Give And Take Is The Law Of Nature ~ Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda observed that "give and take is the law of nature" or "giving and taking is the law of nature". One person will be the giver always, and the other person will keep on receiving without attempting to give back anything — this does not match with the law of nature, and such relation is bound to break sooner or later.

Give and take is the law of nature

A Hindu woman is giving alms to a poor man

It is not the law of nature to be always
taking gifts with outstretched hands like beggars.

— Swami Vivekananda

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Swami Vivekananda told—

Give and take is the law; and if India wants to raise herself once more, it is absolutely necessary that she brings out her treasures and throws them broadcast among the nations of the earth, and in return be ready to receive what others have to give her. Expansion is life, contraction is death. Love is life, and hatred is death. We commenced to die the day we began to hate other races; and nothing can prevent our death unless we come back to expansion, which is life.^[Source]
It is not the law of nature to be always taking gifts with outstretched hands like beggars. To give and take is the law of nature. Any individual or class or nation that does not obey this law never prospers in life. We also must follow that law. . .^[Source]
The secret of life is to give and take. Are we to take always, to sit at the feet of the Westerners to learn everything, even religion? We can learn mechanism from them. We can learn many other things. But we have to teach them something, and that is our religion, that is our spirituality. For a complete civilisation the world is waiting, waiting for the treasures to come out of India, waiting for the marvellous spiritual inheritance of the race, which, through decades of degradation and misery, the nation has still clutched to her breast. The world is waiting for that treasure; little do you know how much of hunger and of thirst there is outside of India for these wonderful treasures of our forefathers.^[Source]

⁂ See also ⁂

Although Vivekananda's observation was "Give and take is the law of nature", he actually suggested complete unselfish and unconditional giving.

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