Reverberating Voices of Swami Vivekananda

Here We are giving Audio files also for Listening and also download purpose. (These are robotic voices)

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.

 

My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation out of them will come my workers.

 

The character of any man is but the aggregate of this tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind.

 

This is really what is meant by character, each man’s character is determined by the sum total of these impressions.

 

Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits aloe can reform character.

 

Man is not bound by any other laws excepting those which he makes for himself.

 

If you really want to judge of the character of a man, look not at his great performances.

 

Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which will tell the real character of a great man.

 

Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same where ever he be.

 

Be not in despair; the way is very difficult, like walking on the edge of a razor; yet despair not, arise, awake, and find the ideal, the goal.

 

We want infinite energy, infinite zeal, infinite courage, and infinite patience, and then only will great things be achieved.

 

Take up one idea. Make that on idea your life-think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain 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…

 

Let people say whatever they like, stick to your own convictions, and rest assured, the world will be at your feet.

 

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will.

 

The road to Good is the roughest and steepest in the universe.

 

Good and evil thoughts are each a potent power, and they fill the universe.

 

Our thoughts make things beautiful our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our won minds. Learn to see things in proper light.

 

Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand aside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come out.

 

This life comes and goes-wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days.

 

The work karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action is Karma.

 

We breathe: that is Karma.

We Walk: Karma. Everything we do, physical or mental, is Karma, and it leaves its marks on us.

 

Each work has to pass through these stages-ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.

The world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on.

 

Whatever you do, devote your whole mind, heart, and soul to it.

 

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all- love.

 

The self-seeking man who is looking after his personal comforts and leading a lazy life-there is no room for him even in hell.

 

One of the greatest lessons have learned in my life is to pay as much attention to the means of work as to its end.

 

Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time.

 

He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world.

 

Selfishness is the chief sin, thinking of ourselves first.

 

Even the lowest forms of work are not to be despised.

 

No one can get anything unless he earns it. This is an eternal law.

 

Man works with various motives. There cannot be work without motive. Some people want to get fame, and they work for fame. Others want money, and they work for money. Others want to have power, and they work for power. Others want to get to heaven, and they work for the same. Others want to leave a name when they die.

 

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.

 

Work for work’s sake. There are some who are 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.

 

Every work that we do, every movement of the body, every thought that we think, leaves such an impression on the mind-stuff.

 

The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave’s work.

 

This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death.

 

This world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.

 

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

 

You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of Gita.

 

The remedy for weakness is not brooding over weakness, but thinking of strength. Teach men of the strength that is already within them.

 

This is one question I put to every men… Are you strong? Do you feel strength? For I know it is the truth alone that gives strength… strength is the medicine for the world’s disease.

 

Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves.

 

What work you do except from the men of little hearts? Nothing in the world! You must have an iron will if you would cross the ocean. You must be strong enough to pierce mountains.

 

Make your nerves strong.

 

…. Is that education which is slowly making man a machine?

 

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already is man.

 

The training by which the current and expression of will is brought under control and become fruitful is called education.

 

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there undigested, all your life.

 

We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas.

 

If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you he more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.

 

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.

 

To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts.

 

The more this power of concentration, the more knowledge is acquired, because this is the one and only method of acquiring knowledge.

 

There is no limit to the power of the human mind.

The main difference between men and the animals is the difference in their power of concentration.

 

You have to grow from inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

 

The goal of mankind is knowledge.

 

How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of mind?

 

No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside.

 

All knowledge, therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind.

 

The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart.

 

All our knowledge is based upon experience.

 

Religion is the manifestation of the natural strength that is in man.

 

Religion is the idea which is raising the brute unto man, and man unto God.

 

The secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice. To be good and do good – that is the whole of religion.

 

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy-by one, or more, or all of these-and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

 

This is the gist of all worship- to be pure and to do good to others.

 

We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Bible nor the Kuran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Veda, the Bible and the Kuran. Mankin ought to be taught that religions are but the varied expressions of the religion which is Oneness so that each may choose the path that suits him the best.

 

To be more free is the goal of all our efforts, for only in perfect freedom can there be perfection.

 

Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.

 

Let us be no more be the worshippers of creeds or sects with small limited notions of God, but see Him in everything in the universe.

 

The purer the mind, the easier it is to control it.

 

Get rid, in the first place, of all these limited ideas and see God in every person-working through all hands, walking through all feet, and eating through every mouth. In every being He lives, through al minds he thinks. He is self-evident, nearer unto us than ourselves.

 

How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind?

 

Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists. When the mind is studying the external object, it gets identified with it, loses itself.

 

Never ask the question what our religion is, whether we are deists or atheists, whether Christians, Jews, or Buddhists. We are human beings; that is sufficient.

 

The end and aim of all science is to find the unity, the One out of which the manifold is being manufactured, that one existing as many.

 

Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is said to be based upon faith and belief, and, in most cases, consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason why we find all religions quarrelling with one another. These theories, again, are based upon belief.

 

Certain regulations as to food are necessary; we must use that food which brings us the purest mind.

 

Spiritualism is also a manifestation of Pranayama.

