Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On The Freedom Of The Mind ~ Swami Vivekananda Quotes

The freedom of the mind is a delusion.
How can the mind be free when it is controlled and bound by law?

—Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, following the Eastern philosopher and Vedantic conclusion, discarded the idea that the mind is free. He believed that the mind, like all other things in nature from giant star to small atom, is being controlled by law.

In this article our topic is Swami Vivekananda's quotes on the freedom of the mind.

All things in nature work according to law. Nothing is excepted. The mind as well as everything in external nature is governed and controlled by law.^[Source]
Law itself is the operation of cause and effect. Certain things happen according to certain other things which have gone before. Every precedent has its consequent. Thus it is in nature. If this operation of law obtains in the mind, the mind is bound and is therefore not free. No, the will is not free. How can it be? But we all know, we all feel, that one are free. Life would have no meaning, it would not be worth living, if we were not free.^[Source]
Man's free agency is not of the mind, for that is bound. There is no freedom there.^[Source]
Man's life behaves according to definite methods; so does his mind.^[Source]
The freedom of the mind is a delusion. How can the mind be free when it is controlled and bound by law?^[Source]
The mind is in nature and is bound by law. All nature is bound by law, the law of its own action; and this law can never be broken. If you could break a law of nature, all nature would come to an end in an instant. There would be no more nature. He who attains freedom breaks the law of nature, and for him nature fades away and has no more power over him. Each one will break the law but once and for ever; and that will end his trouble with nature.^[Source]
The philosophers of India have taken the reverse stand. They hold all physical life, manifest and unmanifest, to be bound by law. The mind as well as external nature, they claim, is bound by law, and by one and the same law. If mind is not bound by law, if the thoughts we think are not the necessary results of preceding thoughts, if one mental state is not followed by another which it produces, then mind is irrational; and who can claim free will and at the same time deny the operation of reason? And on the other hand, who can admit that the mind is governed by the law of causation and claim that the will is free?^[Source]
The Western man does not want to think his mind is governed by law. In India it was accepted as soon as it was propounded by the most ancient Indian system of philosophy. There is no such thing as freedom of the mind;^[Source]
What do I care if the mind is controlled or uncontrolled! Let it run on. What of that! I am not the mind, Let it go on!^[Source]
When we consider law in relation to man's mind and existence, it is at once obvious that there can be no such thing as free will and free existence. We know how animal nature is wholly regulated by law. The animal does not appear to exercise any free will. The same is true of man; human nature also is bound by law. The law governing functions of the human mind is called the law of Karma.^[Source]