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Prayer Book

Site: Vivekananda Institute of Languages
Course: Vivekananda Institute of Languages
Book: Prayer Book
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Date: Saturday, 14 June 2025, 6:37 AM

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Prayer Book

Table of contents

1. Universal Prayers

  1. ॐ सह नाववतु सह नौ भुनक्तु । सह वीर्यंकरवावहै । तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु मा विद्विषवहै ॥ ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ 
    Om. May the Divine protect us both, the teacher and the student. May he nourish us both. May we work together with great energy. May our study be vigorous and fruitful. May we not hate each other. Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

  2. ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय । तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । मृत्योर्माऽमृतं गमय ॥ ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
    Om. From the unreal lead me to the Real. From Darkness lead me to light. From death lead me to immortality. Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

  3. ॐ तेजोऽसि तेजो मयि धेहि । वीर्यमसि वीर्यं मयि धेहि । बलमसि बलं मयि धेहि । ओजोऽसि ओजो मयि धेहि । मन्युरसि मन्युं मयि धेहि । सहोसि सहो मयि धेहि ॥
    Om. O Lord, Thou art the embodiment of infinite energy; do Thou fill me with energy. Thou art the embodiment of infinite virility; do Thou endow me with virility. Thou art the embodiment of infinite power; do Thou grant power unto me. Thou art the embodiment of infinite courage; inspire me with courage. Thou art the embodiment of infinite fortitude; do Thou fill me with fortitude.

  4. ॐ सर्वस्तरतु दुर्गाणि सर्वो भद्राणि पश्यतु । सर्वः सद्बुधिमाप्नोतु सर्वः सर्वत्र नन्दतु ॥ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः । सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु मा कश्चिद् दुःखभाग् भवेत् ॥ दुर्जनः सज्जनो भूयात् सज्जनः शान्तिमाप्नुयात् । शान्तो मुच्येत् बन्धेभ्यो मुक्तश्चान्यान् विमोचयेत् ॥
    May all overcome impediments. May all see the auspicious. May all attain wisdom. May all exult everywhere. May all be happy. May all be free from disease. May all realize what is good. May none be subject to misery. May the wicked become virtuous; may the virtuous attain tranquility; may the tranquil be free from bonds; may the freed make others free.

  5. ॐ संगच्छध्वं संवदध्वं सं वो मनांसि जानताम् । देवा भागं यथा पूर्वे संजानाना उपासते । समानो मंत्रःसमितिस्समानी समानं मनःसह चित्तमेषाम् ॥  समानं मंत्रं अभिमंत्रये वः समानेन वो हविषा जुहोमि ॥ समानी व आकूतिः समाना हृदयानि वः । समानमस्तु वो मनः यथा वस्सुसहासति ॥ ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
    Come together; speak in harmony. May your minds see alike, even as the gods of yore, in agreement, took their offerings. Uniform be your deliberations and uniform be the result you achieve; uniform your mind and uniform your thought. A common prayer do I utter forth for you and a common oblation do I offer you. Same be your intention, same be your hearts; same may your minds be so that there might be complete unison amongst you. Om Peace Peace Peace. - Rigveda X.191.2-4.

  6. ॐ ब्रह्मस्वरूपा परमा ज्योतिरूपा सनातनी । सर्वविद्याधिदेवी या तस्यै वाण्यै नमो नमः ॥
    O Mother, Thou art the personification of Brahman. Thou art the supreme Spirit, the light Divine, the eternal Being. Thou art the presiding deity of all branches of learning. Salutation to Thee, O Goddess of Speech.

  7. ॐ स्थापकाय च धर्मस्य सर्वधर्मस्वरूपिणे । अवतारवरिष्ठाय रामकृष्णाय ते नमः ॥
    O Ramakrishna, founder of religion universal and the embodiment of all religions! To thee, the noblest of Divine Incarnation, I offer my saulation.

  8. ॐ जननीं सारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगद्गुरुम् । पादपद्मे तयोः श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहुः ॥
    Taking shelter at the feet of Sarada, the universal mother, and Ramakrishna the teacher of the world, I salute them again and again!

  9. ॐ नमः श्रीयतिराजाय विवेकानन्दसूरये । सच्चित्सुखस्वरूपाय स्वामिने तापहारिणे ॥
    Saultation to that king of renouncers and controller of passions, the sage, Vivekananda who is Satchidananda (Existence, Knowledge and Bliss Absolute) itself, the spiritual preceptor, the remover of distress.

