Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Forgiveness

Everything is ended if you forgive and forget.

—Swami Vivekananda

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In this article you'll find a compilation of Swami Vivekananda's quotes on forgiveness.

• Chastity, non-injury, forgiving even the greatest enemy, truth, faith in the Lord, these are all different Vrittis. Be not afraid if you are not perfect in all of these; work, they will come.^[Source]
• Even forgiveness, if weak and passive, is not true: fight is better. Forgive when you could bring legions of angels to the victory.^[Source]
• Everything is ended if you forgive and forget.^[Source]
• Forgive offences by the million. And if you love all unselfishly, all will by degrees come to love one another.^[Source]
• It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work.^[Source]
• Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.^[Source]
• The ideal of womanhood in India is motherhood -- that marvellous, unselfish, all - suffering, ever - forgiving mother.^[Source]
• What can be my highest idea of forgiveness? Nothing beyond myself. Which of you can jump out of your own bodies? Which of you can jump out of your own minds? Not one of you.^[Source]
• You never hear of a mother cursing the child; she is forgiving, always forgiving.^[Source]

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Vivekananda Image Quotes - Archive 03

This is an archive of Swami Vivekananda's Image Quote Of The Day. The most recent quotes may be seen in that page.

23 January 2014

Subhas Chandra Bose' birthday special

22 January 2014

21 January 2014

Hindi quote special

20 January 2014

19 January 2014

18 January 2014

17 January 2014

16 January 2014

15 January 2014

14 January 2014

13 January 2014

12 January 2014 (iv)

Swami Vivekananda Janma Jayanti (birth anniversary) special

12 January 2014 (iii)

Swami Vivekananda Janma Jayanti (birth anniversary) special

12 January 2014 (ii)

Swami Vivekananda Janma Jayanti (birth anniversary) special

 

12 January 2014 (i)

Swami Vivekananda Janma Jayanti (birth anniversary) special

11 January 2014

10 January 2014

9 January 2014

8 January 2014

7 January 2014

Bengali quote special

6 January 2014

Portal

This article is a sub article of Swami Vivekananda's Image Quote Of The Day and a sub-article of

Portal:Image quote

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On John Milton and Paradise Lost

"To be weak is to be miserable", says Milton.
Doing and suffering are inseparably joined.

—Swami Vivekananda 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

We all know about famous English poet John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) and his epic poem Paradise Lost. In this article we'll collect Swami Vivekananda's quotations on John Milton and Paradise Lost.

• Fortunately for India, however, she has never produced a Milton, with his 'hurled headlong down the steep abyss'! The whole of that were well exchanged for a couple of lines of Browning!"^[Source]
• "Gloom existed first." Those of you who have ever been in India or any tropical country, and have seen the bursting of the monsoon, will understand the majesty of these words. I remember three poets' attempts to picture this. Milton says, "No light, but rather darkness visible." Kalidasa says, "Darkness which can be penetrated with a needle," but none comes near this Vedic description, "Gloom hidden in gloom."^[Source]
• There is only one sin. That is weakness. When I was a boy I read Milton's Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.^[Source]
• "To be weak is to be miserable", says Milton. Doing and suffering are inseparably joined.^[Source]
• We have paintings of sublimity elsewhere in all nations, but almost without exception you will find that their ideal is to grasp the sublime in the muscles. Take for instance, Milton, Dante, Homer, or any of the Western poets. There are wonderfully sublime passages in them; but there it is always a grasping at infinity through the senses, the muscles, getting the ideal of infinite expansion, the infinite of space.^[Source]
• When Milton or Dante, or any other great European poet, either ancient or modern, wants to paint a picture of the infinite, he tries to soar outside, to make you feel the infinite through the muscles. That attempt has been made here also. You find it in the Samhitas, the infinite of extension most marvellously painted and placed before the readers, such as has been done nowhere else.^[Source]

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Idol Worship Or Idolatry And Image Worship

Many of us do not believe in any form of idolatry;
but they have no right to object when others do it.

—Swami Vivekananda 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In the beginning of 1891 Swami Vivekananda went to Alwar, Rajasthan and there taught Maharaja Mangal Singh the real meaning of idol worship. In this article we'll make a collection Swami Vivekananda's quotes and comment son Idol Worship or Idolatry and Image Worship.

