Sayings of Swami Vivekananda

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.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

When we really begin to live in the world, then we understand what is meant by brotherhood or mankind, and not before.

External nature is only internal nature writ large.

The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.

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.

The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.

The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.

There is nothing beyond God, and the sense enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now in the hope of getting better things.

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.

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.

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.

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.

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.

If money help 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.

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

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

The spirit is the cause of all our thoughts and body-action, and everything, but it is untouched by good or evil, pleasure or pain, heat of cold, and all the dualism of nature, although it lends its light to everything.

It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. 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 are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!

In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.

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.

If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.

Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.

The Vedanta teaches that Nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self; and after having once known that, if only for an instant, never again can one be deluded by the mirage of personality.

The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.

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.

Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.

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What Vedanta Is
Vedanta is a philosophy taught by the Vedas, the most ancient scriptures of India. Its basic teaching is that our real nature is divine. God, or Brahman as it is called, exists in every living being.

Religion is therefore a search for self-knowledge, a search for the divine within ourselves. We should not think of ourselves as needing to be "saved." We are never lost. At worst, we are living in ignorance of our true nature.

Vedanta acknowledges that there are many different approaches to God, and all are valid. Any kind of spiritual practice will lead to the same state of self-realization. Thus Vedanta teaches respect for all religions.

The Main Ideas of Vedanta
Following are some of the main tenets of Vedanta:

* God is one without a second, absolute and indivisible. Though impersonal, beyond name and form, God assumes various personal forms to reveal itself to us. God is our soul. We are primarily consciousness, part of the cosmic consciousness.

* All of the incarnations (manifestations of God on Earth) are actual embodiments of Divinity. No one incarnation can be regarded as the only manifestation of that Divinity.

* There is no accident in the cosmic universe. Human destiny is governed by the law of cause and effect.

* We are born on earth repeatedly to finish the unfinished work of realizing our divinity. Although we suffer because of actions, we can control ourselves and hence our destiny.

* There is a higher state of consciousness which can be achieved in this human birth.

* There are many ways to achieve union with God, through the intellect, emotions, actions, and the will. A specific path or a combination should be followed to realize the aim and objectives of life.

Vedanta stresses the idea of self effort. It encourages every individual to realize God within by the practice of certain methods, called Yogas, which channel the tendencies we already possess and lead us to God. The ideal is to practice a harmonious balance of these four yogas:

Bhakti Yoga
This is the cultivation of a devotional relationship with God through prayer, ritual and worship. In this practice, the human emotions are give a "Godward turn." Their energy is used in search for God within.

Jnana Yoga This Yoga is the approach to God through discrimination and reason. The goal is freedom. All of our miseries in life are caused by seeing difference, and so the jnana yogi tries to break through this delusion by seeing God everywhere.

Karma Yoga The path to God through selfless service to others is Karma Yoga. By working in this spirit, the God within each person is worshipped.

Raja Yoga This is sometimes called the yoga of meditation. It is the soul of all the yogas. The emphasis here is on attuning the mind to God and truth through concentration and mediation.

Right and Wrong Conduct
All ethics are merely a means to the end of finding God within ourselves. "Right" ac