Swami Vivekananda's Quotes Final Part

The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe - the body -is the soul.

The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.

Think always, "I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How I can do anything evil? Can I ever be fooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?" Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.

This is the secret of spiritual life: to think that I am the Atman and not the body, and that the whole of this universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but as a series of paintings-scenes on a canvas-of which I am the witness.

Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time.

We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.

Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you get. In the long run,nature did her work through you, and when you die your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

Holy Mother -- Continue to pray without losing heart. Everything will happen in time.

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Swami Vivekananda's Quotes Part - 1

All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that. Do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. Stand up and express the divinity within you.

"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls," and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.

“Comfort” is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable.”

All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.

Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.


As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.

As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.

Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.

Desires must bring misery. The great secret of true success, of true happiness (sh), is this: the person who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.

Do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you,completing the circle.

Give up all desire for enjoyment in (eh) earth or heaven. Control (osm) the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but spiritual freedom.

Go on saying, “I am free.” Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, “I am bound.” Dehypnotize the whole thing.

Hold to the idea, “I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act,” and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath, and, above all, its sanctified shopkeeping.

I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.

If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.

If superstition enters, the brain is gone.

If there is no strength in body and mind, the Atman cannot be realized. First you have to build the body by good nutritious food—then only will the mind be strong.

If you want to be a Yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and, at the same time, wants to realize the Atman is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile mistaking it for a log of wood.

In real meditation you forget the body. You may be cut to pieces and not feel it at all. You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in meditation.

Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the thought-waves and the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate you will keep your growth.

Work for the idea, not the person.

Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies; but the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality.

Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.

The correct meaning of the statement "The Vedas are beginningless and eternal" is that the law or truth revealed by them is permanent and changeless.

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! If you do not exist, how can God exist, or anybody else?

The greatest sin is to think that you are weak. No one is greater: realize that you are Brahman.

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How I Came to Bhagavan by V. Ramachandran

--The Mountain Path, July 1982

I had the great privilege of being born in a family which was deeply devoted to Bhagavan Ramana.My grandparents, Sri M. Ramu Setty and Smt.Muniammal, would take me for Sri Bhagavan’s darshan.

Thus I started visiting the Maharshi right from my childhood. Being a native of Tiruvannamaiai,it was my great good fortune that I was able to have Bhagavan’s darshan till His Mahasamadhi in 1950.

When Bhagavan was staying at Virupaksha Cave, devotees would come to town singing
Aksharamanamalai. We would eagerly wait for their arrival to offer them cooked food. Only after such offering would we eat. This continued without a day’s break till Bhagavan’s mother started cooking at Skandashram. Our house was open to devotees
of Bhagavan at all times.

Even while Bhagavan was at Virupaksha Cave, occasionally we used to go there and offer biksha. On one such occasion the leaf-plates we had brought were just enough for the devotees present and there was none for me. Being young, I started crying. Bhagavan called me and coming to know the reason, consoled me by providing me with a leaf. Bhagavan understood a child’s feelings, and He has been gracious to me throughout my life!

It was Bhagavan who introduced me into religious texts. Once Bhagavan wrote the first verse of Dakshinamurti Stotra on a slip of paper and told me to learn it by heart and repeat it on my next visit.Thus I learnt the Dakshinamurti Stotra. I would often forget the first word of a verse and Bhagavan would help me. Then writing down the first word of each verse of Dakshinamurti Stotra, Bhagavan gave me the slip of paper to help remember the sequence.

On the first of each Tamil month I would go round the Hill along with my mother, and on the way we would walk into the Ashram to pay homage to Bhagavan who would receive us with a smile and sometimes ask us to take breakfast. Once, when as usual two iddlies were served on my plate, I asked for one more.

Bhagavan turned to me and said that I could have one more after eating the two. When I had finished eating them, Bhagavan asked whether I would like to have more, and I replied No. Bhagavan, said with a smile: Why did you ask for more even before starting to eat? Thus Bhagavan taught the lesson that one should not be greedy.

When my mother passed away, I went to the Ashram to convey the news to Bhagavan. Bhagavan graciously looked at me and relieved me of my intense grief.Bhagavan smilingly told me that my mother was as old as his stay at Arunachala. With folded hands I prayed to Bhagavan to protect our family, and He graciously nodded His head by way of approval.

Bhagavan was not merely a spiritual Master of the highest order, but our mother, our father and our all!

Source: http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/pdf/Saranagathi_eNewsletter_June_2011.pdf

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