2. True Education

  1. Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man... Therefore the only duty of the teacher in both cases is to remove all obstructions from the way. (CW/4-358)

  2. The very reason of nature's existence is for the education of the soul; it has no other meaning; it is here because the soul must have knowledge, and through knowledge free itself. If we remember this always we shall never be attached to nature; we shall know that nature is a book which we are to read, and that when we have gained the required knowledge, the book is of no more value to us.

  3. We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet. 

  4. Bring light to the poor; and bring more light to the rich, for they require it more than the poor. Bring light to the ignorant, and more light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are tremendous.

  5. Education is not the amount of information  that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got  by heart the whole library. 

  6. What is education? Is it book-learning? No. Is it diverse knowledge? Not even that. The training, by which the current and expression of the will are brought under control and become fruitful, is called education.

  7. The education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy, and the courage of a lion - is it worth the name?

  8. Real education is that which enables one to stand on one's own legs. The education that you are receiving now in schools and colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics; you are working like machines merely, and living a jelly-fish like existence.

  9. If the poor cannot come to education, education  must reach them at the plough, in the factory, everywhere. Now I can get hundreds of such, all over India, unselfish, good, and educated. Let these men go from village to village bringing not only religion to the door of everyone but also education.>

  10. Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my mind [is the ideal of education]. If I want to concentrate my mind upon a point, it goes there, and the moment I call, it is free [again].

  11. The ideal of all education, all training, should be this man-making. But, instead of that, we are always trying to polish up the outside. What use in polishing up the outside when there is no inside? The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow.

  12. A nation is advanced in proportion as education and intelligence spread among the masses. The chief cause of India's ruin has been monopolizing of the whole education and intelligence of the land... among a handful of men. If we are to rise again, we shall have do it.... by spreading education among the masses.

3. Character

  1. Neither money pays, nor name, nor fame, nor learning; it is CHARACTER that can cleave through adamantine walls of difficulties.

  2. If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man.

  3. If a man continuously hears bad words, thinks bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full of bad impressions and they will influence his thought and work without his being conscious of the fact. Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these impressions will be good, and they, in a similar manner, will force him to do good, even in spite of himself.

  4. All the actions that we see in the world, all the movements in human society, all the works that we have around us, are simply the display of thought, the manifestation of the will of man. Machines or instruments, cities, ships, or me-of-war, all these are simply the manifestation of the will of man; and this will is caused by character, and character is manufactured by Karma.

  5. The road to the good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed; no wonder that so many fall. Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

  6. A cannon-ball flying through the air goes a long distance and falls. Another is cut short in its flight by striking against a wall, and the impact generates intense heat. All outgoing energy following a selfish motive is frittered away; it will not cause power to return to you; but if restrained, it will result in development of power. This self-control will tend to produce a mighty will, a character which makes a Christ or a Buddha.

  7. All the men and women, in any society are note of the same mind, capacity, or of the same power to do things; they must have different ideals, and we have no right to sneer at any ideal. Let every one do the best he can for realising his own ideal. Nor is it right that I should be judged by your standard or you by mine The apple tree should not be judged by the standard of the oak, nor the oak by that of the apple. To judge the apple tree you must take the apple standard, and of the oak, the oak standard.

  8. All great undertakings are achieved through mighty obstacles. 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.

  9. If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal.

  10. The miseries of the world cannot be cured by physical help only. Until man's character changes, these physical needs will always arise, and miseries will always be felt, and no amount of physical help will cure them completely. The only solution of this problem is to make mankind pure.

  11. Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery we see. Let men have light, let them be pure and spiritually strong and educated, the alone will misery cease in the world, not before. We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will continue to exist until man's character changes.

  12. Never mind failures, they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? ... I never heard of a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow - never a man. 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. The ideal of man is to see God in everything.

  13. As the tortoise tucks its feet and head inside the shell, and you may kill it and break it in pieces, and yet it will not come out, even so the character of that man who has control over his motives and organs is unchangeably established. He controls his own inner forces, and nothing can draw them out against his will. By this continuous reflex of good thoughts, good impressions moving over the surface of the mind, the tendency for doing something good becomes strong.

  14. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits. Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions.

  15. There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of this struggle towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that men are the same as their little body. When we see a man doing good work, helping others, it means that he cannot be confined with the limited circle of "me and mine".

  16. We constantly complain that we have no control over our actions, over our thoughts. But how can we have it? If we can get control over the fine movements, if we can get hold  of thought at the root, before it has become thought, before it has become action, them it would be possible for us to control the whole..... That is why purity and morality have always been the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself.