• All men are born idolaters.^[Source]
• As to the so-called Hindu idolatry — first go and learn the forms they are going through, and where it is that the worshippers are really worshipping, whether in the temple, in the image, or in the temple of their own bodies. First know for certain what they are doing — which more than ninety per cent of the revilers are thoroughly ignorant of — and then it will explain itself in the light of the Vedantic philosophy.^[Source]
• Despite the many iniquities that have found entrance into the practices of image-worship as it is in vogue now, I do not condemn it. Ay, where would I have been if I had not been blessed with the dust of the holy feet of that orthodox, image-worshipping Brahmin!^[Source]
• From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu's religion.^[Source]
• Many of us do not believe in any form of idolatry; but they have no right to object when others do it, because that would break the first principle of our religion.^[Source]
• One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots.^[Source]
• Some may be helped by images, some may not. Some require an image outside, others one inside the brain.^[Source]
• "The fool, dwelling on the bank of the Ganga, digs a well for water!" Such are we! Living in the midst of God -- we must go and make images. We project Him in the form of the image, while all the time He exists in the temple of our body. We are lunatics, and this is the great delusion.^[Source]
• The idol is the expression of religion.^[Source]
• The secret of image - worship is that you are trying to develop your vision of Divinity in one thing.^[Source]
• The test of having ceased to be an idolater is: "When you say 'I', does the body come into your thought or not? If it does, then you are still a worshipper of idols."^[Source]
• The world has not gone one step beyond idolatry yet.^[Source]
• This external worship of images has, however, been described in all our Shastras as the lowest of all the low forms of worship. But that does not mean that it is a wrong thing to do.^[Source]
• Those reformers who preach against image-worship, or what they denounce as idolatry — to them I say "Brothers, if you are fit to worship God-without-form discarding all external help, do so, but why do you condemn others who cannot do the same?^[Source]
• Too much faith in personality has a tendency to produce weakness and idolatry, but intense love for the Guru makes rapid growth possible.^[Source]
• We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater.^[Source]
• We may worship a picture as God, but not God as the picture. God in the picture is right, but the picture as God is wrong. God in the image is perfectly right. There is no danger there. This is the real worship of God. But the image-God is a mere Pratika.^[Source]
• Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry.^[Source]

Why is idolatry condemned? No one knows. . .

From Lectures from Colombo to Almora—^[Source]

It has become a trite saying that idolatry is wrong, and every man swallows it at the present time without questioning. I once thought so, and to pay the penalty of that I had to learn my lesson sitting at the feet of a man who realised everything through idols; I allude to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. If such Ramakrishna Paramahamsas are produced by idol-worship, what will you have — the reformer's creed or any number of idols? I want an answer. Take a thousand idols more if you can produce Ramakrishna Paramahamsas through idol worship, and may God speed you! Produce such noble natures by any means you can. Yet idolatry is condemned! Why? Nobody knows.

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Form

What is this universe but name and form?

—Swami Vivekananda 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In this article you'll find Swami Vivekananda's quotes on form. Here "form" means a structure or appearance. For example, human body is form, sky has a form. On the other hand Vednatists consider Brahman (or God) as formless.

