[Quotes] - CHARACTER - Swami Vivekananda

CHARACTER

Neither Money pays, nor name, nor fame, nor learning.

it is CHARACTER

that can cleave through adamantine walls of difficulties.
- Swami Vivekananda.

[Swami Vivekananda] - Build up Your Character & Manifest your Real Nature

                                                     If I teach you, therefore, that your nature is evil, that you should go home and sit in sackcloth and ashes and weep your lives out because you took certain false steps, it will not help you, but will weaken you all the more, and I shall be showing you the road to more evil than good. If this room is full of darkness for thousands of years and you come in and begin to weep and wail, "Oh the darkness", will the darkness vanish? Strike a match and light comes in a moment. What good will it do you to think all your lives, "Oh, I have done evil, I have made many mistakes"? It requires no ghost to tell us that. Bring in the light and the evil goes in a moment. Build up your character, and manifest your real nature, the Effulgent, the Resplendent, the Ever-Pure, and call It up in everyone that you see.

 - Swami Vivekananda
 The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Practical Vedanta and other lectures/Practical Vedanta: Part IV


 Thanks to Inspiring Stories Group of Facebook

[Quotes] - Who Build highways for others with their heart's Blood. - Swami Vivekananda.

       Will such a day come when this life will go for the sake of other's good? The world is not a child's play — and great men are those who build highways for others with their heart's blood. This has been taking place through eternity, that one builds a bridge by laying down his own body and thousands of others cross the river through its help. " Shiva!"


- Swami Vivekananda
25th September, 1894 NEW YORK
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/XLVII Brother disciples




* Thanks to Inspiratinal Messages group

[Messages] - From Complete works of Swami Vivekananda (RAJA YOGA LESSONS)

Three things are necessary to the student who wishes to succeed in attaining god.

First. Give up all ideas of enjoyment in this world and the next, care only for God and Truth. We are here to know truth, not for enjoyment. Leave that to brutes who enjoy as we never can. Man is a thinking being and must struggle on until he conquers death, until he sees the light. He must not spend himself in vain talking that bears no fruit. Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.

Second. Intense desire to know Truth and God. Be eager for them, long for them, as a drowning man longs for breath. Want only God, take nothing else, let not "seeming" cheat you any longer. Turn from all and seek only God.

Third. The six trainings: First — Restraining the mind from going outward. Second — Restraining the senses. Third — Turning the mind inward. Fourth — Suffering everything without murmuring. Fifth — Fastening the mind to one idea. Take the subject before you and think it out; never leave it. Do not count time. Sixth — Think constantly of your real nature. Get rid of superstition. Do not hypnotise yourself into a belief in your own inferiority. Day and night tell yourself what you really are, until you realise (actually realise) your oneness with God.

Without these disciplines, no results can be gained.

We can be conscious of the Absolute, but we can never express It. The moment we try to express It, we limit It and It ceases to be Absolute.

We have to go beyond sense limit and transcend even reason, and we have the power to do this.

Source: http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_8/vol_8_frame.htm

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda Concluding remarks in Parliament of Religion

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth; or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.

Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: "Help and not Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."

- Swami Vivekanada

* Thanks to Holy Trio Google Groups.

[Quotes] - How to attain Freedom - Swami Vivekananda.

There is only one way to attain that infinite freedom, and that is by giving up this little life, giving up this little universe, giving up this earth, giving up heaven, giving up the body, giving up the mind, giving up everything that is limited and conditioned. If we give up our attachment to this little universe of the sense or of the mind, we shall be free immediately. The only way to come out of bondage is to go beyond the limitations of law, to go beyond causation

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.97.

[Special] - National Youth Day

For More Details: check this PDF file from the following link

http://india.gov.in/allimpfrms/alldocs/2539.pdf

Selected Teachings of Swami Vivekananda

My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet.

So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

If you have faith in all the three hundred and thirty millions of your mythological gods, … and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you. Have faith in yourselves, and stand up on that faith and be strong; that is what we need.

Strength, strength it is that we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery.

The older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new Gospel.

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all, love.

Religion is realization; not talk, not doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.

Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.

Teach yourselves, teach everyone his real nature, call uon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.

They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

This is the gist of all worship – to be pure and to do good to others.

It is love and love alone that I preach, and I base my teaching on the great Vedantic truth of the sameness and omnipresence of the Soul of the Universe

* Selected Sayings from http://www.belurmath.org/national_youth_day.htm

Swami Vivekanandha on Hinduism

Swami Vivekananda wrote about Sanatana Dharma ( Hinduism) :

Note: The purpose of this post is only to express the Hinduism, not motivated to lower other religions...

