Vivekananda was born on 12th February 1887 to parents, Narottam and Lakshmi. His father was a businessman who owned a jewellery shop in Calcutta. He was also very good at math and science, English and history. His birth name was Narendranath Datta but he changed his name after becoming an active member of the Ramakrishna Order where he met Swami Vivekananda who had immense spiritual power & practiced celibacy throughout his whole life!
Here is a short bio of Swami Vivekananda:
About Swami Vivekananda
- Vivekananda was a very intelligent child, who developed his interest in books at an early age. He would sit in his mothers lap and read books on geography and history. He was also interested in politics, religion and culture at this time.
- Vivekananda was a good swimmer and wrestler. He studied at the Hindu College in Calcutta, where he excelled in sports, particularly swimming and wrestling.
- Vivekananda was also interested in criminal law, especially the Hindu religion which he studied. He read books on Hindu law and Indian constitution. He also read encyclopaedia Britannica which contains information about countries around the world.
- Vivekananda was a very active person and had many interests in life apart from spiritualism. He was interested in sports, philosophy and literature. He also liked to play billiards or chess because he believed that physical exercise helps you develop your mind and body.
- He was very fond of reading books by William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Keats.
- In 1905 he became an active member of the Ramakrishna Order where he met Swami Ramakrishna who had immense spiritual power & practiced celibacy throughout his whole life!
- In 1909 he started attending a secret meeting called Saivite Samaja with some other young people who would later form a part of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math which is now known as Ramakrishna Mission!
- Vivekananda was a key figure in the introduction of Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He was a major force in the revival of Hinduism in India, and contributed to the concept of nationalism. He is considered to be a major force in the revival of Hinduism, and the spread of Advaita Vedanta to the West.
He was a major influence on the Indian independence movement, and is regarded as one of the most important figures in the development of modern Hinduism. His teachings and writings continue to influence millions of people all over the world.
Some of his popular books are:
Raja Yoga
This book is a detailed commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and it covers the entire range of Raja Yoga practices. The book provides a clear and concise explanation of the principles and practices of Raja Yoga, and is considered to be one of the most comprehensive and accessible introductions to this form of Yoga.
Quotes from Raja Yoga
- Take Risks in Your Life If u Win, U Can Lead! If u Lose, U Can Guide!
- The mind is the cause of bondage and also of liberation; it is the enemy of the one, and the friend of the other.
- Was there ever a more horrible blasphemy than the statement that all the knowledge of God is confined to this or that book? How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book!
- Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.
- The root of all troubles is in the mind, and it is there that we must dig.
- The idea is, when a man receives a gift from another, his heart becomes impure, he becomes low, he loses his independence, he becomes bound and attached.
- All this bringing of the mind into a higher state of vibration is included in one word in Yoga, Samadhi.
- Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature; what once happened can happen always.
Jnana Yoga
This book is a comprehensive guide to the practice of Jnana Yoga, which is the path of knowledge and wisdom. It covers the theoretical and practical aspects of Jnana Yoga, and provides a clear and detailed explanation of the principles and practices of this path.
Quotes from Jnana Yoga
- The goal of Jnana Yoga is to realize the unity of the individual self and the Universal Self.
- Jnana Yoga is the path of wisdom and knowledge, which leads to the realization of the ultimate truth.
- Jnana is not the knowledge of many things, but the realization of the one eternal substance in everything.
- We only know the universe from the point of view of beings with five senses. Suppose we obtain another sense, the whole universe must change for us.
- The sages of the world have only the right to tell us that they have analysed their minds and have found these facts, and if we do the same we shall also believe, and not before.
- Religion can be realised. Are you ready? Do you want it? You will get the realisation if you do, and then you will be truly religious. Until you have attained realisation there is no difference between you and atheists. The atheists are sincere, but the man who says that he believes in religion and never attempts to realise it is not sincere.
- Although devotion is to be given to many institutes and teachers, the essence is to be taken from them all, as the bee takes the essence from many flowers.
- Forbearance is the highest expression of freedom.
Karma Yoga
This book is a comprehensive guide to the practice of Karma Yoga, which is the path of selfless action. It covers the theoretical and practical aspects of Karma Yoga, and provides a clear and detailed explanation of the principles and practices of this path.
Quotes from Karma Yoga
- You need not worry or make yourself sleepless about the world; it will go on without you.
- It is a very hard thing to understand, but you will come to learn in time that nothing in the universe has power over you until you allow it to exercise such a power.
- The help which tends to make us spiritually strong is the highest help, next to it comes intellectual help and after that comes physical help.
- Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge.
- Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction.
- No man is to be judged by the mere nature of his duties, but all should be judged by the manner and the spirit in which they perform them.
Also read The Mother’s (Mirra Alfassa) Quotes.