• A form comes out of a combination of force and matter.^[Source]
• A wave in the ocean is a wave, only in so far as it is bound by name and form.^[Source]
• All forms are transitory, that is why all religions say, "God has no form".^[Source]
• Anything that is in space has form. Space itself has form. Either you are in space, or space is in you. The soul is beyond all space. Space is in the soul, not the soul in space.^[Source]
• Change is inherent in every form.^[Source]
• Differentiation is in name and form only.^[Source]
• Everything is substance plus name and form. Name and form come and go, but substance remains ever the same.^[Source]
• Everything that has form, everything that is the result of combination, is evolved out of this Akasha.^[Source]
• Everything that has form must have a beginning and an end.^[Source]
• Everything that has name and form must begin in time, exist in time, and end in time. These are settled doctrines of the Vedanta, and as such the heavens are given up.^[Source]
• Everything that occupies space has form. The formless can only be infinite.^[Source]
• Everything which has name and form must die. If there are heavens with forms, these heavens must vanish in course of time; they may last millions of years, but there must come a time when they will have to go.^[Source]
• Form and formless are intertwined in this world. The formless can only be expressed in form and form can only be thought with the formless.^[Source]
• Freedom can never be true of name and form; it is the clay out of which we (the pots) are made; then it is limited and not free, so that freedom can never be true of the related. One pot can never say "I am free" as a pot; only as it loses all ideas of form does it become free.^[Source]
• From Him are all name and form; all the animals and men are from Him. He is the one Supreme. He who knows Him becomes free.^[Source]
• In nature alone are forms. That which is not of nature cannot have any forms, fine or gross. It must be formless.^[Source]
• Name and form constitute the universe.^[Source]
• Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya.^[Source]
• The forms are evanescent; but the spirit, being in the Lord and of the Lord, is immortal and omnipresent.^[Source]
• The forms have value only so far as they are expressions of the life within. If they have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy.^[Source]
• The Indian idea is that the soul is formless. Whatever is form must break some time or other.^[Source]
• The soul ... is nameless because it is formless. It will neither go to heaven nor [to hell] any more than it will enter this glass.^[Source]
• The whole universe is composed of name and form. Whatever we see is either a compound of name and form, or simply name with form which is a mental image.^[Source]
• There cannot be any form unless it is the result of force and matter; and all combinations must dissolve.^[Source]
• This is the work of Nâma-Rupa — name and form. Everything that has form, everything that calls up an idea in your mind, is within Maya; for everything that is bound by the laws of time, space, and causation is within Maya.^[Source]
• We have none of us seen a form which had not a beginning and will not have an end.^[Source]
• What is this universe but name and form?^[Source]
• Whatever had form or shape must be limited, and could not be eternal.^[Source]
• Whatsoever has form must be the result of combinations of particles and requires something else behind it to move it.^[Source]
• When we free ourselves from name and form, especially from a body — when we need no body, good or bad — then only do we escape from bondage.^[Source]
• You are in space and must have a form. Space limits us, binds us, and makes a form of us. If you are not in space, space is in you. All the heavens and the world are in the person.^[Source]

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On The River Ganga Or Ganges

See what an atmosphere of holiness is here --
the pure air of the Ganga -- what an assemblage of Sadhus --
will you find anywhere a place like this!

—Swami Vivekananda 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Ganga (Devanagari: गंगा,  Bengali: গঙ্গা) or Ganges is considered as a scared river in India, specially by the Hindus. In this article we'll make a compilation of Swami Vivekananda's quotes on the Indian river Ganga or Ganges.