4. Mind and Thought

  1. The highest men are calm, silent, and unknown. They are the men who really know the power of thought; they are sure that, even if they go into a cave and close the door and simply think five true thoughts and then pass away, these five thoughts of theirs will live through eternity. Indeed such thoughts will penetrate through the mountains, cross the oceans and travel through the world.

  2. You need not write in the newspapers, you need not go about lecturing; your very face will shine. If you live in a cave, your thoughts will permeate even through the rock walls, will go vibrating all over the world for hundreds of years, maybe, until they will fasten on to some brain and work out there. Such is the power of thought, of sincerity, and of purity of purpose. 

  3. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, 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.

  4. We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live, they travel far. Each thought we think is tinged with our own character, so that for the pure and holy man, even his jests or abuse will have the twists of his own love and purity and do good.

  5. It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures.

  6. Each thought is a little hammer blow on the lump of iron which our bodies are, manufacturing out of it what we want it to be. We are heirs to all the good thoughts of the universe, if we open ourselves to them.

  7. Every vicious thought will rebound, every thought of hatred which you may have thought, in a cave even, is stored up, and will one day come back to you with tremendous power in the form of some misery here. If you project hatred and jealousy, they will rebound on you with compound interest.

  8. The greatest force is derived from the power of thought. The finer the element, the more powerful it is. The silent power of thought influences people even at a distance, because mind is one as well as many. The universe is a cobweb; minds are spiders.

  9. The lower classes in every country intensely enjoy everything physical. Their senses are stronger than those of the cultured. But as you go higher and higher in the scale, you see the power of thought increasing and the power of the senses decreasing, in the same ratio.

5. Concentration

  1. The world is ready to give up it's secrets if only we know how to know, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret.

  2. The greater part of the practical lessons which the Yogi gives us is in the mind, the power of concentration and meditation. ... We have become so materialistic. Wen we think of ourselves, we find only the body. The body has become the ideal, nothing else.

  3. To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts. If I had to do my education over gain, and had any voice in the matter, I would not study facts at all. I would develop the power of concentration and detachment, then with a perfect instrument I could collect facts at will.

  4. Concentration is the essence of all Knowledge; nothing can be done without it. Ninety percent of the thought force is wasted by the ordinary human being, and therefore he is constantly committing blunders; the trained man or mind never makes a mistake.

  5. Herein is the difference between man and the animals - man has greater power of concentration. The difference in their power of concentration also constitutes the difference between man and man. Compare the lowest with the highest man. The difference is in the degree of concentration. This is the only difference.

  6. The flow of this continuous control of the mind becomes steady when practised day after day, and the mind obtains the faculty of constant concentration.

  7. Music has such tremendous power over the human mind; it brings it to concentration in a moment. you will find the dull, ignorant, low, brute - like human beings, who never steady their mind for a moment at other times, when they hear attractive music, immediately become charmed and concentrated.

  8. All knowledge we have, either of the external or internal world, is obtained through only one method - by the concentration of the mind. No knowledge can be had of any science unless we can concentrate our minds upon the subject.

  9. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind; he re-arranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not in the apple nor in anything in the center of the earth.

  10. Do you see, simply by the observance of strict Brahmacharya (continence) all learning can be mastered in a very short time - one has an unfailing memory of what one hears or knows but once. It is owing to this want of continence that everything is on the brink of ruin in our country.

  11. What we want are Western science coupled with Vedanta, Brahmacharya as the guiding motto, and also Shraddha and faith in one's own self.

6. Faith in Oneself

  1. He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did no believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself.

  2. You have in you all and a thousand times more than is in all the books. Never lose faith in yourself, you can do anything in this universe. Never weaken, all power is yours.

  3. Faith, faith, faith in ourselves, faith \, faith in God - this is the secret of greatness. If you have faith in all the three hundred and thirty millions of your mythological gods, and in all the gods which foreigners have now and again introduced into your midst, and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you.

  4. What makes the difference between man and man is the difference in this Shraddha and nothing else. What makes one man great and another weak and low is this Shraddha.

  5. History of the world is the history of few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or nation loses faith, death comes.

  6. Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immortality, even those who are the weakest in manifestation. Let positive, strong, helpful thought enter into their brains from very childhood.

7. Fearlessness

  1. This world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.

  2. This is the one prayer, to remember our true nature, the God who is always within us, thinking of it always as infinite, almighty, ever - good, ever - beneficent, selfless, bereft of all limitations. And because that nature is selfless, it is strong and fearless; for only to selfishness comes fear.

