Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

by Vivekananda

“We Hindus do not merely tolerate, we unite ourselves with every religion, praying in the mosque of the Mohammedan, worshipping before the fire of the Zoroastrian, and kneeling to the cross of the Christian.

The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present.

And how to worship Him? Through love. “He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life.”

The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising — not in believing, but in being and becoming.

Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse.

“The child is father of the man.”

Unity in variety is the plan of nature,

“We find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed.”

Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, and that he learns as much from evil as from good.

it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than praise.

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