you possibly know It? 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                     Conversations and Dialogues, 
                     recorded by Sharat Chandra Chakravarty  

Aim and End of Vedas

Million-Headed Serpent

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 and fame and hold fast to the Lord, and at last we shall reach a state of perfect indifference. 

The idea that the gratification of the senses constitutes enjoyment is purely materialistic. There is not one spark of real enjoyment there; all the joy there is, is a mere reflection of the true bliss. 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                         Inspired Talks 

"I and my Father are One"

Come to God Anyway

Until we realise God for ourselves, we can know nothing about Him. 
Each man is perfect by his nature; prophets have manifested this perfection, but it is potential in us. 

How can we understand that Moses saw God unless we too see Him? If God ever came to anyone, He will come to me. 
I will go to God direct; let Him talk to me. I cannot take belief as a basis; that is atheism and blasphemy. If God spake to a man in the deserts of Arabia two thousand years ago, He can also speak to me today, else how can I know that He has not died? 

Come to God any way you can; only come. But in coming do not push anyone down. 

                         - Swami Vivekananda, 
                            Inspired Talks

Bond of Universal Brotherhood

Jivan-Mukta - Goal of Vedanta

Thus we realise that all these phenomena are but the reflections, bifurcated or manifolded, of the one existence, truth-bliss-unity -- my real Self and the reality of everything else. 

Then and then only is it possible to do good without evil, for such a soul has known and got the control of the material of which both good and evil are manufactured, and he alone can manifest one or the other as he likes, and we know he manifests only good. 

This is the Jivan-mukta -- the living free -- the goal of Vedanta as of all other philosophies. 

               - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    in a Letter to Mary Hale 
                      from London (November 1896)

Books and Dogmas

Evanescent Dream

The more the shades around deepen, the more the ends approach and the more one understands the true meaning of life, that it is a dream; 
and we begin to understand the failure of everyone to grasp it, for they only attempted to get meaning out of the meaningless. 

To get reality out of a dream is boyish enthusiasm.

"Everything is evanescent, everything is changeful"-- knowing this, the sage gives up both pleasure and pain and becomes a witness of this panorama (the universe) without attaching himself to anything. 

                       - Swami Vivekananda, 
                           in a Letter to Mary Hale 
                            from Thousand Island Park (June 1895)

Worldliness and Realization of God

Essence of Vedas

We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance, the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds. 

We believe that this is the conscious or unconscious basis of all religions, and that this is the explanation of the whole history of human progress either in the material, intellectual, or spiritual plane -- the same Spirit is manifesting through different planes.

We believe that this is the very essence of the Vedas. 

                       - Swami Vivekananda, 
                        Written to “Kidi” from Chicago 

No Amateur Religion

Squeeze Every Single Drop

Ingersoll once said to me: "I believe in making the most out of this world, in squeezing the orange dry, because this world is all we are sure of." 

I replied: "I know a better way to squeeze the orange of this world than you do, and I get more out of it. I know  I cannot die, so I am not in a hurry; I know there is no fear, so I enjoy the squeezing. I have no duty, no bondage of wife and children and property; I can love all men and women. Everyone is God to me. Think of the joy of loving man as God! 
Squeeze your orange this way and get ten thousandfold more out of it. Get every single drop." 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                        Inspired Talks  

Say "Om Tat Sat, Om"

Not Matter But Spirit

Religion - Pleasure of Self

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. 

If the mind is pleased with praise, it will be displeased with blame. All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent; but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. 
It is perfectly free, it is bliss. The more our bliss is within, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what the world calls religion. 

                   - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Inspired Talks  

Gita - Crown Jewel of All Indian Literature

Jnana is taught very clearly by Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita.
This great poem is held to be the Crown jewel of all Indian literature. It is a kind of commentary on the Vedas. 
It shows us that our battle for spirituality must be fought out in this life; so we must not flee from it, but rather compel it to give us all that it holds. 

As the Gita typifies this struggle for higher things, it is highly poetical to lay the scene in a battlefield. Krishna in the guise of a charioteer to Arjuna, leader of one of the opposing armies, urges him not to be sorrowful, not to fear death, since he knows he is immortal, that nothing which changes can be in the real  nature of man. 

Through chapter after chapter, Krishna teaches the higher truths of philosophy and religion to Arjuna. It is these teachings which make this poem so wonderful; practically the whole of the Vedanta philosophy is included in them.  

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

To Know God

Religion is Superconscious State

Q.-- This state of oneness that you speak of, is it an ideal or something actually attained?

A.-- We say it is within actuality; we say we realise that state.
If it were only in talk, it would be nothing. The Vedas teach three things: this Self is first to be heard, then to be reasoned, and then to be meditated upon. 
When a man first hears it, he must reason on it, so that he does not believe it ignorantly, but knowingly; and after reasoning what it is, he must meditate upon it, and then realise it. And that is religion. 

Belief is no part of religion. We say religion is a superconscious state. 

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                   Q & A at Graduate Philosophical Society 
                   of Harvard University on March 25, 1896 

Life's Allegiance

Seek the Highest

Stick to God! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else! 

Through the terrors of evil, say -- my God, my love! 
Through the pangs of death, say -- my God, my love! 
Through all the evils under the sun, say -- my God, my love! 
Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. I am Thine, take me. Do not go for glass beads leaving the mine of diamonds! 

This life is a great chance. What, seekest thou the pleasures of the world?-- he is the fountain of all bliss. Seek for the highest, aim at that highest, and you shall reach the highest. 

                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                     in a Letter to Hale Sisters 
                       from Maine (July 1894)

Corrosive Substance

No Conditions for Moksha

Both Jnana and Bhakti are everywhere preached to be unconditioned, and as such there is not one authority who lays down the conditions of caste or creed or nationality in attaining Moksha. 

See the discussion on the Sutra of Vyasa – 
अन्तरा चापि तु तद्दृष्टे: ["But also (persons standing) between (are qualified for knowledge); for that is seen (in scripture)."-- III.iv.36] by Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva. 


                             - Swami Vivekananda, 
                                ‘Reply to the Madras Address’

Hold Fast!

Four Varnas

Human society is in turn governed by the four castes -- the priests, the soldiers, the traders, and the labourers. 
Each state has its glories as well as its defects. 

When the priest (Brahmin) rules, there is a tremendous exclusiveness on hereditary grounds; the persons of the priests and their descendants are hemmed in with all sorts of safeguards -- none but they have any knowledge -- none but they have the right to impart that knowledge. 
Its glory is that at this period is laid the foundation of sciences. The priests cultivate the mind, for through the mind they govern.

The military (Kshatriya) rule is tyrannical and cruel, but they are not exclusive; and during that period arts and social culture attain their height.

The commercial (Vaishya) rule comes next. It is awful in its silent crushing and blood-sucking power. 
Its advantage is, as the trader himself goes everywhere, he is a good disseminator of ideas collected during the two previous states. They are still less exclusive than the military, but culture begins to decay.

Last will come the labourer (Shudra) rule. Its advantages will be the distribution of physical comforts -- its disadvantages, (perhaps) the lowering of culture. There will be a great distribution of ordinary education, but extraordinary geniuses will be less and less.

If it is possible to form a state in which the knowledge of the priest period, the culture of the military, the distributive spirit of the commercial, and the ideal of equality of the last can all be kept intact, minus their evils, it will be an ideal state. 
But is it possible? 

              - Swami Vivekananda, 
                 in a Letter to his brother disciples 
                   from England (April 1896)

Multitude and Mob