Subhash kumar > Subhash kumar's Quotes

“You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.”
― Vivekananda

“If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else is mere moonshine. . . .”
― Swami Vivekananda

“We must also remember that in every little village-god and every little superstitious custom is that which we are accustomed to call our religious faith. But local customs are infinite and contradictory. Which are we to obey, and which not to obey? The Brāhmin of Southern India, for instance, would shrink in horror at the sight of another Brahmin eating meat; a Brahmin in the North thinks it a most glorious and holy thing to do—he kills goats by the hundred in sacrifice. If you put forward your custom, they are equally ready with theirs. Various are the customs all over India, but they are local. The greatest mistake made is that ignorant people always think that this local custom is the essence of our religion.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3

“Why should a Man be Moral? Because this strengthens his will.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“He who struggles is better than he who never attempts.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“A good practice carried to an extreme and worked in accordance with the letter of the law becomes a positive evil.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3

“When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“Have Faith in Man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one or a most ignorant one.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; it's great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes degenerates into hideous fanaticism. The fanatical crew in Hinduism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity, have always been almost exclusively recruited from these worshippers [sic] on the lower planes of Bhakti. That singleness of attachment (Nishthâ) to a loved object, without which no genuine love can grow, is very often also the cause of the denunciation of everything else. 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. Herein is the explanation of why the same man who is so lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so devoted to his own ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he sees or hears anything of any other ideal.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3

“A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“If the Student thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better Student. If the Lawyer thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better Lawyer, and so on.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“The tender plant of spirituality will die if exposed too early to the action of a constant change of ideas and ideals. Many people, in the name of what may be called religious liberalism, may be seen feeding their idle curiosity with a continuous succession of different ideals. With them, hearing new things grows into a kind of disease, a sort of religious drink-mania. They want to hear new things just by way of getting a temporary nervous excitement, and when one such exciting influence has had its effect on them, they are ready for another. Religion is with these people a sort of intellectual opium-eating, and there it ends.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3

“The Older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel”
― Swami Vivekananda

“You need not worry or make yourself sleepless about the world; it will go on without you.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Karma Yoga: The Yoga of action

“Where the whole world is awake, the sage sleeps.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Lectures on Bhagavad Gita

“But where the ignorant are asleep, there the sage keeps awake”
― Swami Vivekananda, Lectures on Bhagavad Gita

“The mother and the father are the causes of this body; so a man must undergo a thousand troubles in order to do good to them.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The complete works of Swami Vivekananda

“Now is wanted intense Karma-Yoga with unbounded courage and indomitable strength in the heart. Then only will the people of the country be roused.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“This is a great fact: strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery, weakness is death.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“But there is yet time to change our ways. Give up all those old discussions, old fights about things which are meaningless, which are nonsensical in their very nature. Think of the last six hundred or seven hundred years of degradation when grown-up men by hundreds have been discussing for years whether we should drink a glass of water with the right hand or the left, whether the hand should be washed three times or four times, whether we should gargle five or six times. What can you expect from men who pass their lives in discussing such momentous questions as these and writing most learned philosophies on them! There is a danger of our religion getting into the kitchen. We are neither Vedantists, most of us now, nor Pauranics, nor Tantrics. We are just "Don't-touchists". Our religion is in the kitchen. Our God is the cooking-pot, and our religion is, "Don't touch me, I am holy". If this goes on for another century, every one of us will be in a lunatic asylum. It is a sure sign of softening of the brain when the mind cannot grasp the higher problems of life; all originality is lost, the mind has lost all its strength, its activity, and its power of thought, and just tries to go round and round the smallest curve it can find.”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3

“The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, 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, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga Also Pantanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries, and Glossary of Sa”
― Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1

“The great men think, and you and I [also] think. But there is a difference. We think and our bodies do not follow. Our actions do not harmonise with our thoughts. Our words have not the power of the words that become Vedas. ... Whatever they think must be accomplished. If they say, “I do this,” the body does it. Perfect obedience. This is the end. You can think yourself God in one minute, but you cannot be [God].”
― Swami Vivekananda, Lectures on Bhagavad Gita

“If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if you must.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Lectures on Bhagavad Gita

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, 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, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja Yoga Also Pantanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries, and Glossary of Sanskrit Terms

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

“In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.”
― Vivekananda

“In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path”
― Vivekananda

“The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.”
― Vivekananda