Vedas

By the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times.

The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons into different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.

The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women.

Conversion
The Hindus, like the Jews, do not convert others; still gradually, other races are coming within Hinduism and adopting the manners and customs of the Hindus and falling into line with them. Hinduism is God centered. Other religions might prophet centered. 

Toleration?

Our watchword, then, will be acceptance, and not exclusion. Not only toleration, for so called toleration is often blasphemy, and I do not believe in it. I believe in acceptance. Why should I tolerate? Toleration means that,  I think that you are wrong and I am just allowing you to live. Is it not a blasphemy to think that you and I are allowing others to live? I accept all religions that were in the past, and worship with them; I worship God with every one of them, in whatever form they worship Him.

Defining the Idea of God

With the Hindus you will find one national idea- spirituality. In no other religion, in no other sacred books of the world, will you find so much energy spent in defining the idea of God.

Pythagoras and Kapila

There is no philosophy in the world that is not indebted to Kapila. Pythagoras came to India and studied this philosophy, and that was the beginning of the philosophy of the Greeks. Later, it formed the Alexandrian school and still later the Gnostics. It became divided into two; one part went to Europe and Alexandria, and the other remained in India; and out of this, the system of Vyasa was developed.

Thanks to the Hare Krishna

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda and his methods of work

Vivekananda wanted to establish an ideal society. He wanted to bring the best from the West and share it with India, and in turn to share India’s spiritual treasures with the West. For this reason, he wanted Vedanta centers to be established in countries all over the world. This, he felt, would bring about a closer relationship between East and West.
Still, Vivekananda’s ideas were not entirely accepted by all. His main opposition came from some of his own brother disciples. After the first meeting, on 1 May 1897, when the devotees had left, Swami Yogananda openly questioned Vivekananda’s methods of work. The following conversation took place: Yoganada: “You are doing these things by Western methods. Would you say that Sri Ramakrishna left us any such instructions?”
Vivekananda: “How do you know that these methods are not in keeping with his ideas? Sri Ramakrishna was the embodiment of infinite ideas: Do you want to shut him up in your own limits? I shall break those limits and scatter his ideas broadcast all over the world.
He never instructed me to introduce worship of him, and so forth. The methods of spiritual practice, concentration and meditation, and the other higher ideals of religion that he taught –those we must realize and teach to all men. Infinite are the ideas and infinite are the paths that lead to the goal. I was not born to create a new sect in this world, too full of sects already. Blessed are we that we have found refuge at the feet of our Master. It is our duty to give the ideas entrusted to us freely to the whole world.
“Time and again I have received in this life marks of his grace. He himself is at my back and is making me do all these things in these ways. When I used to lie under a tree, exhausted, smitten with hunger; when I had not a strip of cloth even to tie my kaupin with; when I had resolved to travel round the world penniless—even then, through his grace, I received help in every way. Then again, when people in crowds jostled with one another in the streets of Chicago to have sight of this Vivekananda, I was able, through his blessings, to digest without difficulty all that honour, a hundredth part of which would have turned the head of any other man. By the will of the Lord, victory has been mine everywhere. Now I intend to do something for this country. Do you all give up doubts and misgivings and help me in my work; and you will see how, by his grace, wonders will be accomplished.”
Yogananda: “Whatever you will, shall come about. We are always ready to follow your leading. I clearly see that the Master is working through you. Still, I confess, doubts do sometimes arise in the mind,for, as we saw it, his method of doing things was so different; and so I am led to ask myself whether we are not straying from Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings.”
Vivekananda: “The thing is this: Sri Ramakrishna is far greater than his disciples understand him to be. He is the embodiment of infinite spiritual ideas capable of development in infinite ways. Even if one can find a limit to the knowledge of Brahman, one cannot measure the unfathomable depths of our Master’s mind! One gracious glance of his eyes can create a hundred thousand Vivekananda at this instant! But if this time he chooses, instead, to work through me, making me his instrument, I can only bow to his will.”
His Eastern and Western Admirers, Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda [Advaita Ashram: 1981], 2:249-50.

The Drop of Water Who Wept - Small Story

The Drop of Water Who Wept

Swami Vivekananda said :



One day a drop of water fell into the vast ocean. When it found itself there, it began to weep and complain.

