The Hidden Gift in Difficult Times
“Life seems comfortable; and you find the mind behaves well when everything is going well with you. But if something goes wrong, your mind loses its balance. That is not good. Bear all evil and misery without one murmur of hurt, without one thought of happiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance and […]
Restraint Fuels Strength; Compulsion, Weakness
“What you call majority is mainly composed of fools and men of common intellect. Men who have brains to think for themselves are few, everywhere. These few men are the real leaders . . . the majority are guided by them as with a string, and that’s good, for everything goes right when they follow in the footsteps of these leaders.” — Swami Vivekananda
The Difference Between the Lowest and Highest Man
“The lowest man is he whose hand draws in, in receiving; and he is the highest man whose hand goes out in giving.” — Swami Vivekananda
Don’t Fear, Don’t Hesitate, Don’t Worry
“The release [from sin and evil] does not come by a sudden miracle, it comes by a process of purification and these things are a part of the process. They are like the dust that rises in the clouds when a room long uncleaned is at last swept. Though the dust seems to choke you, yet persevere, mā śucah.” — Sri Aurobindo
Why We Fail To Detach
“Put yourself with all your heart and strength in God’s hands… To those who demand from him, God gives what they demand, but to those who give themselves and demand nothing, he gives everything that they might otherwise have asked or needed and in addition he gives himself and the spontaneous boons of his love.” — Sri Aurobindo
The Antidote to Feeling Bored
“One gets tired of Japa for two reasons. Sometimes one’s brain is fatigued, sometimes it is the result of idleness. If the former, then one should give up Japa for the time being. . . But if the latter, your mind should be forced to continue.” — Swami Vivekananda
Become Your Own Master
“Fortune is like a flirt, she cares not for him who wants her, but she is at the feet of him who does not care for her. Money comes and showers itself upon one who does not care about it. . . They always come to the Master. . . he who can live in spite of them, whose life does not depend upon the little foolish things of the world.” — Swami Vivekananda
What Decides Who You Become?
“Education . . . may be described as a development of faculty, not accumulation of words, or as a training of individuals to will rightly and efficiently.” — Swami Vivekananda
Why Are We Born Over and Over Again?
“How did [the Self] come down to earth? There is but one answer to that in our scriptures. Ignorance is the cause of all this bondage . . . knowledge will cure it by taking us to the other side. How will knowledge come? Through love, Bhakti; by the worship of God, by loving all human beings as the temples of God.” — Swami Vivekananda
When Your Intellect Becomes A Curse
“It is not only through the intellect that man rises. If the clarified intellect is not supported by purified emotions, the intellect tends to be dominated by the body and put itself at the service and the lordship of the body over the whole man becomes more dangerous than in the natural state because the innocence of the natural state is lost.” — Sri Aurobindo