"Authorities" of the Hindu Religion

The three Prasthanas ["Courses", viz, the Upanishad (Shruti), the Gita, and the Shariraka-Sutras], then, 
in their different explanations as Dvaita, Vishistadvaita, or Advaita, with a few minor recensions, 
form the "authorities" of the Hindu religion. 

The Puranas, the modern representations of the ancient Narasamsi (anecdote portion of the Vedas), supply the mythology, and 
the Tantras, the modern representations of the Brahmanas (ritual and explanatory portion of the Vedas), supply the ritual. 

Thus the three Prasthanas, as authorities, are common to all the sects; but as to the Puranas and Tantras, each sect has its own. 

                       - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       ‘Reply to the Madras Address’   

  

Science of the Maker

One Solution to Life

Life is but momentary whether you have the knowledge of an angel or the ignorance of an animal. 

Life is but momentary, whether you have the poverty of the poorest man in rags or the wealth of the richest living person. 

Life is but momentary, whether you are a downtrodden man living in one of the big streets of the big cities of the West or a crowned Emperor ruling over millions. 

Life is but momentary, whether you have the best of health or the worst. 

Life is but momentary, whether you have the most poetical temperament or the most cruel. 

There is but one solution of life, says the Hindu, and that solution is what they call God and Religion.

- Swami Vivekananda, 

Talk on ‘My Master’

Remain Unattached

Principles and Not Persons

Our allegiance is to the principles always, and not to the persons. Persons are but the embodiments, the illustrations of the principles. 
If the principles are there, the persons will come by the thousands and millions. If the principle is safe, persons like Buddha will be born by the hundreds and thousands. But if the principle is lost and forgotten and the whole of national life tries to cling round a so-called historical person, woe unto that religion, danger unto that religion! 

Ours is the only religion that does not depends on a person or persons; it is based upon principles. At the same time there is room for millions of persons. 

               - Swami Vivekananda, 
                 Address at Madras, 
                 Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Search for My Own Reality

Weakness - Cause of all Problems

It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil doing; 
it is weakness that is the source of all selfishness; 
it is weakness that makes men injure others; 
it is weakness that makes them manifest what they are not in reality. 

Let them all know what they are; let them repeat day and night what they are. Soham. Let them suck it in with their mothers' milk, this idea of strength -- i am He, I am He. 

This is to be heard first – श्रोतव्यो मन्तव्यो निदिध्यासितव्य:  etc. 
And then let them think of it, and out of that thought, out of that heart will proceed works such as the world has never seen.  

              - Swami Vivekananda, 
                  Address at Lahore, 
                  Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Dualistic, Non-Dualistic

Light, Bring Light!

Bring all light into the world. 
Light, bring light! Let light come unto every one; 
the task will not be finished till every one has reached the Lord. 

Bring light to the poor; and bring more light to the rich, for they require it more than the poor. Bring light to the ignorant, and more light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are tremendous! 

Thus bring light to all and leave the rest unto the Lord, for in the words of the same Lord, "To work you have the right and not to the fruits thereof." "Let not your work produce results for you, and at the same time may you never be without work." 

             - Swami Vivekananda, 
              Address at Madras, 
              Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Gilded Balls of Poison

Legacy of Degraded Buddhism

In spite of the preaching of mercy to animals, 
in spite of the sublime ethical religion, 
in spite of the hair-splitting discussions about the existence or non-existence of a permanent soul, 
the whole building of Buddhism tumbled down piecemeal; and the ruin was simply hideous. 

I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. 
The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism. 

                      - Swami Vivekananda, 
                         Address at Madras, 
                Lectures From Colombo to Almora

Being and Becoming

Way to Get Nearer to God

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. 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, 
                                      Inspired Talks  

National Union in India

Matter and Mind

The materialist frightens the idealist by claiming to derive his mind from the elements of the laboratory, while all the time he is struggling to express something higher than all elements and atoms, something of which both the external and the internal phenomena are results, and which he terms matter. 
The idealist, on the other hand, wants to derive all the elements and atoms of the materialist from his own thought, even while catching glimpses of something which is the cause of both mind and matter, and which he ofttimes calls God. 

That is to say, one party wants to explain the whole universe by a portion of it which is external, the other by another portion which is internal. Both of these attempts are impossible. 
Mind and matter cannot explain each other. The only explanation is to be sought for in something which will embrace both matter and mind. 

