[Quotes] - Who will find Truth? - Swami Vivekananda

Soft-brained people, weak-minded, chicken-hearted, cannot find the truth. One has to be free, and as broad as the sky. - Swami Vivekananda.

[Quote] - Are you Over Cautious ? - Swami Vivekananda.

This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose. - Swami Vivekananda.

[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.

[Quote] - Never Show Temper..

THE 15 LAWS OF LIFE - by Swami Vivekananda

THE 15 LAWS OF LIFE By Swami Vivekananda

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 is 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 is 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 realized 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 Differently

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

 (taken from Swami Vivekananada books). btw this message was came through mail and thanks to Holy Trio Google Groups.

Swami Vivekananda Birthday 12th Jan 2012

Today we are celebrating World's One of the Great Philosopher and Guru Swami Vivekananda Birthday and National Youth Day.

• The brave alone do great things, not the cowards. Know once for all, you faithless ones, that I am in the hands of the Lord. So long as I am pure and His servant, not a hair on my head will be touched ... Be brave, be brave! Human beings die but once. My disciples must not be cowards.

• Liberation means total freedom--freedom from the bondage of good, as well as from the bondage of evil. A golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one.

• We have been low animals once.
  We think they are something different from us. ...
  The worm that crawls under your feet today is a God to be.

• Look here—we shall die! Bear this in mind always, and then the spirit within will wake up. Then meanness will vanish from you, practicality in work will come, you will get new vigor in mind and body, and those who come in contact with you will also feel that they have really got something uplifting from you.

• Preach the philosophy, the spiritual part, and let people suit it to their own forms.

• The calmer we are and the less disturbed our nerves, the more shall we love and the better will our work be.

• External nature is only internal nature writ large.

            - Swami Vivekananda.


More info regarding National youth Day: Please follow the link


http://www.belurmath.org/national_youth_day.htm

[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

[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.

[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] - Golden Words of Great Swamiji

When I Asked God for Strength
He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face

When I Asked God for Brain & Brown
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve

When I Asked God for Happiness
He Showed Me Some Unhappy People

When I Asked God for Wealth
He Showed Me How to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Favors
He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Peace
He Showed Me How to Help Others

God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda

- Swami Vivekananda

[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] - 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.

[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

[Messages] - The Key to Freedom

Now we have seen that this God is self-evident, impersonal, omniscient, the Knower and Master of nature, the Lord of all. He is behind all worship and it is being done according to Him, whether we know it or not. I go one step further. That at which all marvel, that which we call evil, is His worship too. This is a part of freedom. Nay, I will be terrible even and tell you that, when you are doing evil, the impulse behind is also that freedom. It may have been misguided and misled, but it was there; and there cannot be any life or any impulse unless that freedom be behind it. Freedom breathes in the throb of the universe. 

           Unless there is unity at the universal heart, we cannot understand variety. Such is the conception of the Lord in the Upanishads. Sometimes it rises even higher, presenting to us an ideal before which at first we stand aghast- that we are in essence one with God. He who is the colouring in the wings of the butterfly, and the blossoming of the rosebud, is the power that is in the plant and in the butterfly. He who gives us life is the power within us. Out of His fire comes life, and the direst death is also His power. 

  He whose shadow is death, His shadow is immortality also. Take a still higher conception. See how we are flying like hunted hares from all that is terrible, and like them, hiding our heads and thinking we are safe. See how the whole world is flying from everything terrible. Once when I was in Varanasi, I was passing through a place where there was a large tank of water on one side and a high wall on the other. It was in the grounds where there were many monkeys.

  The monkeys of Varanasi are huge brutes and are sometimes surly. They now took it into their heads not to allow me to pass through their street, so they howled and shrieked and clutched at my feet as I passed. As they pressed closer, I began to run, but the faster I ran, the faster came the monkeys and they began to bite at me. It seemed impossible to escape, but just then I met a stranger who called out to me, "Face the brutes." 

  I turned and faced the monkeys, and they fell back and finally fled. That is a lesson for all life face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them. If we are ever to gain freedom, it must be by conquering nature, never by running away. Cowards never win victories. We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us.

What is death? What are terrors?

Do you not see the Lord's face in them? Fly from evil and terror and misery, and they will follow you. Face them, and they will flee. The whole world worships ease and pleasure, and very few dare to worship that which is painful. To rise above both is the idea of freedom. Unless man passes through this gate he cannot be free. We all have to face these. We strive to worship the Lord, but the body rises between, nature rises between Him and us and blinds our vision. We must learn how to worship and love Him in the thunderbolt, in shame, in sorrow, in sin. All the world has ever been preaching the God of virtue.  

I preach a God of virtue and a God of sin in one. Take Him if you dare that is the one way to salvation; then alone will come to us the Truth Ultimate which comes from the idea of oneness. Then will be lost the idea that one is greater than another. The nearer we approach the law of freedom, the more we shall come under the Lord, and troubles will vanish. Then we shall not differentiate the door of hell from the gate of heaven, nor differentiate between men and say, "I am greater than any being in the universe."  

Until we see nothing in the world but the Lord Himself, all these evils will beset us and we shall make all these distinctions;because it is only in the Lord, in the Spirit, that we are all one; and until we see God everywhere, this unity will not exist for us. 

 - Swami Vivekanandha

[Quotes] - IDEA TO SUCCESS - Swami Vivekananda

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. 

- Swami Vivekananda

Courtesy: www.belurmath.org

[Quotes] - Inspirational Quotes, Dec 05, 2008

Swami Vivekananda Quotes:

- Look at the "ocean" and not at the "wave." See no difference between ant and angel. Every worm is the brother of Nazarene. How can you say one is greater and one less? Each is great in his own place. We are in the sun and the stars as much as here. Spirit is beyond space and time and is everywhere.

- Everyone makes shipwreck on the rock of would-be Guruism, 

except souls that were born to Qbe Gurus. 

- Do you think these sannyasi children of Sri Ramakrishna are born to simply to sit under trees lighting dhuni-fires? Whenever any of them will take up some work, people will be astonished to see their energy. Learn from them how to work.

- Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when people do evil actions, they become more and more evil, and when they begin to do good, they become stronger and stronger and learn to do good all the time. This intensification of the influence of action cannot be explained on any other ground than that we can act and react upon each other.

- If you want to be a yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize the Self is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile, mistaking it for a log of wood.

[Quotes] - Inspirational Quotes, Oct 14, 2008

- It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment. - Swami Vivekananda.

- Jiva is Shiva (all living beings are God). Who then dare talk of showing mercy to them ? Not mercy, but service, service. For man must be regarded as God. - Sri Ramakrishna.

- Many think of God only after receiving blows from the world. But blessed indeed is he who can offer his mind, like a fresh flower, at the feet of the Lord from his very childhood. - Sarada Devi.

Here i like to share an Image of Shiva Pooja on Mahashivaraathiri

[Quotes] - Swami Vivekananda Part-3

- In the domain of true religion, book-learning has no right to enter.

- We go through the world like a man pursued by a policeman and see the barest glimpses of the beauty of it. All this fear that pursues us comes from the believing in matter. Matter gets its existence from the presence of mind behind it. What we see is God percolating through nature.

- If a person who lives in God becomes miserable, what is the use of living in God? What is the use of such a God? Throw such a God overboard into the Pacific Ocean. We do not want such a God!

- When we can attach the mind to—or detach it from—the sense at our will, we shall really possess character. Then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom; before that, we are mere machines.

- To succeed you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.

[Quotes] - Swami Vivekananda's Quote - Part 2

- That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore a careless and unsteady mind gets no clue to the Atman. But one who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating, ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.

- The calmer we are and the less disturbed our nerves, the more shall we love and the better will our work be.

- We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.

- Truth is infinitely more weighty than untruth; so is goodness. If you possess these, they will make their way by sheer gravity.

- Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the human being, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the result of this struggle for freedom.

- The essential thing is renunciation. Without renunciation none can pour out their heart in working for others. Those filled with renunciation see all with an equal eye and devote themselves to the service of all.

- At your very threshold, God himself in the form of a poor beggar is dying of starvation. Instead of giving him anything, would you only satisfy the appetites of your wife and children with delicacies? Why, that is beastly!