 

It is not given to all of us to be harmonious in the building up of our characters in this life : yet we know that character is of the noblest type in which all these three-knowledge and love an yoga-are harmoniously fused.

 

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.

 

It is the knowledge of the spirit of the scriptures alone that constitutes the true religious teacher.

 

The basic aim of religion is to bring peace to man. Reminiscences of swami Vivekananda.

 

The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own aw of growth.

 

The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down, forever – rend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us. So it must be  controlled, ad psychology teaches us how to do it.

 

What we want are western science coupled with Vedanta.

 

The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.

 

He is an atheist who does not believe in himself.

 

The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves.

 

Can anything be done uneless everybody exerts himself to his utmost?

 

Even the poison of a snake is powerless, if you can firmly deny it.

 

Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure, if you look back upon your lives, you will find that you were always trying to get help from others, which never came. All the help that has come was from within yourselves.

 

Never say, “No”, never say, ‘I cannot’, for you are infinite. Even time and space are as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almightily.

 

Misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else.

 

They say, ‘have faith in this fellow, or that fellow’, but I say, ‘Have faith in yourself-all power is in you – be conscious and bring it out.

 

Let not the barks of puppies frighten you – no not even the thunderbolts of heaven – but stand up and work.

 

Always first learn to be a servant, and then you will be fit to be a master.

 

Man is man, so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external..

 

The world is not a child’s play-and great men are those who build highways for others with their heart’s blood.

 

Music has such tremendous power over the human mind : it brings it to concentration in a moment.

 

Music is the highest art and to those who understand, is the highest worship.

 

Through the thunder-roll of the dignified Vedic hymns, life is to be brought back into the country.

 

But each nation has a characteristic of its own, In its manners and customs, in its mode of living, in painting and sculpture is found the expression of that characteristic idea.

 

Feeling is the soul, the secret of everything. There is more music in common people’s songs, and they should be collected together.

 

When there is a conflict between the heart and the brain. Let the heart be followed.

 

Death is better than a vegetating ignorant life; it is better to die on the battle-field than to live a life of defeat.

 

We are responsible for what we are. And whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.

 

Man is higher than all animals, than all angles; none is greater than man.

 

Each individual has to work out his own salvation; there is no other way, and so also with nations.

 

Where is fate, and who is fate?  We is fate? We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate.

 

The more opposition there is, the better.

 

For the world can be good and pure, only if our lives are good and pure. It is an effect, and we are the means. Therefore, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect.

 

Every one wants to command, and no one wants to obey.

 

Give up the awful diseases that is creeping into our national blood, that idea of ridiculing everything, that loss of seriousness.

 

We must learn that nothing can happen to us, unless we make ourselves susceptible to it.

 

Where there is struggle, where there is rebellion, there is the sign of life, their consciousness is manifested.

 

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient and modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.

 

Criticism and destruction are of no avail.

 

It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver.

 

It is the level headed man, the calm man, of good judgment and cool nerves, of great sympathy and love, and who does good work and so does good to himself.

 

The watchword of all well-being, of all moral good, is not ‘I’ but ‘Thou’.

 

The only way of getting our divine nature manifested is by helping others to do the same.

 

Man is made of three qualities – brutal, human and godly.

 

Virtue is that which tends to our improvement, and vice is to our degeneration.

 

Does man make laws or do laws make man?

 

When you are born a man leave some indelible mark behind you.

 

We Indians suffer from a great defect, viz, we cannot make a permanent organization and the reason is we never like to share powers, an never think of what will come after we are gone.

 

We all want to be leaders without making the necessary sacrifice. And the result is seen nobody listens to us.

 

Learn obedience first. Among these western nations with such a high spirit of independence the spirit of obedience is equally strong.

 

Jealousy is the bane of our national character.

 

Great enterprise and boundless courage and perfect obedience- these are the only traits that lead to individual and national regeneration.

 

In our books there is the doctrine of universal equality but in work we make great distinction.

 

Die you must, but have a great ideal to die for and it is better to dies with a great ideal in life.

 

The higher the organism, the lesser is the pleasure of the senses.

 

It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion – the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce!

 

But renunciation comes by itself when you have got the higher, Then the lesser falls away by itself.

 

Depending upon wealth for happiness? There is fluctuation of wealth. Depending upon health or upon anything except the unchangeable spirit must bring misery today or tomorrow.

 

Is enjoyment the goal of life? Were it so, it would be a tremendous mistake to become a man at all.

 

The man who has discovered and learned how to manipulate the internal forces will get the whole of nature under his control.

 

Numbers do not count, nor does wealth or poverty; a handful of men can throw the world off its hinges, provided they are united in thought, word, and deed-never forget this conviction.

 

Believe nothing until you find it out for yourself.

 

You have to put yourself last and others before you.

 

Utter no words of condemnation. Close your lips and let your hearts open.

 

Give and take is the law of life.

 

You cannot help anyone, you can only serve.

 

He who adjusts himself best lives the longest.

 

It is better to do something; never mind even if it proves to be wrong; it is better than doing nothing.