Swami Quotes & Sayings

Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immortality, even those who are the weakest in manifestation. — Swami Vivekananda

One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. — Swami Vivekananda

Indulgence in animal killing for the taste of the tongue is the grossest kind of ignorance — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Awareness is a choiceless consciousness. Awareness is the capacity to embrace, accept and include both joy and sadness, love and aloneness, light and darkness, male and female qualities and life and death.
Through saying "yes" and accepting both tendencies and including whatever aspect that happens in the moment, we meet our unlimited and boundless inner being. The inner man and woman need to find their own independence and integrity. — Swami Dhyan Giten

We have wept enough. No more weeping, but stand on feet and be men. — Swami Vivekananda

We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. — Swami Satchidananda

When a Krishna Conscious person is elevated to a responsible position, he never becomes puffed up. Just like a tree when over-laden with fruits becomes humble and lower down. Similarly, a great soul in Krishna Consciousness becomes humbler than the grass and bowed down like the fruitful trees because a Krishna Conscious person acts as the agent of Krishna, therefore he discharges his duty with great responsibility. — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

In nature alone are forms. That which is not of nature cannot have any forms, fine or gross. It must be formless. — Swami Vivekananda

You see, no one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge-even in a boy it is so-and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher. — Swami Vivekananda

The Absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle. — Swami Vivekananda

always keep your mind joyful; if melancholy thoughts come, kick them out. — Swami Vivekananda

The inner being is not only the meditative quality within, the inner silence and emptiness, it is the door to the whole. — Swami Dhyan Giten

The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another according to the samskaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom. — Swami Vivekananda

The road to salvation is through truth. — Swami Vivekananda

people who have made India awesome aren't all politicians. Most of the people that did this are not from the government. Whether it is entrepreneurs like J.R.D. Tata and N.R. Narayana Murthy, sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar or musicians like A.R. Rahman, people from all walks of life have helped improve our nation. Not just celebrities, but E. Sreedharan, responsible for the Delhi Metro, and Dr Verghese Kurien, who created the Amul revolution, were all ordinary people doing their work extraordinarily well. Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, two of the most influential figures in India's history, never held political office. Aim to be one of those people who made India awesome. — Chetan Bhagat

Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery and would exist if all humanity forgets it, so it is with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery and would remain even if we forget them. — Swami Vivekananda

The fruit falls from the tree when it gets ripe. So wait for the time to come. Do not hurry. Moreover, no one has the right to make others miserable by his foolish acts. Wait, have patience, everything will come right in time. — Swami Vivekananda

Beleive in yourself and the world will be at your feet — Swami Vivekananda

Philosophy insists that there is a joy which is absolute, which never changes. — Swami Vivekananda

Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny. Pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich. — Swami Vivekananda

The reason that people start wars is because they still believe in their separation from life. But when you experience the wholeness with all living beings, you understand that hurting somebody else is just hurting yourself as we are all one on the spiritual level. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment. — Swami Vivekananda

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. — Swami Vivekananda

Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavour to accomplish it. That is a surer way of progress than taking up other men's ideals, which he can never hope to accomplish. — Swami Vivekananda

It is a retarding element creating hatred and anger, and causing people to fight each other, and making them unsympathetic. — Swami Vivekananda

Thought is like a bubble rising to the surface. When thought is joined to will, we call it power. That which strikes the sick person whom you are trying to help is not thought, but power. — Swami Vivekananda

Self-realisation means that we have been consciously connected with our source of being. Once we have made this connection, then nothing can go wrong ... — Swami Paramananda

One who loves his own Self loves the whole world. — Swami Muktananda

If you are that patient, your mind is more settled, and what you do will be more perfect. If you are unsettled and anxious to get the result, you are already disturbed; nothing done with that disturbed mind will have quality. So, it is not only how long you practice, but with what patience, what earnestness and what quality also. — Swami Satchidananda

External motion we call action; internal motion is human thought. — Swami Vivekananda

The one eternal religion is applied to the opinions of various minds and various races. There never was my religion or yours, my national religion or your national religion; there never existed many religions, there is only the one. One infinite religion existed all through eternity and will ever exist, and this religion is expressing itself in various countries in various ways. — Swami Vivekananda

When we develop the heart chakra, we begin to influence the surroundings with our spiritual presence.
When we develop the communication chakra, we begin to influence the country with our spiritual presence.
When we develop the seventh chakra, we begin to influence the world with our spiritual presence without doing anything. — Swami Dhyan Giten

The heart is the door to our inner woman. The heart is the door to our inner world. The power chakra relates to the inner man. The power chakra relates to the outer world. Irrespective of if we are a man or a woman, the inner woman is the center of our consciousness. — Swami Dhyan Giten

The only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of fearlessness. Either in this world or in the world of religion, it is true that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature. — Swami Vivekananda

