Mother's Love

The ideal of womanhood in India is motherhood -- that marvelous, unselfish, all-suffering, ever-forgiving mother. 
The wife walks behind -- the shadow. She must imitate the life of the mother; that is her duty. 
But the mother is the ideal of love; … … 

Instead of "Our Father in Heaven", we say "Mother" all the time; that idea and that word are ever associated in the Hindu mind with Infinite Love, the mother's love being the nearest approach to God's love in this mortal world of ours. 

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

Repent

Supersensuous World

Raja-Yoga is as much a science as any in the world. 
It is an analysis of the mind, a gathering of the facts of the supersensuous world and so building up the spiritual world. 

All the great spiritual teachers the world has known said, "I see and I know." Jesus, Paul, and Peter all claimed actual perception of the spiritual truths they taught.

This perception is obtained by Yoga. 

             - Swami Vivekananda, 
                Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

Zeal, Depth, and Width

Theory of Incarnation

The theory of incarnation is the first link in the chain of ideas leading to the recognition of the oneness of God and man.

God appearing first in one human form, then re-appearing at different times in other human forms, is at last recognized as being in every human form, or in all men. 

Monistic is the highest stage, monotheistic is a lower stage. 

          - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

  

Bit of Holiness

Bark of Householders' Life

The Sannyasins inspire the householders in all noble causes by embodying in their lives the highest principle of giving up everything for the sake of God and the good of the world, and as a return the householders give them a few doles of food. 

And the very disposition and capacity to grow that food develops in the people because of the blessings and good wishes of the all-renouncing monks. 

It is because of their failure to understand the deeper issues that people blame the monastic institution. Whatever may be the case in other countries, in this land the bark of householders' life does not sink only because the Sannyasins are at its helm.

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

Ideals in Perfect Form

Concentrated Mind

Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God. 
If you know one soul (your own), you know all souls, past, present, and to come. 

The will concentrates the mind, certain things excite and control this will, such as reason, love, devotion, breathing. The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul. 

          - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Unity

Residuum of Truth

Develop love of imagery and beautiful poetry and then enjoy all mythologies as poetry. 
Come not to mythology with ideas of history and reasoning. 

Let it flow as a current through your mind, let it be whirled as a candle before your eyes, without asking who holds the candle, and you will get the circle; the residuum of truth will remain in your mind. 

             - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Talking Faults

Moral Gymnasium

Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world. 

Be grateful to him who curses you, for he gives you a mirror to show what cursing is, also a chance to practice self - restraint; so bless him and be glad. 
Without exercise, power cannot come out; without the mirror, we cannot see ourselves. 

               - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

De-Hypnotization

Obstacles

Religion gives you nothing new; it only takes off obstacles and lets you see your Self. 

Sickness is the first great obstacle; a healthy body is the best instrument. Melancholy is an almost insuperable barrier. 
If you have once known Brahman, never after can you be melancholy. 

Doubt, want of perseverance, mistaken ideas are other obstacles. 

              - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Infinite Circle

The Jivanmukta

The Jivanmukta ('the living free' or one who knows) alone is able to give real love, real charity, real truth, and it is truth alone that makes us free. 

Desire makes slaves of us, it is an insatiable tyrant and gives its victims no rest; but the Jivanmukta has conquered all desire by rising to the knowledge that he is the One and there is nothing left to wish for.  

                 - Swami Vivekananda, 
                    Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

Panini Grammar

Harmony of Four Yogas

Q: What do you mean by the harmony of the four Yogas?

Swamiji: Discrimination between the real and the unreal,
 dispassion and devotion, 
 work and practices in concentration, and 
 along with these there must be a reverential attitude towards women. 

         - Swami Vivekananda, 
            Conversations and Dialogues, 
              recorded by Priya Nath Sinha

Science of Religion

Water in a Kettle

This world is like water in a kettle, beginning to boil; 
first a bubble comes, then another, then many until all is in ebullition and passes away in steam. 

The great teachers are like the bubbles as they begin -- here one, there one; but in the end every creature has to be a bubble and escape. 
Creation, ever new, will bring new water and go through the process all over again. 

Buddha and Christ are the two greatest "bubbles" the world has known.  

         - Swami Vivekananda, 
            Discourses on Jnana-Yoga, US

Systematised Devotion

Moving Tirthas

Those by whose grace the knowledge of Atman, which is extolled so much in the scriptures,
is attained in a minute are the moving Tirthas (seats of holiness) -- the Incarnations. … ...

The highest ideal of Ishvara which the human mind can grasp is the Avatara. 
Beyond this there is no relative knowledge. 

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

Nature is Bound, Not Soul

Infinite Depository

Get rid of the fundamental superstition that we are obliged to act through the body. 
We are not. 

Go into your own room and get the Upanishads out of your own Self. You are the greatest book that ever was or ever will be, the infinite depository of all that is. 

Until the inner teacher opens, all outside teaching is in vain. It must lead to the opening of the book of the heart to have any value. 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Concentrated Love

Reason

What right have we not to use the greatest gift that God has given to us? 

I am sure God will pardon a man who will use his reason and cannot believe, rather than a man who believes blindly instead of using the faculties He has given him. He simply degrades his nature and goes down to the level of the beasts -- degrades his senses and dies. 

                - Swami Vivekananda, 
                 ‘Methods and Purpose of Religion’ 
                   - Talk in England

Essence of Education

Science and Veda

Truth is of two kinds: 
(1) that which is cognizable by the five ordinary senses of man, and by reasoning based thereon; 
(2) that which is cognizable by the subtle, supersensuous power of Yoga.

Knowledge acquired by the first means is called science; and
knowledge acquired by the second is called the Vedas. 

         - Swami Vivekananda, 
            ‘Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna’

Lump of Clay and Gold

Shruti Smriti

By the word "Shastras" the Vedas without beginning or end are meant. In matters of religious duty the Vedas are the only capable authority.

The Puranas and other religious scriptures are all denoted by the word "Smriti". 
And their authority goes so far as they follow the Vedas and do not contradict them. 

               - Swami Vivekananda, 
                 ‘Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna’

All Religious Ideas

Infinite Patience

Give up the notion that man is a responsible being, only the perfect man is responsible. The ignorant have drunk deep of the cup of delusion and are not sane.

You, who know, must have infinite patience with these. Have nothing but love for them and find out the disease that has made them see the world in a wrong light, then help them to cure it and see aright. 

              - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

With and Without Love

Leading Across Maya

It is the Jnana-kanda or the Vedanta only that has for all time commanded recognition for leading men across Maya and bestowing salvation on them through the practice of Yoga, Bhakti, Jnana, or selfless work; and 

as its validity and authority remain unaffected by any limitations of time, place or persons, 
it is the only exponent of the universal and eternal religion for all mankind. 

            - Swami Vivekananda, 
              ‘Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna’

Chief Advantage of Vedanta

Life of Country

It matters little whether rich men and scholars listen to you, understand you, and praise or blame you -- they are merely the ornaments, the decorations of the country! -- it is the millions of poor lower class people who are its life. 

Numbers do not count, nor does wealth or poverty; a handful of men can throw the world off its hinges, provided they are united in thought, word, and deed -- never forget this conviction. 

         - Swami Vivekananda, 
            Memoirs of European Travel

What is Materiality

No One Method for All

No one method can suit all. 
These different methods are not steps necessary to be taken one after another. 

Ceremonials are the lowest form; next God external, and after that God internal. In some cases gradation may be needed, but in many only one way is required. 

It would be the height of folly to say to everyone, 
"You must pass through Karma and Bhakti before you can reach Jnana." 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Man-Making Religion

Putting Oneself in Another's Position

While on board a ship to England, Swami Vivekananda was touched by the childlike devotion of the ship's servants:

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: You see, I love our Mohammedans!

SISTER NIVEDITA: Yes, but what I want to understand is this habit of seeing every people from their strongest aspect.
Where did it come from? Do you recognize it in any historical character? 
Or is it in some way derived from Shri Ramakrishna?

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: It must have been the training under Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. We all went by his path to some extent. Of course it was not so difficult for us as he made it for himself. He would eat and dress like the people he wanted to understand, take their initiation, and use their language. "One must learn", he said, "to put oneself into another man's very soul". 
And this method was his own! 
No one ever before in India became Christian and Mohammedan and Vaishnava, by turn!

- Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 
                             Vol IX, P332

Superstition and Prejudice

Fiery Faith

Do not look up to the so-called rich and great; do not care for the heartless intellectual writers, and their cold-blooded newspaper articles.
Faith, sympathy -- fiery faith and fiery sympathy!

Life is nothing, death is nothing, hunger nothing, cold nothing. Glory unto the Lord -- march on, the Lord is our General.
Do not look back to see who falls -- forward -- onward!

Thus and thus we shall go on, brethren. One falls, and another takes up the work.

 - Swami Vivekananda,
    in a Letter to Alasinga Perumal
     from Massachusetts (August 1893)

Spirit and Matter

The truly spiritual see Spirit as Spirit, not as matter. It is Spirit that makes nature move; It is the reality in nature.
So action is in nature; not in the Spirit.

Spirit is always the same, changeless, eternal. Spirit and matter are in reality the same;
but Spirit, as such, never becomes matter; and matter, as such, never becomes Spirit.

 - Swami Vivekananda,
   ‘Spirit and Natures’,
   Notes on Class Talks and Lectures

Differentiation

We cannot say positively what differentiation is. All that we see and feel about
things is pure and simple existence, "isness ". All else is in us.

Being is the only positive proof we have of anything. All differentiation is really "secondary reality", as the snake in the rope, because the serpent, too, had a certain reality, in that something was seen although misapprehended.

 - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Love is Easiest

All desires are but beads of glass.
Love of God increases every moment and is ever new, to be known only by feeling it. Love is the easiest of all, it waits for no logic,
it is natural.

We need no demonstration, no proof. Reasoning is limiting something by our own minds. We throw a net and catch something, and then say that we have demonstrated it; but never, never can we catch God in a net.

 - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Reason comes later

Morality exists first; later, religion codifies it.
Customs come first, and then mythology follows to explain them.

While things are happening, they come by a
higher law than reasoning; that [i.e. reason] arises later in the attempt to understand them.
Reasoning is not the motive power, it is "chewing the cud" afterwards. Reason is
the historian of the actions of the human being.

 - Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks

Love is God

Religion, like other sciences, requires you to gather facts, to see for yourself, and this is possible when you go beyond the knowledge which lies in the region of the five senses.

Religious truths need verification by everyone.
To see God is the one goal. Power is not the goal. Pure Existence - knowledge - and - love is the goal; and Love is God.

- Swami Vivekananda,
 ‘Lessons on Raja-Yoga’,
   Class Notes in England

Drink the Cup of Love

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.
Seeing a cat loving her kittens stand and pray. God has become manifest there; literally believe this.

Repeat "I am Thine, I am Thine", for we can see God everywhere. Do not seek for Him, just see Him.

- Swami Vivekananda,
   Inspired Talks

Mystic and Church

In the church, religionists first learn a religion, then begin to practise it; they do not take experience as the basis of their belief.
But the mystic starts out in search of truth, experiences it first, and then formulates his creed.

The church takes the experience of others; the mystic has his own experience. 

The church goes from the outside in; the mystic goes from the inside out.

- Swami Vivekananda,
  ‘Religion and Science’,
   Notes of Class Talks and Lectures