                   - Swami Vivekananda, 
                      found in an unfinished article  

No Fear of Text-torturing

Charity - Kindergarten of Religion

Mark, therefore, the ordinary theory of practical religion, what it leads to. Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism. 
It is not religion. It is no better than atheism -- a little less. . . 

You Christians, have you found nothing else in the Bible than working for fellow creatures, building . . . hospitals? … … 
That sort of practical religion is good, not bad; but it is just kindergarten religion. It leads nowhere. . . . 

If you believe in God, if you are Christians and repeat everyday, "Thy will be done", just think what it means! 
You say every moment, "Thy will be done", really meaning, "My will be done by Thee, O God." 
The Infinite is working His own plans out. Even He has made mistakes, and you and I are going to remedy that! The Architect of the universe is going to be taught by the carpenters! He has left the world a dirty hole, and you are going to make it a beautiful place! 

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                  Talk at Alameda, California   

Stand on Your Own Feet

Like the Gentle Dew

Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Tithi Puja

Ramayana and Mahabharata - Encyclopedias of Ancient Aryan Life and Wisdom

In speaking of the Mahabharata to you, it is simply impossible for me to present the unending array of the grand and majestic characters of the mighty heroes depicted by the genius and master-mind of Vyasa. 

The internal conflicts between righteousness and filial affection in the mind of the god-fearing, yet feeble, old, blind King Dhritarashtra; the majestic character of the grandsire Bhishma; the noble and virtuous character of the royal Yudhishthira, and of the other four brothers, as mighty in valour as in devotion and loyalty; the peerless character of Krishna, unsurpassed in human wisdom; and not less brilliant, the characters of the women -- the stately queen Gandhari, the loving mother Kunti, the ever-devoted and all-suffering Draupadi -- these and hundreds of other characters of this Epic and those of the Ramayana have been the cherished heritage of the whole Hindu world for the last several thousands of years and form the basis of their thoughts and of their moral and ethical ideas. 

In fact, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the two encyclopedias of the ancient Aryan life and wisdom, portraying an ideal civilization which humanity has yet to aspire after.

            - Swami Vivekananda, 
             Talk at Pasadena, California 

Perfect Bhakti

Mahashivaratri - Hara! Hara! Mahadeva!

I feel as if a thunderbolt strikes me on the head when I hear people dwell on negative thoughts. That sort of self-depreciating attitude is another name for disease -- do you call that humility? It is vanity in disguise! 

"न लिङ्गं धर्मकारणं, समता सर्वभूतेषु एतन्मुक्तस्य लक्षणम् -- the external badge does not confer spirituality. 
It is same-sightedness to all beings which is the test of a liberated soul." 

"अस्ति अस्ति (It is, It is)," 
"सोऽहं सोऽहं," "चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहं शिवोऽहं"--"I am He!", "I am Shiva, of the essence of Knowledge and Bliss!" 
"निर्गच्छति जगज्जलात् पिन्जरादिव केशरी -- he frees himself from the meshes of this world as a lion from its cage!" 
"नायमात्मा बलहीनेन लभ्य -- this Atman is not accessible to the weak". . . . 

Hurl yourselves on the world like an avalanche -- let the world crack in twain under your weight! 
Hara! Hara! Mahadeva! 
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानम् -- one must save the self by one's own self"-- by personal prowess. 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                     in a Letter to Brother Disciple from 
                     New York (September 1894)

Giants in Spirituality

Religion and Society

In India religion was never shackled. 
No man was ever challenged in the selection of his Ishta Devata, or his sect, or his preceptor, and religion grew, as it grew nowhere else. 
On the other hand, a fixed point was necessary to allow this infinite variation to religion, and society was chosen as that point in India. As a result, society became rigid and almost immovable. 
For liberty is the only condition of growth.

On the other hand, in the West, the field of variation was society, and the constant point was religion. 
Conformity was the watchword, and even now is the watchword of European religion, and each new departure had to gain the least advantage only by wading through a river of blood. 
The result is a splendid social organisation, with a religion that never rose beyond the grossest materialistic conceptions. 

                     - Swami Vivekananda, 
                      ‘Reply to the Madras Address’     

Eastern and Western Views of Death