Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda
Swami VivekanandaBengali: , Shāmi Bibekānondo; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, a chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He was a major force in the revival of Hinduism in...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth12 January 1863
CountryIndia
If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.
India is immortal if she persists in her search for God. But if she goes in for politics and social conflict, she will die.
In spirituality the Americans are very inferior to us. But their society is very superior to ours
So we find that in almost every religion these are the three primary things which we have in the worship of God forms or symbols , names, God-men. All religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with each other...These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to pass; but if he is sincere , if he really wants to reach the truth , he goes higher than these, to a plane where forms are as nothing.
You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results. Work incessantly, but see something behind the work. Even good deeds can find a man in great bondage. Therefore be not bound by good deeds or by desires for name and fame.
Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres.
The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.
The more we grow in Love, Virtue and Holiness, the more we see Love, Virtue and Holiness outside.
Religion is being and becoming. Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.
This universe is the wreckage of the infinite on the shores of the finite.
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.
This attachment of Love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but effectively breaks all its bondages.
We never change, we never die, and we are never born.
These births and deaths are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in us.