What Religion Is Not — According To Swami Vivekananda ~ Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Talking is not religion; parrots may talk,
machines may talk nowadays.

—Swami Vivekananda

In this website we made a collection of Swami Vivekananda's quotes on religion. Swami Vivekananda clearly told "religion" is not in books or doctrines or sects or intellectual debates, it is being and becoming.
So here we are going to make a separate article on What Religion is not — according to Swami Vivekananda.

Despondency is not religion, whatever else it may be.^[Source]
In my little experience I have collected this knowledge — that for all the devilry that religion is, blamed with, religion is not at all in fault: no religion ever persecuted men, no religion ever burnt witches, no religion ever did any of these things. What then incited people to do these things? Politics, but never religion; and if such politics takes the name of religion whose fault is that?^[Source]
It is a tendency in Western countries, in these modern times, to make a hotchpotch of the brain; all sorts of unassimilated ideas run riot in the brain and form a chaos without ever obtaining a chance to settle down and crystallise into a definite shape. In many cases it becomes a sort of disease, but this is not religion.^[Source]
Mere talk — mere trying to believe, mere groping in darkness, mere parroting the words of ancestors and thinking it is religion, mere making a political something out of the truths of religion — is not religion at all.^[Source]
Our scriptures declare again and again that even the knowledge of the external senses is not religion. That is religion which makes us realise the Unchangeable One, and that is the religion for every one.^[Source]
Realisation is real religion, all the rest is only preparation — hearing lectures, or reading books, or reasoning is merely preparing the ground; it is not religion.^[Source]
Religion is not an imitation of Jesus or Mohammed.^[Source]
Religion is not, and never can be, in the field of intellect. Intellectual reasoning is based on facts evident to the senses. Now religion has nothing to do with the senses.^[Source]
Religion is not for the many, that is impossible.^[Source]
Religion is not going to church, or putting marks on the forehead, or dressing in a peculiar fashion; you may paint yourselves in all the colours of the rainbow, but if the heart has not been opened, if you have not realised God, it is all vain.^[Source]
Religion is not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation; it is being and becoming, it is realisation.^[Source]
Religion is not in sects, nor in making a fuss.^[Source]
Religion is not of this world; it is "heart-cleansing", and its effect on this world is secondary.^[Source]
Religion is not talk, or doctrines, or theories; nor is it sectarianism. Religion cannot live in sects and societies. It is the relation between the soul and God; how can it be made into a society?^[Source]
Religion is not the outcome of the weakness of human nature; religion is not here because we fear a tyrant; religion is love, unfolding, expanding, growing.^[Source]
Talking is not religion; parrots may talk, machines may talk nowadays. But show me the life of renunciation, of spirituality, of all-suffering, of love infinite.^[Source]
That religion which is only a means to worldly well-being is not religion, whatever else it may be.^[Source]
The ordinary theory of practical religion, what it leads to. Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism. It is not religion. It is no better than atheism - a little less. ... You Christians, have you found nothing else in the Bible than working for fellow creatures, building . . . hospitals ? . . .^[Source]
The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based upon the experience of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has the same perceptions himself.^[Source]
This turmoil and fight and difference in religions will cease only when we understand that religion is not in books and temples. It is an actual perception. Only the man who has actually perceived God and soul has religion.^[Source]
We have to cover everything with the Lord Himself, not by a false sort of optimism, not by blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in everything. Thus we have to give up the world, and when the world is given up, what remains? God. What is meant? You can have your wife; it does not mean that you are to abandon her, but that you are to see God in the wife. Give up your children; what does that mean? To turn them out of doors, as some human brutes do in every country? Certainly not. That is diabolism; it is not religion. But see God in your children. So, in everything. In life and in death, in happiness and in misery, the Lord is equally present. The whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him. This is what Vedanta teaches.^[Source]
We want everything but God. This is not religion that you see all around you.^[Source]
When a man is gloomy, that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion.^[Source]
You must know that religion is not in doctrines. Religion lies in being and becoming, in realisation.^[Source]