• All the superior religions had their growth between the Ganga and the Euphrates.^[Source]
• Fool indeed is he, who, living on the banks of the Ganga, digs a little well for water. Fool indeed is the man who, coming to a mine of diamonds, begins to search for glass beads.^[Source]
• "Foolish indeed is he who, living on the banks of the Ganga, digs a little well for water. A fool indeed is the man who, coming to a mine of diamonds, seeks for glass beads."^[Source]
• I have long given up the idea of a little house on the Ganges, as I have not the money. (in a letter written on 18 May 1900)^[Source]
• I reached Ghazipur three days ago. Here I am putting up in the house of Babu Satish Chandra Mukherji, a friend of my early age. The place is very pleasant. Close by flows the Ganga, but bathing there is troublesome, for there is no regular path, and it is hard work wading through sands. (in a letter written on 21 January 1890)^[Source]
• If I ask you to plunge into the Ganga or to jump from the roof of a house, meaning it all for your good, could you do even that without any hesitations Just think of it even now; otherwise don't rush forward on the spur of the moment to accept me as your Guru.^[Source]
• My bones are destined to make corals in the Ganga. (in a letter written on 3 August 1899)^[Source]
• One day as this sage, Valmiki, was going to bathe in the holy river Ganga, he saw a pair of doves wheeling round and round, and kissing each other. The sage looked up and was pleased at the sight, but in a second an arrow whisked past him and killed the male dove. As the dove fell down on the ground, the female dove went on whirling round and round the dead body of its companion in grief. In a moment the poet became miserable, and looking round, he saw the hunter. "Thou art a wretch," he cried, "without the smallest mercy! Thy slaying hand would not even stop for love!" "What is this? What am I saying?" the poet thought to himself, "I have never spoken in this sort of way before." And then a voice came: "Be not afraid. This is poetry that is coming out of your mouth. Write the life of Rama in poetic language for the benefit of the world." And that is how the poem first began. The first verse sprang out of pits from the mouth of Valmiki, the first poet. And it was after that, that he wrote the beautiful Ramayana, "The Life of Rama".^[Source]
• Paris is the fountain-head of European civilisation, as Gomukhi is of the Ganga.^[Source]
• See here, how fresh is the air, there is the Ganga, and the Sadhus (holy men) are practising meditation, and holding lofty talks! While the moment you will go to Calcutta, you will be thinking of nasty stuff.^[Source]
• See how the Ganga flows by and what a nice building! I like this place. This is the ideal kind of place for a Math. (in Belur, West Bengal).^[Source]
• See what an atmosphere of holiness is here -- the pure air of the Ganga -- what an assemblage of Sadhus -- will you find anywhere a place like this!^[Source]
• "The fool, dwelling on the bank of the Ganga, digs a well for water!" Such are we! Living in the midst of God -- we must go and make images.^[Source]
• The vapour becomes snow, then water, then Ganga; but when it is vapour, there is no Ganga, and when it is water, we think of no vapour in it. The idea of creation or change is inseparably connected with will. So long as we perceive this world in motion, we have to conceive will behind it.^[Source]
• The waters of the Ganga are roaring among his matted locks.^[Source]
• There are men who practice Titiksha, and succeed in it. There are men who sleep on the banks of the Ganga in the midsummer sun of India, and in winter float in the waters of the Ganga for a whole day; they do not care. Men sit in the snow of the Himalayas, and do not care to wear any garment. What is heat? What is cold? Let things come and go, what is that to me, I am not the body.^[Source]
• This Maya is everywhere. It is terrible. Yet we have to work through it. The man who says that he will work when the world has become all good and then he will enjoy bliss is as likely to succeed as the man who sits beside the Ganga and says, "I will ford the river when all the water has run into the ocean."^[Source]
• Throw aside your scriptures in the Ganga and teach the people first the means of procuring their food and clothing, and then you will find time to read to them the scriptures.^[Source]
• We must always remember that God is Love. "A fool indeed is he who, living on the banks of the Ganga, seeks to dig a little well for water. A fool indeed is the man who, living near a mine of diamonds, spends his life in searching for beads of glass." God is that mine of diamonds. We are fools indeed to give up God for legends of ghosts or flying hobgoblins. It is a disease, a morbid desire.^[Source]
• Whether you bathe in the Ganga for a thousand years or live on vegetable food for a like period, unless it helps towards the manifestation of the Self, know that it is all of no use.^[Source]
• With the Holy Mother as the centre of inspiration, a Math is to be established on the eastern bank of the Ganga. . . .  On the other side of the Ganga a big plot of land will be acquired, where unmarried girls or Brahmacharini widows will live; devout married women will also be allowed to stay now and then. Men will have no concern with this Math.^[Source]

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Bhakti Or Devotion

Bhakti has been the one constant
theme of our sages.

—Swami Vivekananda 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Swami Vivekananda in his book Bhakti Yoga described it as "May that love undying which the non-discriminating have for the fleeting objects of the senses never leave this heart of mine — of me who seek after Thee!"

In this page we'll make a collection Swami Vivekananda's quotes on Bhakti or devotion.

