Meditation and Its Methods

by Vivekananda

The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists, He is the goodness, the truth in everything.

The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from Him, the more will long faces come.

the different forms of Yoga that we teach, are adapted to the different natures and temperaments of men.

Karma-Yoga: The manner in which a man realises his own divinity through works and duty.

Bhakti-Yoga: The realisation of the divinity through devotion to, and love of, a Personal God.

Raja-Yoga: The realisation of the divinity through the control of mind.

Jnana-Yoga: The realisation of a man’s own divinity through knowledge.

Tell your experiences to no one but your Guru.

Talk as little as possible.

Keep your thoughts on virtue; what we think we tend to become.

Holy meditation helps to burn out all mental impurities.

All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder — that we are bodies.

It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than anything else.

Come to God any way you can; only come. But in coming do not push anyone down.

“God alone is true. All else is false. The soul never kills or is killed. Live alone or in the company of holy ones.”

Be grateful to him who curses you, for he gives you a mirror to show what cursing is, also a chance to practise self-restraint; so bless him and be glad.

Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream.

Does one feel happy to taste of a good thing all by oneself? One should share it with others.

Therefore, it is certain that you won’t be able to know the Atman, the Essence of Intelligence, through the mind. You have to go beyond the mind.

The soul is the unchangeable One, the immortal, the pure, the ever-blessed One.

“I am the Spirit! I am the Witness, the Ever-Blessed! I have no reason to do, no reason to suffer, I have finished with everything, I am the Witness. I am in my picture gallery — this universe is my museum, I am looking at these successive paintings. They are all beautiful, whether good or evil. I see the marvellous skill, but it is all one. Infinite flames of the Great Painter!”

There is a proverb in our language: If I want to be a hunter, I’ll hunt the rhinoceros; if I want to be a robber, I’ll rob the king’s treasury. What is the use of robbing beggars or hunting ants? So if you want to love, love God.

Go on! Stop not! Don’t look back! What will you gain by looking back?

He who knows that he is free is free; he who knows that he is bound is bound.

Bring in the light and the evil goes in a moment. Build up your character, and manifest your real nature, the Effulgent, the Resplendent, the Ever-Pure, and call It up in everyone that you see.

Blame none for your own faults, stand upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon yourselves.

Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny.

The ideal of man is to see God in everything.

The cause of all miseries from which we suffer is desire. You desire something, and the desire is not fulfilled; and the result is distress.

I am glad I have done something good and many things bad; glad I have done something right, and glad I have committed many errors, because every one of them has been a great lesson.

Have all that you want, and more, only know the truth and realise it. Wealth does not belong to anybody. Have no idea of proprietorship, possessorship. All belongs to the Lord.

“Whatever exists in this universe is to be covered with the Lord.”

So, in everything. In life and in death, in happiness and in misery, the Lord is equally present. The whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him. This is what Vedanta teaches.

We see the world as we are.

For what is sin and what is misery, and what are all these, but the results of weakness?

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. Let positive, strong, helpful thought enter into their brains from very childhood.

As I have already remarked, the personality of the man is two-thirds, and his intellect, his words, are but one-third. It is the real man, the personality of the man, that runs through us.

“This Atman is first to be heard, then thought about and then meditated upon.”

He is the fountain of all bliss. Seek for the highest, aim at that highest, and you shall reach the highest.

Strength is goodness, weakness is sin.

It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature.

Your own Karma [action] has manufactured for you this body, and nobody did it for you.

This is the great hope. What I have done, that I can undo.

The soul can only receive impulses from another soul, and from nothing else.

To quicken the spirit, the impulse must come from another soul. The person from whose soul such impulse comes is called the Guru — the teacher; and the person to whose soul the impulse is conveyed is called the Shishya — the student.

Man is a thinking being and must struggle on until he conquers death, until he sees the light.

Day and night tell yourself what you really are, until you realise, actually realise, your oneness with God.

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. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself.

Knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside.

what a man “learns” is really what he “discovers,” by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.