1/20/2014 Quotes from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

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Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears
under the guise of different religious conceptions to each
mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only
the Self, the "I".
We are the greatest God that ever was or ever will be. Christs and Buddhas are
but waves on the boundless ocean which I am. Bow down to nothing but your
higher self. Until you know that you are the very God of gods, there will never be
any freedom for you.
In worshiping God we have always been worshiping our own hidden Self. The
worst lie that you ever tell yourself is that you were born a sinner or a wicked man.
He alone is a sinner who sees a sinner in another man.
That ideal of freedom that you perceived was correct, but you projected it outside
yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you find that it
was all the time within you, it was the Self or your own self. That freedom was your
own nature, and this Maya never bound you.
Realize in your own life this knowledge of Brahman which comprehends all theories
and is the rationale of all truths; and preach it to the world. This will conduce to
your own good and the good of others as well. I have told you today the essence
of all truths; there is nothing higher that this.
The world is for me, not I for the world. Good and evil are our slaves, not we
theirs. It is the nature of the brute to remain where he is; it is the nature of man to
seek good and avoid evil; it is the nature of God to seek neither, but just to be
eternally blissful. Let us be God!
Tell the truth boldly whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is
too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the
better. Childish ideas are for babies and savages; and these are not all in the
nursery and forests, some of these have fallen into the pulpits.
I thought while I was in India that the cave would give me clearer vision. I found it
was not so. Then I thought the forest would do so, then Varanasi. But the difficulty
existed everywhere, because we make our own worlds.
Two birds of golden plumage sat on the same tree. The one above, serene,
1/20/2014 Quotes from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
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majestic, immersed in his own glory; the one below restless and eating the fruits of
the tree, now sweet, now bitter. Once he ate an exceptionally bitter fruit, then he
paused and looked up at the majestic bird above; but he soon forgot about the
other bird and went on eating the fruits of the tree as before. Again he ate a bitter
fruit and this time he hopped up a few boughs nearer to the bird at the top. This
happened many tines until at last the lower bird came to the place of the upper bird
and lost himself. He found all at once that there had never been two birds, but that
he was all the time that upper bird, serene, majestic and immersed in his own glory.
It is only the strong that understand strength, it is the elephant that understands the
lion, not the rat. How can we understand Jesus until we are his equals...Only
grandeur appreciates grandeur, only God realizes God. The dream is only the
dreamer, it has no other basis. The keynote running through the music is- "I am He,
I am He," all other notes are but variations and do not affect the real theme.
All the different religions are but applications of the one religion adapted to suit the
requirements of different nations. Theories only lead to fighting; thus the Name of
God that ought to bring peace has been the cause of half the bloodshed of the
world. Go to the direct source. Ask God what He is. Unless He answers, He is
not; but every religion teaches that He does answer.
Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen. In
the Absolute there is neither time, space nor causation.
Science and religion will meet and shake hands...When the scientific teacher asserts
that all things are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God
of whom you hear in the Upanishads? Do you not see whither science is tending?
...this separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth
and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation between atom
and atom comes all misery. But the Vedanta says that this separation does not
exist, it is not real.
Each man calls that alone real which helps him realize his ideal. To the worldly
minded, everything that can be converted into money is real, that which cannot be
converted is unreal. To the man of domineering spirit, anything that will conduce on
his ambition of ruling over his fellowmen is real- the rest is naught, that man finds
nothing in that which does not echo back the heartbeats of his special love in life.
Those whose only aim is to barter the energies of life for gold, or name, or any
other enjoyment; those to whom the tramp of embattled cohorts is the only
manifestation of power; those to whom the enjoyment of the senses is the only bliss
that life can give- to these, India will appear as an immense desert whose every
blast is deadly to the development of life- as it is known to them.
1/20/2014 Quotes from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
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But to those whose thirst for life has been quenched forever by drinking from the
stream of immortality that flows from far away beyond the world of the senses,
whose souls have cast away -as a serpent its slough- the threefold bondages of
lust, gold and fame; who, from their height of calmness, look with love and
compassion upon the petty quarrels and jealousies and fights for little gilded puff-
balls, filled with dust, called 'enjoyment' by those under a sense-bondage; to those
whose accumulated force of past good deeds has caused the scales of ignorance to
fall off from their eyes, making them see through the vanity of name and fame - to
such wheresoever they be, India, the motherland and eternal mine of spirituality,
stands transfigured, a beacon of hope to every one in search of Him who is the only
real Existence in a universe of vanishing shadows.

Related Links
The Complete Works (online text)
Tribute to Swami (Lord) Vivekananda
Vivekananda Foundation (Boston)
Vivekananda Center (London)
Brief introduction to Vivekananda (my webspace)