• Bhakti can be more easily practiced by persons in every condition of life.^[Source]
• "Bhakti cannot be used to fulfil any desires, itself being the check to all desires." Narada gives these as the signs of love: "When all thoughts, all words, and all deeds are given up unto the Lord, and the least forgetfulness of God makes one intensely miserable, then love has begun."^[Source]
• Bhakti differs from your Western idea of religion in that Bhakti admits no elements of fear, no Being to be appeased or propitiated. There are even Bhaktas who worship God as their own child, so that there may remain no feeling even of awe or reverence. There can be no fear in true love, and so long as there is the least fear, Bhakti cannot even begin. In Bhakti there is also no place for begging or bargaining with God. The idea of asking God for anything is sacrilege to a Bhakta. He will not pray for health or wealth or even to go to heaven.^[Source]
• Bhakti has been the one constant theme of our sages.^[Source]
• Bhakti is intense love for God.^[Source]
• Bhakti is not destructive; it teaches that all our faculties may become means to reach salvation. We must turn them all towards God and give to Him that love which is usually wasted on the fleeting objects of sense.^[Source]
• "Bhakti", says Nârada in his explanation of the Bhakti-aphorisms, "is intense love to God"; "When a man gets it, he loves all, hates none; he becomes satisfied for ever"; "This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit", because so long as worldly desires last, that kind of love does not come; "Bhakti is greater than karma, greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means and its own end."^[Source]
• Extreme love to God is Bhakti, and this love is the real immortality, getting which a man becomes perfectly satisfied, sorrows for no loss, and is never jealous; knowing which man becomes mad.^[Source]
• In every mind, utility, however, is conditioned by its own peculiar wants. To men, therefore, who never rise higher than eating, drinking, begetting progeny, and dying, the only gain is in sense enjoyments; and they must wait and go through many more births and reincarnations to learn to feel even the faintest necessity for anything higher. But those to whom the eternal interests of the soul are of much higher value than the fleeting interests of this mundane life, to whom the gratification of the senses is but like the thoughtless play of the baby, to them God and the love of God form the highest and the only utility of human existence.^[Source]
• Leave inimical thoughts aside if you want to have permanent Bhakti. Hatred is a thing which greatly impedes the course of Bhakti, and the man who hates none reaches God. Even then the devotion for one's own ideal is necessary.^[Source]
• One way for attaining Bhakti is by repeating the name of God a number of times. Mantras have effect—the mere repetition of words. Jalagiman Chetti's powers are due to the repetition of the Mantra—repetition of certain words with certain ceremonies. The powers of the Astras or Banas (missiles, arrows, etc.) of ancient war were due to Mantra. This is taken for granted throughout our Shastras. That we should take all these Shastras to be imagination is superstition.^[Source]
• That singleness of attachment (Nishthâ) to a loved object, without which no genuine love can grow, is very often also the cause of the denunciation of everything else. All the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion or country have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e. by hating every other ideal.^[Source]
• The great quality of Bhakti is that it cleanses the mind.^[Source]
• The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and the most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; its great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes degenerates into hideous fanaticism.^[Source]
• The path of devotion is natural and pleasant. Philosophy is taking the mountain stream back to its force. It is a quicker method but very hard. Philospophy says, "Check everything." Devotion says, "Give the stream, have eternal self-surrender." It is a longer way, but easier and happier.^[Source]
• The path of Bhakti or devotion of God is a slow process, but is easy of practice.^[Source]
• There is Bhakti within you, only a veil of lust-and-wealth covers it, and as soon as that is removed Bhakti will manifest by itself.^[Source]
• To obtain Bhakti, seek the company of holy men who have Bhakti, and read books like the Gita and the Imitation of Christ; always think of the attributes of God.^[Source]
• We all have to begin as dualists in the religion of love. God is to us a separate Being, and we feel ourselves to be separate beings also. Love then comes in the middle, and man begins to approach God, and God also comes nearer and nearer to man. Man takes up all the various relationships of life, as father, as mother, as son, as friend, as master, as lover, and projects them on his ideal of love, on his God. To him God exists as all these, and the last point of his progress is reached when he feels that he has become absolutely merged in the object of his worship. We all begin with love for ourselves, and the unfair claims of the little self make even love selfish. At last, however, comes the full blaze of light, in which this little self is seen to have become one with the Infinite. Man himself is transfigured in the presence of this Light of Love, and he realises at last the beautiful and inspiring truth that Love, the Lover, and the Beloved are One.^[Source]

See also

1. Swami Vivekananda's quotes on Bhakta or Devotee

External links

1. Definition of Bhakti from Bhakti Yoga, Complete Works, Volume III
2. Narada Bhakti-Sutras (translated dictated by Swami Vivekananda) from Complete Works, Volume VI

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Man Or Human Being

Man cannot always think of matter,
however pleasurable it may be.

—Swami Vivekananda  

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In this article we are going to collect Swami Vivekananda's quotes on man or human being. Related articles are listed at the bottom of the page.