The great ocean laughed at the drop of water. 'Why do you weep?' it asked. `I do not understand. When you join me, you join all your brothers and sisters, the other drops of water of which I am made. You become the ocean itself. If you wish to leave me, you have only to rise up on a sunbeam into the clouds. From there you can descend again, little drop of water, a blessing and a benediction to the thirsty earth.'

[As told to the opera singer, Emma Calve who was repulsed at the thought of the loss of her ego/individuality.(from her autobiography, My Life), 1922, Appleton]

Thanks to Uttishthata group

[Quotes] - சுவாமி விவேகானந்தரின் அருள்மொழிகள்

சுவாமி விவேகானந்தரின் அருள்மொழிகள்

1. மகத்தான காரியங்களை செய்வதற்காக ஆண்டவன் நம்மைப் படைத்திருக்கிறான். அந்தக் காரியங்களை நாம் செய்து முடிப்போம்.

2. உனது எதிர்காலத்தை நீயே உருவாகுவாய். எல்லையற்ற எதிர்காலம் உன்முன்னால் விரிந்து பரந்திருக்கிறது.

3. தீய எண்ணங்களும் செயல்களும் புலிகளைப் போல் உன் மீது பாய்வதற்குத் தயாராக இருக்கின்றன. அதை போல, உனது நல்ல எண்ணங்களும் செயல்களும் ஒருநூறயிரம் தேவதைகளின் ஆற்றலுடன் உன்னை எப்போதும் நிரந்தரமாகப் பாதுகாப்பதற்க்குத் தயாராக இருக்கின்றன.

4. வெற்றி பெறுவதற்கு நிறைந்த விடாமுயற்சியும் பெரும் மனஉறுதியையும் நீங்கள் கொண்டிருக்க வேண்டும். மன உறுதியை நீ பெற்றிரு, கடுமையாக உழை, உனது குறிக்கோளை நீ அடைவாய்.

5. போராட்டங்களையும் தவறுகளையும் பொருட்படுத்தாதே , ஆயிரம் முறை நீ தோல்வியுற்றாலும் மீண்டும் ஒரு முறை கைக்கொள்ள முயற்சி செய்.

* தொடரும்...

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda says we need to possess three things if we wish to be a true reformer

If you wish to be a true reformer, you must possess three things.

The first is to feel. Do you really feel for your brothers? Do you really feel that there is so much misery in the world, so much ignorance and superstition? Do you really feel that all men are your brothers? Does this idea permeate your whole being? Does it run in your blood? Does it tingle in your veins? Does it course through every nerve and filament of your body? Are you full of that idea of sympathy? If you are, that is only the first step.

Next you must ask yourself if you have found any remedy. The old ideas may be all superstition, but in and around these masses of superstition are nuggets of truth. Have you discovered means by which to keep that truth alone, without any of the dross? If you have done that, that is only the second step;

one more thing is necessary. What is your motive? Are you sure that you are not actuated by greed for gold, by thirst for fame or power? Are you really sure that you can stand for your ideals and work on, even if the whole world wants to crush you down?Are you sure that you know what you want and will perform your duty, and that alone, even if your life is at stake? Are you sure that you will persevere so long as life endures, so long as there is one pulsation left in the heart?

Then you are a real reformer, you are a teacher, a master, a blessing to mankind.

But man is so impatient, so shortsighted! He has not the patience to wait, he has not the power to see. He wants to rule, he wants results immediately. Why? He wants to reap the fruits himself and does not really care for others. Duty for duty’s sake is not what he wants. “To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof,” says Krishna. Why cling to results? Ours is to do our duties. Let the fruits take care of themselves. But man has no patience; he takes up any scheme that will produce quick results; and the majority of reformers all over the world can be classed under this heading.

Source: http://www.ramakrishna.org/activities/message/weekly_message14.htm

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda about animal desire and Reincarnation

Swami Vivekananda about animal desire and Reincarnation

We, living beings get carried away by the inputs we receive from our senses. The display of the vanities of the world, instills a feeling of possession that culminates into desires. With a view to gratify the desire, the living organism resorts to various means and in extreme cases, when they become too infatuated, they even adopt unfair, dishonest ways to gratify desires. These desires are the source point of our bondage. These desires only make us tied to the wheel of birth and death. We pass through several lifetimes, and still do not get the desired freedom. Gratification of desire paves way for another desire and non gratification leads to misery. This vicious circle continues, we oscillate between happiness and misery but can never establish ourselves in a permanent state of perennial happiness where all desires subside, where there is an infinite expanse of tranquility. Swami Vivekananda, therefore, advises us that the only way to attain that state of bliss, the only way to detach ourselves from this cycle of birth and death is to free ourselves from desires. Once, the desires are rooted out, our body mind framework provides the space for divinity to dwell upon and this divinity is the receptacle for infinite peace.

