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
The road to salvation is through truth.
Salvation never will come through hope of reward.
Be strong! Don't talk of ghosts and devils. We are the living devils. The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it is strength, go down into hell and get hold of it! There is salvation only for the brave. Everyone must work out his own salvation.
Life is short, and therefore, one thing being certain, death, let us take up a great ideal, and give up the whole life to it. For what is the value of life, this vegetating little low life of man? Subordinating it to one high ideal is the only value that life has.
The whole point is to discipline the mind.
The mind has to be gradually and systematically brought under control.
The hard discipline, with the exception of one great good point, is fraught with evil. The good point is that men can do one or two things well with very little effort, having practiced them every day through generations.
Some men, who begin by saying that the world is a hell, often end by saying that it is a heaven when they succeed in the practice of self-control.
No doubt it is an evil to be bound by laws, but it is necessary at the immature stage to be guided by rules; in other words, as the Master used to say that the sapling must be hedged round, and so on.
Mind you, there is no value in learning. You are all mistaken in learning. The only value of knowledge is in the strengthening, the disciplining, of the mind.
Know this also to be one of the spiritual practices, a discipline for God - realisation. Its aim also is Self - realisation.
It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work's sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one's labour....
A sapling must be hedged about for protection, but when it becomes a tree, a hedge would be a hindrance. So there is no need to criticise and condemn the old forms.
Our Soul is a spark of the Divine. It is pure and perfect. Evil deeds merely obstruct our vision of the true nature of our Soul. Through good deeds we can become conscious of this perfection again.