• According to us, there are three things in the makeup of man. There is the body, there is the mind, and there is the soul.^[Source]
• An intellectual, heartless man never becomes an inspired man. It is always the heart that speaks in the man of love; it discovers a greater instrument than intellect can give you, the instrument of inspiration.^[Source]
• As long as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some form of religion.^[Source]
• Each man has a mission in life, which is the result of all his infinite past Karma.^[Source]
• Each man is divine. Each man that you see is a God by his very nature.^[Source]
• Each man is perfect by his nature; prophets have manifested this perfection, but it is potential in us.^[Source]
• Each man must begin where he stands, must learn how to control the things that are nearest to him.^[Source]
• Every human being has the right to ask the reason, why, and to have his question answered by himself, if he only takes the trouble.^[Source]
• Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.^[Source]
• In one sense Brahman is known to every human being; he knows, "I am"; but man does not know himself as he is.^[Source]
• Infinite perfection is in every man, though unmanifested.^[Source]
• Man always is perfect, or he never could become so; but he had to realise it.^[Source]
• Man as Atman is really free; as man he is bound, changed by every physical condition.^[Source]
• Man can become like God and acquire control over the whole universe if he multiplies infinitely his centre of self-consciousness.^[Source]
• Man can think of divine things only in his own human way, to us the Absolute can be expressed only in our relative language.^[Source]
• Man cannot always think of matter, however pleasurable it may be.^[Source]
• Man cannot be satisfied by wealth.^[Source]
• Man cannot go beyond his nature, no more than you can jump out of your body.^[Source]
• Man cannot live upon words, however he may try.^[Source]
• Man dies but once. My disciples must not be cowards.^[Source]
• Man has infinite power within himself, and he can realise it -- he can realise himself as the one infinite Self. It can be done; but you do not believe it. You pray to God and keep your powder dry all the time.^[Source]
• Man in his true nature is substance, soul, spirit.^[Source]
• Man is a degeneration of what he was.^[Source]
• Man is born to conquer nature and not to follow it.^[Source]
• Man is greater than the gods.^[Source]
• Man is guided by the stomach. He walks and the stomach goes first and the head afterwards. Have you not seen that? It will take ages for the head to go first.^[Source]
• Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external.^[Source]
• Man is not mind, he is soul.^[Source]
• Man is really free, the real man cannot but be free.^[Source]
• Man is the apex of the only world we can ever know.^[Source]
• Man is the best mirror, and the purer the man, the more clearly he can reflect God.^[Source]
• Man is the epitome of all things and all knowledge is in him.^[Source]
• Man is the greatest being that ever can be.^[Source]
• Man is the highest being in creation, because he attains to freedom.^[Source]
• Man is the highest being that exists, and this is the greatest world.^[Source]
• Man is the nearest approach to Brahman.^[Source]
• Man is the product of two forces, action and reaction, which make him think.^[Source]
• Man makes the mistake of separating himself from God and identifying himself with the body.^[Source]
• Man never dies, nor is he ever born; bodies die, but he never dies.^[Source]
• Man, therefore, according to the Vedanta philosophy, is the greatest being that is in the universe.^[Source]
• Man will have to go beyond intellect in the end.^[Source]
• Man's experience in the world is to enable him to get out of its whirlpool.^[Source]
• Man's free agency is not of the mind, for that is bound. There is no freedom there.^[Source]
• Man the infinite dreamer, dreaming finite dreams!^[Source]
• Manushya (man) is a being with Manas (mind); and as soon as his thinking power goes, he becomes no better than an animal.^[Source]
• Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.^[Source]
• Only man makes Karma.^[Source]
• The animal man lives in the senses. If he does not get enough to eat, he is miserable; or if something happens to his body, he is miserable. In the senses both his misery and his happiness begin and end.^[Source]
• The apparent man is only a limitation of that Real Man.^[Source]
• The calm man is not the man who is dull. You must not mistake Sattva for dullness or laziness. The calm man is the one who has control over the mind waves. Activity is the manifestation of inferior strength, calmness, of the superior.^[Source]
• The happiest is the man who is not at all selfish.^[Source]
• The ignorant man never enjoys.^[Source]
• The glory of man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of man to think and therein he differs from animals.^[Source]
• The perfect man sees nothing but God.^[Source]
• The real man is the one Unit Existence.^[Source]
• There is no end to the power a man can obtain.^[Source]
• We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God.^[Source]
• Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down.^[Source]

See also

1. Swami Vivekananda's quotes on life
2. Swami Vivekananda's quotes on woman

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes On Ahimsa Or Non-injury

Never producing pain by thought,
word, and deed, in any living being,
is what is called Ahimsâ, non-injury.

—Swami Vivekananda 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In this article we are going to make a collection of Swami Vivekananda's quotes on Ahimsa (Devanagari: अहिंसा, Bengali: অহিংসা) or Non-injury.

• Ahimsa (non-killing), truthfulness, purity, mercy, and godliness are always to be kept.^[Source]
• All great teachers have taught, "Resist not evil," that non-resistance is the highest moral ideal. We all know that, if a certain number of us attempted to put that maxim fully into practice, the whole social fabric would fall to pieces, the wicked would take possession of our properties and our lives, and would do whatever they liked with us. Even if only one day of such non-resistance were practiced, it would lead to disaster. Yet, intuitively, in our heart of hearts we feel the truth of the teaching "Resist not evil." This seems to us to be the highest ideal; yet to teach this doctrine only would be equivalent to condemning a vast portion of mankind. Not only so, it would be making men feel that they were always doing wrong, and cause in them scruples of conscience in all their actions; it would weaken them, and that constant self-disapproval would breed more vice than any other weakness would.^[Source]
• Never producing pain by thought, word, and deed, in any living being, is what is called Ahimsâ, non-injury.^[Source]
• Non-injuring has to be attained by him who would be free. No one is more powerful than he who has attained perfect non-injuring. No one could fight, no one could quarrel, in his presence. Yes, his very presence, and nothing else, means peace, means love wherever he may be. Nobody could be angry or fight in his presence. Even the animals, ferocious animals, would be peaceful before him.^[Source]
• The Buddhist tenet, "Non-killing is supreme virtue", is very good, but in trying to enforce it upon all by legislation without paying any heed to the capacities of the people at large, Buddhism has brought ruin upon India.^[Source]
• The test of Ahimsa is absence of jealousy.^[Source]
• There is no happiness higher than what a man obtains by this attitude of non-offensiveness, to all creation.^[Source]
• There is no virtue higher than non-injury.^[Source]
• These practices — non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity, and non-receiving — are to be practised by every man, woman, and child; by every soul, irrespective of nation, country, or position.^[Source]
• This duty of non-injury is, so to speak, obligatory on us in relation to all beings. As with some, it does not simply mean the non-injuring of human beings and mercilessness towards the lower animals; nor, as with some others, does it mean the protecting of cats and dogs and feeding of ants with sugar — with liberty to injure brother-man in every horrible way! It is remarkable that almost every good idea in this world can be carried to a disgusting extreme. A good practice carried to an extreme and worked in accordance with the letter of the law becomes a positive evil. The stinking monks of certain religious sects, who do not bathe lest the vermin on their bodies should be killed, never think of the discomfort and disease they bring to their fellow human beings. They do not, however, belong to the religion of the Vedas!^[Source]
• There is, however, only one idea of duty which has been universally accepted by all mankind, of all ages and sects and countries, and that has been summed up in a Sanskrit aphorism thus: "Do not injure any being; not injuring any being is virtue, injuring any being is sin."^[Source]
• To his enemies the householder must be a hero. Them he must resist. That is the duty of the householder. He must not sit down in a corner and weep, and talk nonsense about non-resistance. If he does not show himself a hero to his enemies he has not done his duty.^[Source]

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Swami Vivekananda On His Mother Bhuvaneswari Devi

Swami Vivekananda once told— "I am indebted to my mother for the efflorescence of my knowledge.". We know Bhuvaneswari Devi's religious temperament highly influenced Narendranath in his childhood. In this article we are going to make a collection of Swami Vivekananda's quotes and comments on or related to his mother Bhuvaneswari Devi.

In letters

[All are arranged in chronological order]

4 July 1889

If there is any being I love
in the whole world, it is my mother.

—Swami Vivekananda

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

At this time Swami Vivekananda was travelling all over India as a wandering monk—^[Source]

And particularly, I see no chance of success while remaining near Calcutta. In Calcutta live my mother and two brothers. I am the eldest; the second is preparing for the First Arts Examination, and the third is young.

15 February 1893

• Two months ago, I dreamt that my mother was dead and I was very anxious to know about her.^[Source]

29 January 1894, letter written to Haridas Viharidas Desai

 If there is any being I love in the whole world, it is my mother.^[Source]

22 November 1898, letter written to Ajit Singh of Khetri

In this letter Vivekananda requested Ajit Singh's financial help to buidl a house for his mother—^[Source]

