Swami Vivekananda

“ With reference to the idea that the lover always sees the ideal in the beloved, Swami Vivekananda responded to a girl's newly avowed love:
"Cling to this vision! As long as you can both see the ideal in one another, your worship and happiness will grow more instead of less." ”

“ In an October 13, 1898 letter to Mrs. Ashton Jonson, written from Kashmir, Sister Nivedita described Swami Vivekananda's spiritual mood:
To him at this moment "doing good" seems horrible. "Only the Mother does anything. Patriotism is a mistake. Everything is a mistake. It is all Mother. . . . All men are good. Only we cannot reach all. . . . I am never going to teach any more. Who am I that I should teach anyone? . . . Swamiji is dead and gone." (ND 5: 3-4) ”

“ Swami Vivekananda's luncheon remarks to Mrs. Ole Bull, recorded by Sister Nivedita in an October 18, 1899 letter to Miss Josephine MacLeod:
"You see, there is one thing called love, and there is another thing called union. And union is greater than love.
"I do not love religion. I have become identified with it. It is my life. So no man loves that thing in which his life has been spent, in which he really has accomplished something. ”

“ But anyone will be great in a great position! Even the coward will grow brave in the glare of the footlights. The world looks on. Whose heart will not throb? Whose pulse will not quicken till he can do his best? ”

“ And again he said to someone, "It is not the form of his life that makes a Sadhu. For it is possible to sit in a cave and have one's whole mind filled with the question of how many pieces of bread will be brought to one for supper!" ”

“ It is always making mistakes. The doer thinks of nothing but his own impulse to be kind. Rajasic charity is what a man does for his own glory. And Sattvic charity is that which is given to the right person, in the right way, and at the proper time. . . .
"When it comes to the Sattvic, I think more and more of a certain great Western woman in whom I have seen that quiet giving, always to the right person in the right way, at the right time, and never making a mistake. ”

“ It is all very well to talk of universalism, but the world will not be ready for that for millions of years!
"Remember! if you want to know what a ship is like, the ship has to be specified as it is — its length, breadth, shape, and material. And to understand a nation, we must do the same. India is idolatrous. You must help her as she is. Those who have left her can do nothing for her!" (CWSN 1: 209)
98. Describing the Indian ideal of Brahmacharya in the student's life, Swami Vivekananda said ”

“ The glory of Hinduism lies in the fact that while it has defined ideals, it has never dared to say that any one of these alone was the one true way. In this it differs from Buddhism, which exalts monasticism above all others as the path that must be taken by all souls to reach perfection. ”

“ Concerning marriage by arrangement instead of choice, Swami Vivekananda said:
"There is such pain in this country! Such pain! Some, of course, there must always have been. But now the sight of Europeans with their different customs has increased it. Society knows that there is another way!
[To a European] "We have exalted motherhood and you, wifehood; and I think both might gain by some interchange.
"In India the wife must not dream of loving even a son as she loves her husband. She must be Sati. ”

“ "How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leaves them; ”

“ J. J. Goodwin's October 23, 1896 letter to Mrs. Ole Bull, quoting Swami Vivekananda's conversation at Greycoat Gardens in London
"It is very good to have a high ideal, but don't make it too high. A high ideal raises mankind, but an impossible ideal lowers them from the very impossibility of the case." (ND 4: 385) ”

“ It is God in the wife the husband loves, and God in the husband the wife loves. (Cf. Brihadâranyaka Upanishad II.4.5.) It is God in everyone that draws us to that one in love. [It is] God in everything, in everybody that makes us love. God is the only love. . . . In everyone is God, the Atman; all else is but dream, an illusion." (ND 5: 362)
29. From Mr. Frank Rhodehamel's notes taken during a March 1900 lecture in Oakland, California ”

“ On Western and Eastern views of a person as a body or a soul:
"Western languages declare that man is a body and has a soul; Eastern languages declare that he is a soul and has a body." (CWSN 1: 236-37)
107. Concerning Swami Vivekananda's reverence for his Guru:
"I can criticize even an Avatâra [divine incarnation] without the slightest diminution of my love for him! But I know quite well that most people are not so; and for them it is safest to protect their own Bhakti!" (CWSN 1: 252)
"Mine is the devotion of the dog! ”

“ Referring to the great individual — the divine incarnation, the Guru, and the Rishi:
"You do not yet understand India! We Indians are man — worshippers, after all! Our God is man!" (CWSN 1: 144)
82. On another occasion, Swami Vivekananda used the word "man-worshippers" in an entirely different sense:
"This idea of man—worship exists in nucleus in India, but it has never been expanded. You must develop it. Make poetry, make art, of it. Establish the worship of the feet of beggars as you had it in Mediaeval Europe. Make man-worshippers." (CWSN 1: 144-45) ”

“ A dozen such lions will conquer the world, not millions of sheep. Men should not be taught to imitate a personal ideal, however great." (ND 5: 17)
17. From Mrs. Mary C. Funke's reminiscences of her August 1899 voyage to America with Swamis Vivekananda and Turiyananda:
"And if all this Maya is so beautiful, think of the wondrous beauty of the Reality behind it!" (ND 5: 76)
"Why recite poetry when there [pointing to sea and sky] is the very essence of poetry?" (Ibid.)
18. In Miss Josephine MacLeod's September 3, 1899 letter to Mrs. Ole Bull:
"In one's greatest hour of need one stands alone." ”

“ He touched on the question of his own position as a wandering teacher and expressed the Indian diffidence with regard to religious organization or, as someone expresses it, "with regard to a faith that ends in a church". "We believe", he said, "that organization always breeds new evils". ”

“ Of course it has its bad side. I have to pay dearly for my blunder sometimes — but it has one advantage. It has kept me still a Sannyasin through all this — and that is my ambition, to die a real Sannyasin as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa actually was — free from lust — and desire of wealth, and thirst for fame. That thirst for fame is the worst of all filth." (ND 3: 128-29)
8. From John Henry Wright's March 27, 1896 letter to Mary Tappan Wright, in which Swami Vivekananda stated that England is just like India with its castes ”

“ From Sister Nivedita's October 27, 1899 diary entry at Ridgely Manor, in which Swami Vivekananda expressed his concern for Olea Bull Vaughn:
"Nightmares always begin pleasantly — only at the worst point [the] dream is broken — so death breaks [the] dream of life. ”

“ Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences regarding Swami Vivekananda's opinion of the low-caste English soldiers who occupied India:
"If anyone should despoil the Englishman's home, the Englishman would kill him, and rightly so. ”