Vivekananda Jesus Quotes & Sayings

Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. — Swami Vivekananda

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all good things will be added unto you." Follow God and you shall have whatever you desire. — Swami Vivekananda

It is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous. — Swami Vivekananda

Let the churches preach doctrines, theories, philosophies to their hearts' content, but when it comes to worship, the real practical part of religion, it should be as Jesus says, "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret". — Swami Vivekananda

You can focus on Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, Ramakrishna, Lao Tsu, Yukteswar, Yogananda, Vivekananda, any of the great spiritual teachers who have lived, or on a living teacher, and draw light from them. — Frederick Lenz

Religion is not an imitation of Jesus or Mohammed. Even if an imitation is good, it is never genuine. Be not an imitation of Jesus, but be Jesus, You are quite as great as Jesus, Buddha, or anybody else. If we are not ... we must struggle and be. I would not be exactly like Jesus. It is unnecessary that I should be born a Jew. — Swami Vivekananda

Give up bondage; become a son, be free, and then you can "see the Father", as did Jesus. — Swami Vivekananda

The Imitation of Christ is a cherished treasure of the Christian world. This great book was written by a Roman Catholic monk. "Written", perhaps, is not the proper word. It would be more appropriate to say that each letter of the book is marked deep with the heart's blood of the great soul who had renounced all for his love of Christ. — Swami Vivekananda

You have heard that Christ said, 'My words are spirit and they are life'. So are my words spirit and life; they will burn their way into your brain and you will never get away from them! — Swami Vivekananda

The Church tries to fit Christ into it, not the Church into Christ. — Swami Vivekananda

The kingdom of heaven is within us. The Jewish idea was a kingdom of heaven upon this earth. That was not the idea of Jesus. — Swami Vivekananda

Christ's public life extended only over eighteen months, and for this he had silently been preparing himself for thirty - two years. — Swami Vivekananda

"None is good, save One, that is, God", as the Lord Jesus bath said. The rest are only tools in His hands. "Gloria in Excelsis", "Glory unto God in the highest", and unto men that deserve, but not to such an undeserving one like me. Here "the servant is not worthy of the hire"; and a Fakir, especially, has no right to any praise whatsoever, for would you praise your servant for simply doing his duty? — Swami Vivekananda

Remember the words of Christ: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These words are literally true, not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart's blood of one of the greatest sons of God who have ever come to this world of ours; words which came as the fruit of realisation, from a man who had felt and realised God himself; who had spoken with God, lived with God, a hundred times more intensely than you or I see this building. — Swami Vivekananda

Jesus Christ was God - the Personal God become man. He has manifested Himself many times in different forms and these alone are what you can worship. God in His absolute nature is not to be worshipped. Worshipping such God would be nonsense. We have to worship Jesus Christ, the human manifestation, as God. You cannot worship anything higher than the manifestation of God. The sooner you give up the worship of God separate from Christ, the better for you. — Swami Vivekananda

Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry. — Swami Vivekananda

I have come to deal with principles. I have only to preach that God comes again and again, and that He came in India as Krishna, Rama, and Buddha, and that He will come again. It can almost be demonstrated that after each 500 years the world sinks, and a tremendous spiritual wave comes, and on the top of the wave is a Christ. — Swami Vivekananda

If Jesus Christ was not perfect, then the religion bearing his name falls to the ground. — Swami Vivekananda

Everything is the living God, the living Christ; see it as such. — Swami Vivekananda

Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream-the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother. Renunciation is not asceticism. Are all beggars Christ? Poverty is not a synonym for holiness; often the reverse. — Swami Vivekananda

Had I lived in Palestine, in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart's blood! — Swami Vivekananda

I pity the Hindu who does not see the beauty in Jesus Christ's character. I pity the Christian who does not reverence the Hindu Christ. — Swami Vivekananda

The Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to save man. With you it is belief in a doctrine, and this belief constitutes your salvation. With us doctrine has nothing whatever to do with salvation. Each one may believe in whatever doctrine he likes; or in no doctrine. — Swami Vivekananda

"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Where goest thou to seek for the Kingdom of God, asks Jesus of Nazareth, when it is there, within you? Cleanse the spirit, and it is there. It is already yours. How can you get what is not yours? It is yours by right. You are the heirs of immortality, sons of the Eternal Father. — Swami Vivekananda

The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man; neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten His divinity, that Christ can help us, in Him there is no imperfection. — Swami Vivekananda

Nothing is gained except by sacrifice ... Do not degrade it to the level of the brutes ... Make yourselves decent men! ... Be chaste and pure! ... There is no other way. Did Christ find any other way? — Swami Vivekananda

The way to God is the opposite to that of the world. And to few, very few, are given to have God and mammon at the same time. — Swami Vivekananda

Christ said, "I and my father are one", and you repeat it. Yet it has not helped mankind. For nineteen hundred years men have not understood that saying. They make Christ the saviour of men. He is God and we are worms! — Swami Vivekananda

If I, as an Oriental have to worship Jesus of Nazareth, there is only one way, that is, to worship him as God and nothing else. — Swami Vivekananda

Father is the existence out of which everything comes; Son is that knowledge. It is in Christ that God will be manifest. God was everywhere, in all beings, before Christ; but in Christ we became conscious of Him. This is God. The third is bliss, the Holy Spirit. — Swami Vivekananda

Renunciation means that none can serve both God and Mammon. — Swami Vivekananda

Even now, when you get love, you see Radha. Become Radha and be saved. There is no other way, Christians do not understand Solomon's song. They call it prophecy symbolising Christ's love for the Church. They think it nonsense and father some story upon it. — Swami Vivekananda

Christ said, "Resist not evil", and we do not understand it until we discover that it is not only moral but actually the best policy, for anger is loss of energy to the man who displays it. You should not allow your minds to come into those brain-combinations of anger and hatred. — Swami Vivekananda

"Why should I become angry just because another man has made a fool of himself. Do thou resist not evil!" That is what the lovers of God say. Whatever the world does, wherever it goes, has no influence [on them]. — Swami Vivekananda