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
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.
Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.
"I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher." That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.
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.
When the soul wants to depend upon nothing, not even upon life, that is the height of philosophy, the height of manhood.
Let him who has courage in his mind and love in his heart come with me. I want none else.
Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you, but do not think of that now.
What we want is progress, development, realisation.
Purity, perseverance, and energy- these three I want.
Religion for a long time has come to be static in India. What we want is to make it dynamic. I want it to be brought into the life of everybody.
Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.
We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran.
My name should not be made prominent. It is my ideas that I want to see realized. The disciples of all the prophets have always inextricably mixed up the ideas of the Master with person, and at last killed the ideas for the person. The disciples of Sri Ramakrishna must guard against doing the same thing. Work for the idea, not the person.
If you really want the good of others, the whole universe may stand against you and cannot hurt you. It must crumble before your power of the Lord Himself in you if you are sincere and really unselfish.