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
Weak or wicked, great or small, in men and in animal, resides the same omnipresent, omniscient soul. The difference is not in the soul, but in the manifestation. Between me and the smallest animal the difference is only of manifestation, but as a principle he is the same as I am, he is my brother, he has the same soul as I have. This is the principle of Universal Brotherhood of man with one another, with all life down to the little ants.
As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves.
Spirituality is the science of the Soul.
Say it with pride we are Hindus
In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.
Man is to become divine by realizing the divine. Idols or temples, or churches or books, are only the supports, the help of his spiritual childhood.
Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.
The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.
If the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, It is no more Absolute; It has become finite.
Be not Afraid of anything. You will do Marvelous work. it is Fearlessness that brings Heaven even in a moment.
The nearer we are to God, the less we will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from God, the more will long faces come. The more we know God, the more misery vanishes.
God is very merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for spiritual realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.
Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!
You must keep a strict eye on your health; let everything else be subordinated to that.