Meditation and Its Methods According to Swami Vivekanand Quotes

“What right has a man to say he has a soul if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he does not see Him? If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Say, “This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone.” That which I created, I can demolish; that which is created by some one else I shall never be able to destroy. Therefore, stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future. “Let the dead past bury its dead.” The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever. (II. 225)”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“the easiest way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Truth cannot be partial; it is for the good of all. Finally,”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble up.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal. (I.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Do not criticise others, for all doctrines and all dogmas are good; but show them by your lives that religion is no matter of books and beliefs, but of spiritual realisation.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts. If I had to do my education over again, and had any voice in the matter, I would not study facts at all. I would develop the power of concentration and detachment, and then with a perfect instrument I could collect facts at will.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation And Its Methods: Swami Vivekananda Guides on the Practice of Meditation by Swami Vivekananda

“The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Mentally repeat:         Let all beings be happy;         Let all beings be peaceful;         Let all beings be blissful. So do to the east, south, north and west. The more you do that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest way to make ourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy. After doing that, those who believe in God should pray — not for money, not for health, nor for heaven; pray for knowledge and light; every other prayer is selfish. (I. 145-46) THE”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Let us not be caught this time. So many times Maya has caught us, so many times have we exchanged our freedom for sugar dolls which melted when the water touched them. Don’t be deceived. Maya is a great cheat. Get out. Do not let her catch you this time. Do not sell your priceless heritage for such delusions. Arise, awake, stop not till the goal is reached.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“ENVIRONMENT FOR MEDITATION Those of you who can afford it will do better to have a room for this practice alone. Do not sleep in that room, it must be kept holy. You must not enter the room until you have bathed, and are perfectly clean in body and mind. Place flowers in that room always; they are the best surroundings for a Yogi; also pictures that are pleasing. Burn incense morning and evening. Have no quarrelling, nor anger, nor unholy thought in that room. Only allow those persons to enter it who are of the same thought as you. Then gradually there will be an atmosphere of holiness in the room, so that when you are miserable, sorrowful, doubtful, or your mind is disturbed, the very fact of entering that room will make you calm. This was the idea of the temple and the church, and in some temples and churches you will find it even now, but in the majority of them the very idea has been lost. The idea is that by keeping holy vibrations there the place becomes and remains illumined. Those who cannot afford to have a room set apart can practise anywhere they”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Do not criticise others, for all doctrines and all dogmas are good; but show them by your lives that religion is no matter of books and beliefs, but of spiritual realisation. Only those who have seen it will understand this; but such spirituality can be given to others, even though they be unconscious of the gift. Only those who have attained to this power are amongst the great teachers of mankind. They are the powers of light. The more of such men any country produces, the higher is that country raised. That land where no such men exist, is doomed. Nothing can save it. Therefore my Master’s message to the world is, “Be ye all spiritual! Get ye first realisation!” You have talked of the love of man, till the thing is in danger of becoming words alone. The time is come to act. The call now is, Do! Leap”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“How can you see evil until there is evil in you? How can you see the thief, unless he is there, sitting in the heart of your heart? How can you see the murderer until you are yourself the murderer? Be good, and evil will vanish for you.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Think of your own body, and see that it is strong and healthy; it is the best instrument you have. Think of it as being as strong as adamant, and that with the help of this body you will cross the ocean of life. Freedom is never to be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself. (I. 146) A”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, because people never went to the fountain-head; they were content only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“the mind is in three states, one of which is darkness, called Tamas, found in brutes and idiots; it only acts to injure. No other idea comes into that state of mind. Then there is the active state of mind, Rajas, whose chief motives are power and enjoyment. “I will be powerful and rule others.” Then there is the state called Sattva, serenity, calmness,”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable. That is the secret: To think that I am the spirit and not the body, and that the whole of this universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but a series of paintings — scenes on a canvas — of which I am the witness.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Imagination is the door to inspiration and the basis of all thought.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“THE GATE TO BLISS Meditation is the gate that opens that [infinite joy] to us. Prayers, ceremonials, and all the other forms of worship are simply kindergartens of meditation. You pray, you offer something. A certain theory existed that everything raised one’s spiritual power. The use of certain words, flowers, images, temples, ceremonials like the waving of lights brings the mind to that attitude, but that attitude is always in the human soul, nowhere else. People are all doing it; but what they do without knowing it, do knowingly. That is the power of meditation. Slowly and gradually we are”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Until the inner teacher opens, all outside teaching is in vain.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Men and women of today! if there be among you any pure, fresh flower, let it be laid on the altar of God. If there are among you any who, being young, do not desire to return into the world, let them give up! Let them renounce! This is the one secret of spirituality, renunciation. Dare to do this. Be brave enough to do it. Such great sacrifices are necessary. Can you not see the tide of death and materialism that is rolling over these Western lands? Can you not see the power of lust and unholiness, that is eating into the very vitals of society? Believe me, you will not arrest these things by talk, or by movements of agitation for reform; but by renunciation, by standing up, in the midst of decay and death, as mountains of righteousness. Talk not, but let the power of purity, the power of chastity, the power of renunciation, emanate from every pore of your body. Let it strike those who are struggling day and night for gold, that even in the midst of such a state of things, there can be one to whom wealth counts for nothing. Put away lust and wealth. Sacrifice yourselves.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Even as the lion, not trembling at noises; even as the wind, not caught in a net; even as the lotus-leaf, untouched by the water — so do thou wander alone like the rhinoceros!”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“The infinite divinity is unmanifested; it will have to be manifested. This is spirituality, the science of the soul.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“It is the coward and the fool who says, ‘This is fate.’” But it is the strong man who stands up and says, “I will make my fate.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“There is a glory in happiness, there is a glory in suffering.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God. It is through the heart that the Lord is seen, and not through the intellect.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“He who knows that he is free is free; he who knows that he is bound is bound. What is the end and aim of life? None, because I know that I am the Infinite.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“So never mind these failures, these little backslidings. Hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. . . . There is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and you will achieve your end.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods

“There he realized the oneness of the universe and man, that man is a universe in miniature.”
― Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods