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
There cannot be any form unless it is the result of force and matter; and all combinations must dissolve.
The soul ... is nameless because it is formless. It will neither go to heaven nor [to hell] any more than it will enter this glass.
The Indian idea is that the soul is formless. Whatever is form must break some time or other.
The forms have value only so far as they are expressions of the life within. If they have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy.
The forms are evanescent; but the spirit, being in the Lord and of the Lord, is immortal and omnipresent.
Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya.
In nature alone are forms. That which is not of nature cannot have any forms, fine or gross. It must be formless.
From Him are all name and form; all the animals and men are from Him. He is the one Supreme. He who knows Him becomes free.
Freedom can never be true of name and form; it is the clay out of which we (the pots) are made; then it is limited and not free, so that freedom can never be true of the related. One pot can never say "I am free" as a pot; only as it loses all ideas of form does it become free.
Form and formless are intertwined in this world. The formless can only be expressed in form and form can only be thought with the formless.
Everything which has name and form must die. If there are heavens with forms, these heavens must vanish in course of time; they may last millions of years, but there must come a time when they will have to go.
Everything that occupies space has form. The formless can only be infinite.
Everything that has name and form must begin in time, exist in time, and end in time. These are settled doctrines of the Vedanta, and as such the heavens are given up.
Everything that has form must have a beginning and an end.