Yoga began with the first person wanting to be healthy and happy all the time. — Swami Satchidananda

I believe that the Hindu faith has developed the spiritual in its devotees at the expense of the material, and I think that in the Western world the contrary is true. By uniting the materialism of the West with the spiritualism of the East I believe much can be accomplished. It may be that in the attempt the Hindu faith will lose much of its individuality. — Swami Vivekananda

A spiritual man is happy with the whole existence. He says "yes" to the whole existence. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all these processes purification of the elements - making the one melt the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit. — Swami Vivekananda

Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth. — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

God is true. The universe is a dream. Blessed am I that I know this moment that I have been and shall be free all eternity; ... that I know that I am worshiping only myself; that no nature, no delusion, had any hold on me. Vanish nature from me, vanish these gods; vanish worship; ... vanish superstitions, for I know myself. I am the Infinite. All these - Mrs. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, responsibility, happiness, misery - have vanished. I am the Infinite. How can there be death for me, or birth? Whom shall I fear? I am the One. Shall I be afraid of myself? Who is to be afraid of whom? ... — Swami Vivekananda

The whole universe is only the self with variations, one tune made bearable by variations. Sometimes there are discords, but they only make the subsequent harmony more perfect. — Swami Vivekananda

Life is a pilgrimage. The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns. He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination. — Swami Sivananda

The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God. — Swami Vivekananda

Practise hard; whether you live or die does not matter. You have to plunge in and work, without thinking of the result. — Swami Vivekananda

Nothing can be produced without a cause, and the effect is but the cause reproduced. — Swami Vivekananda

Calm and silent and steady work, and no newspaper humbug, no name-making, you must always remember. — Swami Vivekananda

Each atom is trying to fly off from its centre. In the internal world, each thought is trying to go beyond control. Again each particle in the external world is checked by another force, the centripetal, and drawn towards the centre. Similarly in the thought - world the controlling power is checking all these outgoing desires. — Swami Vivekananda

What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is man-making theories that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want. — 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. — Swami Vivekananda

when one talks on subjects in which one takes a few ideas that are familiar to everyone, and combines and recombines them, it is easy to follow because these channels are present in everyone's brain, and it is only necessary to recur to them. But whenever a new subject comes, new channels have to be made, so it is not understood readily. And that is why the brain (it is the brain, and not the people themselves) refuses unconsciously to be acted upon by new ideas. It resists. The Prana is trying to make new channels, and the brain will not allow it. This is the secret of conservatism. — Swami Vivekananda

If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better. — Swami Vivekananda

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. — Swami Vivekananda

those who believe in God should pray - not for money, not for health, nor for heaven; pray for knowledge and light; every other prayer is selfish. — Swami Vivekananda

This attachment of Love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but effectively breaks all its bondages. — Swami Vivekananda

All motion in this universe is in the form of waves, successively rising and falling. — Swami Vivekananda

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). — Swami Vivekananda

Until we discover this Spiritual Centre in ourselves, the God in us, we will be confused, miserable, unsatisfied and disturbed, an enigma to ourselves and to others. — Swami Chinmayananda

One cannot reach the real point of factual knowledge without being helped by the right person who is already established in that knowledge. There — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Materialism is the consciousness of wanting to exploit and enjoy. — Radhanath Swami

A Brahmin is not so much in need of education as a Chandala. If the son of a Brahmin needs one teacher, that of a Chandala needs ten. — Swami Vivekananda

When the mind has attained to that state when it identifies itself with the internal impression of the object, leaving the external, and when, by long practice, that is retained by the mind and the mind can get into that state in a moment, that is Samyama. — Swami Vivekananda

I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance. — Swami Vivekananda

Wherever there is evil and wherever there is ignorance and want of knowledge, I have found out by experience that all evil comes, as our scriptures say, relying upon differences, and that all good comes from faith in equality, in the underlying sameness and oneness of things. This is the great Vedantic ideal. — Swami Vivekananda

There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, because people never went to the fountain-head; they were content only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same. — Swami Vivekananda

God is one the paths to reach him (religions) are many - just as different rivers, originating in different mountains, traverse different paths, flowing straight or crooked, and at last join the ocean. He is the one Lord of all, the one Soul of all souls. — Swami Vivekananda

This body is the boat which will carry us to the other shore of the ocean of life. It must be taken care of. Unhealthy persons cannot be Yogis. Mental laziness makes us lose all lively interest in the subject, without which there will neither be the will nor the energy to practise. Doubts will arise in the mind about the truth of the science, however strong one's intellectual conviction may be, until certain peculiar psychic experiences come, as hearing or seeing at a distance, etc. These glimpses strengthen the mind and make the student persevere. Falling away ... when obtained. Some days or weeks when you are practicing, the mind will be calm and easily concentrated, and you will find yourself progressing fast. All of a sudden the progress will stop one day, and you will find yourself, as it were, stranded. Persevere. All progress proceeds by such rise and fall. — Swami Vivekananda

