1863-1902, Indian Guru
Adversity
Fly from evil and terror and misery, and they will follow you. Face them, and they will flee.
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1984-1987 , 1:339
Anger
Every wave of passion restrained is a balance in your favor. It is therefore good policy not to return anger for anger, as with all true morality.
Ibid. , 6:136
Appreciation
Once I was invited to a dinner. The hostess asked me to say grace. I said, "I will say grace to you, madam. My grace and thanks are to you."
Ibid. , 8:132
Autonomy / Control
A nation may conquer the waves, control the elements, develop the utilitarian problems of life seemingly to the utmost limits, and not yet realize that in the individual, the highest type of civilization is found in him who has learned to conquer self.
Ibid. , 4:200Nothing has power except what you give it. We are beyond the sun, the stars, the universe. Teach the Godhood of man. Stand up and say, I am the master, the master of all. We forge the chain, and we alone can break it.
Ibid. , 7:54
Balance
In the ocean we cannot raise a wave without causing a hollow somewhere else. The sum total of the good things in the world has been the same throughout in its relation to man's need and greed. It cannot be increased or decreased.
Ibid. , 1:111The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.
Ibid. , 1:34Ordinarily speaking, spiritual aspiration ought to be balanced through the intellect; otherwise it may degenerate into mere sentimentality.
Ibid. , 7:22
Beginning / Endeavour
Wherever you are, that is a point from which you can start to the center.
Ibid. , 3:536
Belief / Religion
You must bear in mind that religion has to do only with the soul and has no business to interfere in social matters; you must also bear in mind that this applies completely to the mischief which has already been done.
Ibid. , 4:358Religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities.
Ibid.Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are … unless you realize the Soul there is no freedom.
Ibid. , 4:245There is no knowledge without experience, and man has to see God in his own soul. When man has come face to face with the one great fact in the universe, then alone will doubts vanish and crooked things become straight. This is "seeing God." Our business is to verify, not to swallow. Religion, like other sciences, requires you to gather facts, to see for yourself, and this is possible when you go beyond the knowledge which lies in the region of the five senses. Religious truths need verification by everyone.
Ibid. , 6:133Religion is the only science where there is no surety, because it is not taught as a science of experience. This should not be. There is always, however, a small group of men who teach religion from experience. They are called mystics, and these mystics in every religion speak the same tongue and teach the same truth. This is the real science of religion. As mathematics in every part of the world does not differ, so the mystics do not differ. They are all similarly constituted and similarly situated. Their experience is the same and this becomes law.
Ibid. , 6:81The idea of supernatural beings may rouse to a certain extent the power of action in man, but it also brings spiritual decay. It brings dependence; it brings fear; it brings superstition. It degenerates into a horrible belief in the natural weakness of man. There is no supernatural … but there are in nature gross manifestations and subtle manifestations. The subtle are the causes, the gross the effects. The gross can be easily perceived by the senses; not so the subtle.
Ibid. , 1:122
Cause
Any work, any action, any thought that produces an effect is called a karma. Thus the law of karma means the law of causation, of inevitable cause and sequence. Wheresoever there is a cause, there an effect must be produced; this necessity cannot be resisted, and this law of karma, according to our philosophy, is true throughout the universe. Whatever we see, or feel, or do, whatever action there is anywhere in the universe, while being the effect of past work on the one hand, becomes, on the other, a cause in its turn, and produces its own effect.
Ibid. , 1:94We reap what we sow. We are makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
Ibid. , 2:224If it be true that we are working out our own destiny here within this short space of time, if it be true that everything must have a cause as we see it now, it must also be true that that which we are now is the effect of the whole of our past; therefore, no other person is necessary to shape the destiny of mankind but man himself.
Ibid. , 2:242Every thought we think, every deed we do, after a certain time becomes fine, goes into seed form, so to speak, and lives in the fine body in a potential form, and after a time it emerges again and bears its results. These results condition the life of man. Thus he molds his own life. Man is not bound by any other laws excepting those which he makes for himself. Our thoughts, our words and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw round ourselves for good or evil. Once we set in motion a certain power, we have to take the full consequences of it. This is the law of karma.
Ibid. , 2:348Whatever we are now is the result of our acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be in the future will be the result of what we think and do now.
Ibid. , 3:45
Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing , © 2004