I have one great sin rankling always in my breast, and that is [in order] to do a service to the world, I have sadly neglected my mother. Again, since my second brother has gone away, she has become awfully worn-out with grief. Now my last desire is to make Sevâ [give service] and serve my mother, for some years at least. I want to live with my mother and get my younger brother married to prevent extinction of the family. This will certainly smoothen my last days as well as those of my mother. She lives now in a hovel. I want to build a little, decent home for her and make some provision for the youngest, as there is very little hope of his being a good earning man. Is it too much for a royal descendent of Ramchandra to do for one he loves and calls his friend? I do not know whom else to appeal to. The money I got from Europe was for the "work", and every penny almost has been given over to that work. Nor can I beg of others for help for my own self. About my own family affairs — I have exposed myself to your Highness, and none else shall know of it. I am tired, heartsick and dying. Do, I pray, this last great work of kindness to me, befitting your great and generous nature and [as] a crest to the numerous kindnesses you have shown me. And as your Highness will make my last days smooth and easy, may He whom I have tried to serve all my life ever shower His choicest blessings on you and yours.

6 August 1899, letter written to Mrs Ole Bull

The aunt whom you saw had a deep-laid plan to cheat me, and she and her people contrived to sell me a house for 6,000 Rs., or £400, and I bought [it] for my mother in good faith. Then they would not give me possession, hoping that I would not go to court for the shame of taking forcible possession as a Sannyasin.. . .  Sevier gave me 8,000 Rs. with the express desire of helping my mother. This money, it seems, has [also] gone to the dogs.^[Source]

27 December 1899, letter written to Mrs. Ole Bull

Mr. Leggett has got a little over £500 I had with Sturdy on account of Raja-Yoga and the Maharaja of Khetri. I have now about a thousand dollars with Mr. Leggett. If I die, kindly send that money to my mother. I wired to the boys three weeks ago that I was perfectly cured. If I don't get any worse, this much health as I have now will do well enough. Do not worry at all on my account; I am up and working with a will.^[Source]

17 January 1900, letter written to Mrs. Ole Bull

• It is becoming clearer to me that I lay down all the concerns of the Math and for a time go back to my mother. She has suffered much through me. I must try to smooth her last days. Do you know, this was just exactly what the great Shankarâchârya himself had to do! He had to go back to his mother in the last few days of her life! I accept it, I am resigned.^[Source]
• Leaving my mother was a great renunciation in 1884 — it is a greater renunciation to go back to my mother now. Probably Mother wants me to undergo the same that She made the great Âchârya undergo in old days. Is it?^[Source]

7 March 1900, letter written to Mrs. Ole Bull

As for my mother, I am going back to her — for my last days and hers. The thousand dollars I have in New York will bring Rs. 9 a month; then I bought for her a bit of land which will bring about Rs. 6; and her old house — that will bring, say, Rs. 6. I leave the house under litigation out of consideration, as I have not got it. Myself, my mother, my grandmother, and my brother will live on Rs. 20 a month easy. I would start just now, if I could make money for a passage to India, without touching the 1,000 dollars in New York.^[Source]

18 May 1900, letter written to Mrs. Ole Bull

I have got some in Calcutta and some with the Leggetts, and if you give a thousand more, that will be a fund for my own personal expenses (as you know I never took Math money) as well as for my mother. Kindly write to Saradananda to give up the little house plan. I am not going to write any more for weeks yet — till I completely recover. I hope to get over [it] in a few weeks from now — it was a terrible relapse. I am with a Doctor friend [Dr. Milburn H. Logan], and he is taking every care of me.^[Source]

4 March 1902, letter written to Sister Nivedita

Note: This letter was written just 3 months before Vivekananda's death

I have spent the little money I brought from Europe in feeding my mother and paying her debts. What little remains I cannot touch, as that is the expense for the pending lawsuit.^[Source]

In other works

Religion, Civilisation, And Miracles (The Appeal-Avalanche)

From a news article of 1894—^[Source]

I was born, in Bengal and become a monk and a celibate from choice. At my birth my father had a horoscope taken of my life, but would never tell me what it was. Some years ago when I visited my home, my father having died, I came across the chart among some papers in my mother's possession and saw from it that I was destined to become a wanderer on the face of the earth.

Ideals of Womanhood

From a lecture delivered at Brooklyn Standard Union, 21 January 1895—^[Source]

'Keep yourself holy, and pure.' So deeply has this been recognized in India, that there we even speak of adultery in marriage, except when marriage is consummated in prayer. And I and every good Hindoo believe, that my mother was pure and holy, and hence I owe her everything that I am. That is the secret of the race — chastity

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