One point of difference between Hinduism and other religions is that in Hinduism we pass from truth to truth-from a lower truth to a higher truth-and never from error to truth. — Swami Vivekananda

We are for ever trying to make our weakness look like strength, our sentiment like love, our cowardice like courage, and so on. — Swami Vivekananda

All is bound by the law of causation — Swami Vivekananda

Genuine asceticism for finding one's own soul and for the good of humanity is worthy of reverence. — Rama Swami

Hold on to your own ideal ... Above all, never attempt to guide or rule others, or, as the Yankees say, "boss" others. Be the servant of all. — Swami Vivekananda

Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness — Swami Vivekananda

Man can become like God and acquire control over the whole universe if he multiplies infinitely his centre of self-consciousness. — Swami Vivekananda

Thought ceases in meditation; even the mind's elements are quite quiet. Blood circulation stops. His breath stops, but he is not dead. — Swami Vivekananda

I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friend that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted.
But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain. — Swami Dhyan Giten

You nourish your minds by reading books. There is no good in doing that unless you hold it also as a sacrifice to the whole world. For the whole world is one; you are rated a very insignificant part of it, and therefore it is right for you that you should serve your millions of brothers rather than aggrandise this little self — Swami Vivekananda

Meditate, meditate, meditate. Then you will find that people suffer for no reason when there is the mine of bliss in everyone's heart. Then your heart will go out in sympathy and compassion for everybody. — Swami Brahmananda

Arjuna asked Sri Krishna, "In this chaotic condition of my mind, what is my duty? I surrender myself to you, great Master. Please tell me."
The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is, "You understand nothing. You draw conclusions without proper understanding of the structure of life and your relationship to people or things in general. It is a very sorry state. How can you draw conclusions without proper premises? If you draw a conclusion based on a wrong premise, the conclusion is also wrong. Therefore, all that you have been told up to this time is without any foundation because you do not know either yourself or the world. — Swami Krishnananda

We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light. — Swami Vivekananda

In art, interest must be centred on the principal theme. — Swami Vivekananda

You are purer than the pure. Never manifold, you are individual Consciousness.
Unborn, unchanging, all-pervasive You are a mountain of joy. — Swami Muktananda

In our conditioned nature we do not understand value of something until we lose it. — Radhanath Swami

Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person. — Swami Vivekananda

A perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are defeated, our life has to go. — Swami Vivekananda

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. He who has given up all attachment, all fear, and all anger, he whose whole soul has gone unto the Lord, he who has taken refuge in the Lord, whose heart has become purified, with whatsoever desire he comes to the Lord, He will grant that to him. Therefore worship Him through knowledge, love, or renunciation. — Swami Vivekananda

Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind [is the ideal of education]. — Swami Vivekananda

Do you wake up in the morning and first thing, centre yourself by looking at your palms together? Thereby have a nice day. — Swami Veda Bharati

Seeing a cat loving her kittens stand and pray. God has become manifest there; literally believe this. Repeat "I am Thine, I am Thine", for we can see God everywhere. Do not seek for Him, just see Him. — Swami Vivekananda

If there is no enjoyment in this world, there would not be so much suffering. As suffering really is the frustration of our attempts to enjoy. — Radhanath Swami

Out of Mahat comes universal egoism. — Swami Vivekananda

Relationships are more important than life,but it is important for those relationships to have life in them — Swami Vivekananda

Relationships are a development and a dance between our inner male and female sides. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego, struggle, destructivity and a separation from life.
A one-sided development of our female side leads to dependence and passivity. It is when we have developed a balance and harmony between both our male and female side that a new spark of joy, creativity and wholeness arises within ourselves. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Always remember that renunciation is the root idea. Unless one is initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the World - gods have the power to attain Mukti — Swami Vivekananda

He who does not depend on anything, who is pure and active, who does not care whether good comes or evil, and never becomes miserable, who has given up all efforts for himself; who is the same in praise or in blame, with a silent, thoughtful mind, blessed with what little comes in his way, homeless, for the whole world is his home, and who is steady in his ideas, such a one is My beloved Bhakta." Such alone become Yogis. — Swami Vivekananda

Death can come at any minute, in any way. We do not know what is in store tomorrow, or, whether there is a tomorrow, or even a tonight! But still, we have the golden present. Now we are alive and kicking. What should we do now? Love all, serve all. — Swami Satchidananda

Man is the product of two forces, action and reaction, which make him think. — Swami Vivekananda

The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe. — Swami Vivekananda

The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me," say the Hebrew scriptures. — Swami Vivekananda

Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings. — Swami Vivekananda

Music is the highest art and to those who understand, is the highest worship — Swami Vivekananda