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda says what we think we become

Volume 8, Lectures And Discourses

This world is a relative world, a shadow of the real; still, being the plane of equipoise where happiness and misery are about evenly balanced, it is the only plane where man can realise his true Self and know that he is Brahman.

The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Shankaracharya. By solid reasoning he extracted from the Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of Jnana that is taught in his commentaries. He unified all the conflicting descriptions of Brahman and showed that there is only one Infinite Reality. He showed too that as man can only travel slowly on the upward road, all the varied presentations are needed to suit his varying capacity. We find something akin to this in the teachings of Jesus, which he evidently adapted to the different abilities of his hearers. First he taught them of a Father in heaven and to pray to Him. Next he rose a step higher and told them, "I am the vine, you are the branches", and lastly he gave them the highest truth: "I and my Father are one", and "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Shankara taught that three things were the great gifts of God: (1) human body, (2) thirst after God, and (3) a teacher who can show us the light. When these three great gifts are ours, we may know that our redemption is at hand. Only knowledge can free and save us, but with knowledge must go virtue.

Do not pity anyone. Look upon all as your equal, cleanse yourself of the primal sin of inequality. We are all equal and must not think, "I am good and you are bad, and I am trying to reclaim you". Equality is the sign of the free. Jesus came to publicans and sinners and lived with them. He never set himself on a pedestal. Only sinners see sin. See not man, see only the Lord. Spirit is not in time, nor in space. Realise "I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute -- i am He, I am He". Be glad at birth, be glad at death, rejoice always in the love of God.

Thought is all important, for "what we think we become". There was once a Sannyasin, a holy man, who sat under a tree and taught the people. He drank milk, and ate only fruit, and made endless "Pranayamas", and felt himself to be very holy. In the same village lived an evil woman. Every day the Sannyasin went and warned her that her wickedness would lead her to hell. The poor woman, unable to change her method of life which was her only means of livelihood, was still much moved by the terrible future depicted by the Sannyasin. She wept and prayed to the Lord, begging Him to forgive her because she could not help herself. By and by both the holy man and the evil woman died. The angels came and bore her to heaven, while the demons claimed the soul of the Sannyasin. "Why is this!" he exclaimed, "have I not lived a most holy life, and preached holiness to everybody? Why should I be taken to hell while this wicked woman is taken to heaven?" "Because," answered the demons, "while she was forced to commit unholy acts, her mind was always fixed on the Lord and she sought deliverance, which has now come to her. But you, on the contrary, while you performed only holy acts, had your mind always fixed on the wickedness of others. You saw only sin, and thought only of sin, so now you have to go to that place where only sin is." The moral of the story is obvious: The outer life avails little. The heart must be pure and the pure heart sees only good, never evil. We should never try to be guardians of mankind, or to stand on a pedestal as saints reforming sinners. Let us rather purify ourselves, and the result must be that in so doing we shall help others.

The satisfaction of desire only increases it, as oil poured on fire but makes it burn more fiercely. Only through renunciation of this life and of all life to come (heaven etc.), can we reach the point where we stand firmly on the true Self. While we hope for anything, desire still rules us.

Buddha and Christ are the two greatest "bubbles" the world has known. They were great souls who having realised freedom helped others to escape. Neither was perfect, but they are to be judged by their virtues, never by their defects. Jesus fell short, because he did not always live up to his own highest ideal; and above all, because he did not give woman an equal place with man. Woman did everything for him, yet not one was made an apostle. This was doubtless owing to his Semitic origin. The great Aryans, Buddha among the rest, have always put woman in an equal position with man. For them sex in religion did not exist. In the Vedas and Upanishads, women taught the highest truths and received the same veneration as men.

Both happiness and misery are chains, the one golden, the other iron; but both are equally strong to bind us and hold us back from realising our true nature. The Atman knows neither happiness nor misery. These are mere "states", and states must ever change. The nature of the soul is bliss and peace unchanging. We have not to get it; we have it; let us wash away the dross from our eyes and see it. We must stand ever on the Self and look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby's play and ought never to disturb us. If the mind is pleased by praise, it will be pained by blame.

Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_8/Lectures_And_Discourses/Discourses_On_Jnana-Yoga

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda says a true disciple should follow these four conditions

Discipleship (Delivered in San Francisco, on March 29, 1900)
Volume 8, Lectures And Discourses

The first condition is that the student who wants to know the truth must give up all desires for gain in this world or in the life to come.

The second condition is that the disciple must be able to control the internal and the external senses and must be established in several other spiritual virtues.

The next qualification is that the disciple must have faith in the Guru (teacher). In the West the teacher simply gives intellectual knowledge; that is all. The relationship with the teacher is the greatest in life. My dearest and nearest relative in life is my Guru; next, my mother; then my father. My first reverence is to the Guru. If my father says, "Do this", and my Guru says, "Do not do this", I do not do it. The Guru frees my soul. The father and mother give me this body; but the Guru gives me rebirth in the soul.

Some years ago one of your Christian teachers, a friend of mine, said, "You believe in Christ?" "Yes," I answered, "but perhaps with a little more reverence." "Then why don't you be baptised?" How could I be baptised? By whom? Where is the man who can give true baptism? What is baptism? Is it sprinkling some water over you, or dipping you in water, while muttering formulas?

Baptism is the direct introduction into the life of the spirit. If you receive the real baptism, you know you are not the body but the spirit. Give me that baptism if you can. If not, you are not Christians. Even after the so - called baptism which you received, you have remained the same. What is the sense of merely saying you have been baptised in the name of the Christ? Mere talk, talk -- ever disturbing the world with your foolishness! "Ever steeped in the darkness of ignorance, yet considering themselves wise and learned, the fools go round and round, staggering to and fro like the blind led by the blind." Therefore do not say you are Christians, do not brag about baptism and things of that sort.

We are like moths plunging into the flaming fire, knowing that it will burn us, knowing that the senses only burn us, that they only enhance desire. "Desire is never satiated by enjoyment; enjoyment only increases desire as butter fed into fire increases the fire." Desire is increased by desire. Knowing all this, people still plunge into it all the time. Life after life they have been going after the objects of desire, suffering extremely in consequence, yet they cannot give up desire. Even religion, which should rescue them from this terrible bondage of desire, they have made a means of satisfying desire. Rarely do they ask God to free them from bondage to the body and senses, from slavery to desires. Instead, they pray to Him for health and prosperity, for long life: "O God, cure my headache, give me some money or something!"

The fourth and last condition of discipleship is the discrimination of the real from the unreal. There is only one thing that is real -- god. All the time the mind must be drawn to Him, dedicated to Him. God exists, nothing else exists, everything else comes and goes. Any desire for the world is illusion, because the world is unreal. More and more the mind must become conscious of God alone, until everything else appears as it really is -- unreal.

* Thanks to Holy Trio Google Groups!

[Messages] - Swami Vivekananda says women must grow in the footprints of Sita

THE SAGES OF INDIA
Volume 3, Lectures from Colombo to Almora

This mind is continually changing, always in a state of flux; it is finite, it is broken into pieces. How can nature tell of the Infinite, the Unchangeable, the Unbroken, the Indivisible, the Eternal? It never can.Even in our lives, in the life of every one of us here, there come moments of calmness, perhaps, when we see before us the death of one we loved, when some shock comes to us, or when extreme blessedness comes to us. Many other occasions there are when the mind, as it were, becomes calm, feels for the moment its real nature; and a glimpse of the Infinite beyond, where words cannot reach nor the mind go, is revealed to us.

Consciousness is bound by the senses. Beyond that, beyond the senses, men must go in order to arrive at truths of the spiritual world, and there are even now persons who succeed in going beyond the bounds of the senses. These are called Rishis, because they come face to face with spiritual truths.

Any attempt to modernise our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see every day. The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the only way.

A great landmark in the history of religion is here, the ideal of love for love's sake, work for work's sake, duty for duty's sake, and it for the first time fell from the lips of the greatest of Incarnations, Krishna, and for the first time in the history of humanity, upon the soil of India. The religions of fear and of temptations were gone for ever, and in spite of the fear of hell and temptation of enjoyment in heaven, came the grandest of ideals, love for love's sake, duty for duty's sake, work for work's sake.

There was a book written a year or two ago by a Russian gentleman, who claimed to have found out a very curious life of Jesus Christ, and in one part of the book he says that Christ went to the temple of Jagannath to study with the Brahmins, but became disgusted with their exclusiveness and their idols, and so he went to the Lamas of Tibet instead, became perfect, and went home.

To any man who knows anything about Indian history, that very statement proves that the whole thing was a fraud, because the temple of Jagannath is an old Buddhistic temple. We took this and others over and re-Hinduised them. We shall have to do many things like that yet. That is Jagannath, and there was not one Brahmin there then, and yet we are told that Jesus Christ came to study with the Brahmins there. So says our great Russian archaeologist.

This one great Northern sage, Chaitanya, represented the mad love of the Gopis. Himself a Brahmin, born of one of the most rationalistic families of the day, himself a professor of logic fighting and gaining a word-victory — for, this he had learnt from his childhood as the highest ideal of life and yet through the mercy of some sage the whole life of that man became changed; he gave up his fight, his quarrels, his professorship of logic and became one of the greatest teachers of Bhakti the world has ever known — mad Chaitanya.

His Bhakti rolled over the whole land of Bengal, bringing solace to every one. His love knew no bounds. The saint or the sinner, the Hindu or the Mohammedan, the pure or the impure, the prostitute, the streetwalker — all had a share in his love, all had a share in his mercy: and even to the present day, although greatly degenerated, as everything does become in time, his sect is the refuge of the poor, of the downtrodden, of the outcast, of the weak, of those who have been rejected by all society. But at the same time I must remark for truth's sake that we find this: In the philosophic sects we find wonderful liberalisms.

Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_3/Lectures_from_Colombo_to_Almora/The_Sages_of_India

[Messages] - Attempt to throw the blame upon others only weakens us - Swami Vivekananda

Volume 2, Jnana-Yoga
CHAPTER XII THE COSMOS The Microcosm (Delivered in New York, 26th January 1896)


We do not look at our own faults; the eyes do not see themselves, they see the eyes of everybody else. We human beings are very slow to recognise our own weakness, our own faults, so long as we can lay the blame upon somebody else. Men in general lay all the blame of life on their fellow-men, or, failing that, on God, or they conjure up a ghost, and say it is fate. Where is fate, and who is fate? We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind? Is it the fault of the merciful Father, whose wind of mercy is blowing without ceasing, day and night, whose mercy knows no decay, is it His fault that some of us are happy and some unhappy?

We make our own destiny. His sun shines for the weak as well as for the strong. His wind blows for saint and sinner alike. He is the Lord of all, the Father of all, merciful, and impartial. Do you mean to say that He, the Lord of creation, looks upon the petty things of our life in the same light as we do? What a degenerate idea of God that would be! We are like little puppies, making life-and-death struggles here, and foolishly thinking that even God Himself will take it as seriously as we do. He knows what the puppies' play means.Our attempts to lay the blame on Him, making Him the punisher, and the rewarder, are only foolish. He neither punishes, nor rewards any. His infinite mercy is open to every one, at all times, in all places, under all conditions, unfailing, unswerving. Upon us depends how we use it. Upon us depends how we utilise it. Blame neither man, nor God, nor anyone in the world. When you find yourselves suffering, blame yourselves, and try to do better.

This is the only solution of the problem. Those that blame others — and, alas! the number of them is increasing every day — are generally miserable with helpless brains; they have brought themselves to that pass through their own mistakes and blame others, but this does not alter their position. It does not serve them in any way. This attempt to throw the blame upon others only weakens them the more. Therefore, blame none for your own faults, stand upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon yourselves.

Say, "This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone." That which I created, I can demolish; that which is created by some one else I shall never be able to destroy. Therefore, stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future. "Let the dead past bury its dead." The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever.

Swami Vivekananda On Bhagwan Sri Krishna

[Messages] - WHAT SWAMI VIVEKANANDA SAID ABOUT INDIA , OUR MOTHERLAND

Let New India arise – out of the peasants’ cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer’s shop, from beside the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains.

Ref: Vivekananda His call to the Nation, Pg 93-94

* My Sincere thanks to Holy Trinity Google Groups

[Messages] - POSITIVE THINKING

If you speak kind words to boys and encourage them, they are bound to improve in time. If you can give them positive ideas, poeple will grow up to be men and learn to stand on their own legs. In language and literature, in poetry and the arts, in everything we must point out not the mistakes that people are making in their thoughts and actions, but the way in which they will gradually be able to do these things better. Pointing out mistakes wounds a man's feeling. 

(VII. 170-171)

All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves, Therefore make your own future, 'Let the dead past bury is dead.' The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each wor, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that, as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope tha tthe good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever.

(II. 225)

Never mind failures, they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures, What would life be without them? I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow-never a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. The ideal of man is to see God in everything.

(II. 152)

* Selected Inspirational messages from Complete works of Swami Vivekananda