Today's Vivekananda Quotes !

 What is karma yoga? It is the knowledge of the secret of work. We see that the whole universe is working. ... Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after long delay and thrashing, getting to know things as they are, we learn from karma yoga the secret of work, the method of work, the organizing power of work.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.99.

 

Karma yoga makes us admit that this world is a world of five minutes, that it is something we have to pass through, and that freedom is not here but is only to be found beyond. To find the way out of the bondages of the world we have to go through it slowly and surely. There may be a few exceptional persons who can stand aside and give up the world, as a snake casts off its skin and stands aside and looks at it. There are no doubt these exceptional beings. But the rest of us have to go slowly through the world of work. Karma yoga shows the process, the secret, and the method of doing it to the best advantage.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.99-100.

 

Hindus spend their lives with the name of the Ganga on their lips, they die immersed in the waters of the Ganga, people from far off places take away Ganga water with them, keep it carefully in copper vessels, and sip drops of it on holy festive occasions. ... The Gita and the sacred waters of the Ganga constitute the Hinduism of the Hindus.

From "Memoirs of European Travel," written in Bengali. Complete Works, 7.300-301.

 

Whenever I drank a few drops of Ganga water, that stream of people, that intense activity of the West, that clash and competition at every step, those seats of luxury and celestial opulence--Paris, London, New York, Berlin, Rome--all would disappear and I used to hear that wonderful sound of "Hara, Hara," to see that lonely forest on the sides of the Himalayas, and feel the murmuring heavenly river coursing through the heart and brain and every artery of the body and thundering forth, "Hara, Hara, Hara!"

From "Memoirs of European Travel," written in Bengali. Complete Works, 7.301.

 

Never say "mine." Whenever we say a thing is "mine," misery will immediately come. Do not even say "my child" in your mind. Possess the child, but do not say "mine." If you do, then will come misery.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.100.

 

If we think of our death always, won't the spirit break down and the heart be overpowered by despondency?

Vivekananda: Quite so. At first, the heart will break down, and despondency and gloomy thoughts will occupy your mind. But persist, let days pass like that-and then? Then you will see that new strength has come into the heart, that the constant thought of death is giving you a new life and is making you more and more thoughtful by bringing every moment before your mind's eye the truth of the saying, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" Wait! Let days, months, and years pass, and you will feel that the spirit within is waking up with the strength of a lion, that the little power within has transformed itself into a mighty power! Think of death always, and you will realize the truth of every word I say.

Conversations recorded in Bengali by Surendra Nath Das Gupta. Complete Works, 5. 329-30.