Bhakti Yoga
This book is a comprehensive guide to the practice of Bhakti Yoga, which is the path of devotion and love. It covers the theoretical and practical aspects of Bhakti Yoga, and provides a clear and detailed explanation of the principles and practices of this path.
Quotes from Bhakti Yoga
- 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.
- Forms and ceremonials, though absolutely necessary for the progressive soul, have no other value than taking us on to that state in which we feel the most intense love to God.
- Those who are constantly attached to Me and worship Me with love — I give that direction to their will by which they come to Me.
- We plainly see, therefore, that Bhakti is a series or succession of mental efforts at religious realisation beginning with ordinary worship and ending in a supreme intensity of love for Ishvara.
The East and the West
This book is a collection of lectures and essays by Swami Vivekananda on the differences and similarities between Eastern and Western cultures. He draws comparisons and contrasts between the two cultures and highlights the importance of understanding and respecting each other’s cultures.
Quotes from East and the West
- The sculptor, the painter the musician the dancer, or any artist, if he can first obtain celebrate in Paris, acquires very easily the esteem and eulogy of other countries.
- The East has always stressed the importance of inner development, while the West has stressed the importance of outer development.
- The East has a wealth of spiritual wisdom and teachings, while the West has a wealth of scientific knowledge and technology.
- The East is the land of spirituality and religion, where man has always sought to understand the mysteries of life and death, and to find the way to immortality. In the West, on the other hand, man has been more concerned with the problems of this world, and has devoted himself to the study of nature and the laws that govern it.
- The East has always taught that the true goal of life is the attainment of inner peace and spiritual development, while the West has emphasized the importance of progress and material development.
The Bhagavad Gita
This is a translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of the most important texts in Hinduism. It is a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, and covers various spiritual and philosophical topics.
Quotes from The Bhagavad Gita
- The mind is in its own nature when it is calm. The moment you can calm it, that very moment you will know the truth.
- Do good because it is good to do good. Ask no more.
- But where the ignorant are asleep, there the sage keeps awake.
- Stand alone! See the glory of your own soul, and see that you will have to work.
- There will never be a time when we shall not exist.
- Who can work without any attachment? That is the real question.
- We are like the caterpillar which takes the thread out of his own body and of that makes the cocoon, and behold, he is caught.
- Let miseries come in millions of rivers and happiness in hundreds! I am no slave to misery! I am no slave to happiness!
- There is only one sin. That is weakness.
- If there is something here that is not in the Vedas, that is your delusion. It does not exist.
The Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali
This is a translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which is considered to be one of the most important texts in the field of yoga. The sutras provide a systematic and concise explanation of the principles and practices of yoga and is considered as a foundation of classical yoga philosophy.
Quotes from The Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali
- For those who have an intense urge for Spirit and wisdom, it sits near them, waiting.
- Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the Seer’s own form.
- Everything is sorrow for the wise.
- It is only when the correct practice is followed for a long time, without interruptions and with a quality of positive attitude and eagerness, that it can succeed.
- Distractions arise from habitual thought patterns when practice is intermittent.
- Nothing in all creation is so like God as silence.
- The great secret is this: it is not enough to have intuitions; we must act on them; we must live them.
- Every morning put your mind into your heart and stand in the presence of God all the day long.
- Egotism is but the perversion of spiritual being. Ambition is the inversion of spiritual power. Passion is the distortion of love. The mortal is the limitation of the immortal. When these false images give place to true, then the spiritual man stands forth luminous, as the sun, when the clouds disperse.
Also read Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes.
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
This is a collection of all the writings and speeches of Swami Vivekananda. It includes his lectures and essays on various topics such as religion, philosophy, and society, as well as his translations of ancient Hindu texts.
Quotes from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
- A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to.
- The mother and the father are the causes of this body; so a man must undergo a thousand troubles in order to do good to them.
- Man is to become divine by realizing the divine. Idols or temples, or churches or books, are only the supports, the help of his spiritual childhood.
- The 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.
- A little of the infinite is projected into consciousness, and that we call our world.
- The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present.
- All religions alike, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, are but so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the Infinite.
- Work for work’s sake. There are some who are really the salt of the earth in every country and who work for work’s sake, who do not care for name, or fame, or even to go to heaven.
- A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to; and this deserving is produced by Karma.
- To the Hindu, says Vivekananda, “Man is not travelling from error to truth, but climbing up from truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth that is higher.
- Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising — not in believing, but in being and becoming.
More Quotes by Swami Vivekananda
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.
In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.
In a day, when you don’t come across any problems – you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path.
The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.
The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.
Anything that makes weak – physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject it as poison.
Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life.
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
Be not Afraid of anything. You will do Marvelous work. it is Fearlessness that brings Heaven even in a moment.
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love’s sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.
Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, ‘Thy will be done.’ We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.
….. we will upload more quotes by Swamiji here.