  3. The earth is enjoyed by heroes - this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, ' I have no fear'. Tell this to everybody - 'Have no fear'. Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in this world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.

  4. Be not afraid of anything. you will do marvellous work. The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment. Therefore, 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.'

  5. In this world of embodied existence, you will be tossed again and again on the waves of happiness and misery, prosperity and adversity - but know them all to be of momentary duration. Never care for them.

8. Strength is Life

  1. 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. The older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel.

  2. It is easy to be active. Let the reins go, and the horses will run away with you. Anyone can do that, but he who can stop the plunging horses is the strong man. Which requires the greater strength, letting go or restraining? The calm man is not the man who is dull.

  3. The remedy for weakness is not brooding over weakness, but thinking of strength. Teach men of the strength that is already within them.

  4. Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be, if you think yourselves, strong, strong you will be.

  5. Therefore, my friend, as one of your blood, as on that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength and every time strength. And the Upanishads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the whole world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them.

  6. What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is a man - making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want.

  7. We speak of many things parrot - like, but never do them; speaking and not doing has become a habit with us. What is the cause of that? Physical weakness. This sort of weak brain is not able to do anything; we must strengthen it. First of all, our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards. be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you.

  8. 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 world, 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.

  9. 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.

  10. Well has it been said that the masses admire the lion that kills a thousand lambs, never for a moment thinking that it is death to the lambs, although a momentary triumph for the lion; because they find pleasure only in manifestations of physical strength. Thus it is with the ordinary run of mankind. They understand and find pleasure in everything that is external.

  11. What our country now wants are muscles of iron and nerves of steel, gigantic wills which nothing can resist, which can penetrate into the mysteries and the secrets of the universe, and will accomplish their purpose in any fashion, even if it meant going down to the bottom of the ocean and meeting death face to face.

  12. Men, men, these are wanted: everything else will be ready, but strong, vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone, are wanted. A hundred such and the world becomes revolutionized.

  13. Your country requires heroes; be heroes! Your duty is to go on working, and then everything will follow of itself.

  14. It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. it is man-making education all round that we want. And here is the test of truth - anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true.

  15. My plan is to follow the ideas of the great ancient masters. I have studied their work, and it has been given unto me to discover the line of action they took. They were the great originators of society. They were the great givers of strength, and of purity, and of life. They did most marvellous work. We have to do most marvellous work also.

  16. 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.

  17. If you do not allow one to become a lion, he will become a fox.

  18. The difference is here, that the Englishman believe in himself and you do not. He believes in his being an Englishman, and he can do anything. That brings out the God within him, and he can do anything he likes. You have been told and taught that you can do nothing, and nonentities you becoming every day. What we want is strength, so believe in yourselves.

  19. 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.

9. Divinity of Man

  1. Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one, or more, or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines,  or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

  2. The Vedantist begs the liberty to call the expiration of man. At the same time he  does not quarrel with other sects; the Vedanta has no quarrel with those who do not understand this divinity of man. Consciously or unconsciously, every man is trying to unfold that divinity.

  3. Man is the best mirror, and the purer the man, the more clearly can he reflect God.

  4. Therefore utter no words of condemnation. Close your lips and let your hearts open. Work out the salvation of this land and of the whole world, each of you thinking that the entire burden is on your shoulders. Carry the light and the life of the Vedanta to every door., and rouse up the divinity that is hidden within every soul.

  5. Teach yourselves, teach everyone, his real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.

  6. Manifest the divinity within you, and everything will be harmoniously arranged around it. My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

  7. All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak. Stand up and express the divinity within you, Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth - sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature.

  8. India will be raised , not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but with the flag of peace and love. The garb of the Sannyasin; not by the power of Wealth, but by the power of begging bowl. Say not that you are weak. The spirit is omnipotent.

  9. This infinite power of the spirit, brought to bear upon matter evolves material development, made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and made to act upon itself makes of man a God. if the fisherman thinks that he is the Spirit he will be a better fisherman, if the student thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better student. If the lawyer think that he is the Spirit, he will be a better lawyer.

  10. The attempt to remove evil form the world by killing a thousand evil-doers only adds to the evil in the world. But if the people can be made to desist from evil doing, by means of spiritual instruction, there is no more evil in the world.

  11. Let the lion of Vedanta road; the foxes will fly to their holes. Throw the ideas broadcast, and let the results take care of itself. