Swami Vivekananda

[blazeofglory]

Very true. Do you know what he was reading before he died? The Encyclopedia Britannica! He never completed it, though; it's preserved in the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Museum in Calcutta now.

He died too early. He could contribute greatly had he not died that early. I have not across men of knowledge as great as him who could despite all adversaries and difficulties have pinnacled a height that was not scalable for the mortals ordinarily

[NikolaiI]

1. Love Is The Law Of Life: 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 law of life, just as you breathe to live.

2. It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4. It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realised 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.

6. Don't Play The Blame Game: 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.

7. Help Others: If money helps 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.

8. Uphold Your Ideals: 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.

9. Listen To Your Soul: 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.

10. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11. Nothing Is Impossible: 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.

12. You Have The Power: 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.

13. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge... now this 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 man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

[dizzydoll]

Those are excellent words of wisdom Nikolai, thank you for sharing them with us. If only I could program everybody to only think on these words... the world would be a better place. Now this is naive I know, but its wonderful to dream all the same.

[dizzydoll]

(The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 5/Notes from Lectures and Discourses/Sadhanas or Preparations for Higher Life

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Co...or_Higher_Life)

But we ourselves are creating our own universe. We are continuous with the universe - we are not the microcasm, but the macrocosm, not the character, but the author. We are not caught in any fiction, but we are transcendental, and we are actually part of the source of reality. We are the source of our own reality. Not separated from reality, but an unconditioned part of making new reality. But these are only words, and no matter what we say, it's only philosophy. The real goal is to realize the Self by meditation, by practice. Again, it is to realize truth. That is the path of the saints and sages, and Swami Vivekananda presents it deeply accurately and accessibly, brilliantly and poetically, to the modern seekers.

I am fully in agreement with your whole comment and I agree completely with your last paragraph ^^^. btw the wiki page you refer to on this quote is no longer available, perhaps add another.

Oh and this piece of quotation is beautifully expressed.

No breathing, no physical training of Yoga, nothing is of any use until you reach to the idea, "I am the Witness." Say, when the tyrant hand is on your neck, "I am the Witness! I am the Witness!" Say, "I am the Spirit! Nothing external can touch me." When evil thoughts arise, repeat that, give that sledge-hammer blow on their heads, "I am the Spirit! I am the Witness, the Ever-Blessed! I have no reason to do, no reason to suffer, I have finished with everything, I am the Witness. I am in my picture gallery — this universe is my museum, I am looking at these successive paintings. They are all beautiful. Whether good or evil. I see the marvellous skill, but it is all one. Infinite flames of the Great Painter!" 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.

Truly expressive and so true too. Cool Nikolai... now onto the next, you're working this girl this morning.

[billl]

The fact is, there are potentialities of the mental faculties that have hitherto been unexplored by Western science. Swamiji was merely pointing out the way for future scientific research. Did he not himself say, "Believe in nothing unless it be tested by your reason"? He wanted people to know that yoga can reveal such immense reservoirs of power from within us, but he himself later discarded these powers as distracting and inconsequential.

Very important stuff.

[NikolaiI]

But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised
one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a
yawning chasm the next, rolling to and from at the mercy of good and
bad actions - a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging,
ever-rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect - a little
moth placed under the wheel of causation, which rolls on crushing
everything in its way and waits not for the widow's tears or the
orphan's cry?

The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of nature. Is there
no hope? Is there no escape? - was the cry that went up from the
bottom of the heart of despair.

It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation
came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world
and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: "Hear, ye children
of immortal bliss! even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have
found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion:
knowing Him alone you shall be save from death over again. "Children
of immortal bliss" -what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to
call you, brethren, by that sweet name -heirs of immortal bliss -
yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. We are the Children of
God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. We
divinities on earth - sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is
standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake
off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal,
spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are
not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.


Vivekananda... from the conference of religions at Chicago in 1897, I think...

[andrewoberg]

Just stumbled on this thread, and wow, excellent reading. Thanks for all the great posts, especially NikolaiI's. This dovetails very nicely with where I'm at in my own thinking and reading, and gives me more dimensions to explore.

Cheers!

[NikolaiI]

Just stumbled on this thread, and wow, excellent reading. Thanks for all the great posts, especially NikolaiI's. This dovetails very nicely with where I'm at in my own thinking and reading, and gives me more dimensions to explore.

Cheers!

You're welcome, Andrew. Usually you can find something of Swami Vivekananda's writings at a university library. You might also check out Sri Aurobindo. He was an Indian philosopher and poet who came later and was influenced by Swami Vivekananda.

Cheers

[jayadianat]

Dear Nicoli, You have touched the main distinction between Vivekananda's view and Christian view of that time. If you have not heard about Yogananda then you can read his book "Autobiography of a Yogi". In that book some of the verses of old testament has been interpreted differently. By reading that what I understood is that sin was a way of encrypting the message. According to that interpretation, the tree of knowledge is the spinal chord, the root of the tree is the brain and other nerve centers controlling various parts of the body as the branches. The fruit is the coxis. The serpent is the coiled up energy that is called "kundalini" in Hindu tradition. This is the God's creative energy and also has connection to the piece "God created man in his own image". Meaning man has the ability to create man. Now, the serpent whiepers, notice not "said" though most of the time God said. Serpent whispers to eve-the emotional soft side and eve convinces to physical act of creation by coupling. This is called a sin as it was a result of weakness and forgetfulness of man's true self. Remember that the source of immmorality is the weakness that makes man forget about his true nature. When man fogets his true nature he confines his existence to body and the weakness of the body becomes the source of immoral actions of the man trapped in body. So, man is born of sin meaning the body is born of sin and the soul finds the confinement of body as its true nature. That's why the soul has to reclaim its rightful position meaning realize the self and be aware of the kingdom of heaven. So, the distinction in approach can lead to unison between Christian philosophy and Vedic philosophy.