INSPIRATIONAL WORDS FROM SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

Ø  “Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached”

Ø           “Stand and die in your own strength; if there is any sin in the world, it is weakness; avoid all weakness, for weakness is sin, weakness is death”

Ø  “Help if you can; if you cannot, fold your hands and stand by and see things go on. Do not injure, if you cannot render help”

Ø  “Your country requires heroes; be heroes; your duty is to go on working, and then everything will follow of itself”

Ø  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 succor you want is within you. Therefore, make your own future.

Ø  Mountain high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Maya. Fear not and it is banished. Crush it and it vanishes. Stump upon it and it dies. Be not afraid. Think not how many times you fail. Never mind. Go forward, assert your Self again and again and light must come.

Ø  People will call us both good and bad. But we shall have to work like lions keeping the ideal before us.

Ø  Be strong! … You talk of ghosts and devils. We are the living devils. The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death. If it is strength, go down into hell and get hold of it! There is salvation only for the brave. "None but the brave deserves the fair." None but the bravest deserves salvation.

Ø  Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood. 

Ø  Your Atman is the support of the universe—whose support do you stand in need of? Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings. 

Ø If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole. 

Ø  All power is within you, you can do, anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak. You can do anything and everything, without even the guidance of any one. Stand up and express the divinity within you…, within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries.

Ø  To succeed you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.

Ø  Think always, “I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How I can do anything evil? Can I ever be fooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth?” Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.

Ø  So long as millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every person a  traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least  heed to them.

Ø  In this external world, which is full of finite things, it is impossible to see  and find the Infinite. The Infinite must be sought in that alone which is infinite,  and the only thing infinite about us is that which is within us, our own soul.  Neither the body, nor the mind, nor even our thoughts, nor the world we see  around us, is infinite.

Ø  We are children of almighty, we are the sparks of the infinite, divine fire. How can we be nothings….? We are everything; we can do everything and we must do everything.

Ø  The greater a man has become, the fiercer the ordeal he has had to pass through.

Ø  Be unselfish and never listen to one friend in private accusing others.

Ø  What makes you weep my friend….? In you is all power, summon up your all powerful nature. O Mighty one, and this whole universe will lie at your feet. It is the self alone that predominates and not matter.

Ø  “If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.”

Ø     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. Therefore stand up, be bold, and be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your shoulders and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor is within you.

Ø        

      

     

      Let the people praise you or blame you … Let fortune smile or frown upon you…. Let your body fall today or after a yuga, see that you do not deviate from your path of truth.

Ø    

           

      What is the use of fighting and complaining …? That will not help us to better things. He who grumbles at little things that has fallen to his lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling, he will lead a miserable life, and everything will be a failure. But that man, who does his duty as he goes, putting his shoulder to the wheel, will see the light, and higher and higher duties will fall to his share.

Ø        

      Stand up and fight. Not one step back that is the idea. Fight it out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the spheres. Let the whole world stand against us. Death means only a change of garment. What is it..? Thus fight. You gain nothing by becoming cowards. Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune. You have cried to all gods in the world. Has misery ceased…? The god comes to help you when you have succeeded. So what is the use? Die game. You are infinite spirit, it does not benefit you to be a slave. Arise!  Awake!  Stand up and fight.

Ø      

      Even if you have knowledge, do not disturb the childlike faith of the ignorant. On the other hand go down to their level and gradually bring them up. This is a very powerful idea. That is why you can see great philosophers going into a temple and worshipping images. It is not hypocrisy.

Ø      

            If we do not have all that we desire, let us make the best use of what we have. The greatest artist is those who have creative genius within themselves and with little material produce the best. It is not the material which makes the artist; it is the artist who shapes the material. If we bear this in mind we shall cease to complain or find fault either with ourselves or with others.

Ø      

      

      

      There is hardly a soul who does not blame someone else for his misfortune, his failure. But the eye of wisdom reveals to us that the cause we seek lies in our own self. Thus self possession and self adjustment are essential to our well being. One who has control over his own self, who is serene in the midst of all dual conditions- heat and cold, pleasure and pain; noise and stillness, under all circumstances-will carry with him wherever he goes the constant realization of his supreme self.

Ø     

       My hope and faith rest in men like you. Understand my words in their true spirit and apply yourselves to work in their light…….. I have given you advice enough; now put at least something in practice. Let the world see that your listening to me has been a success.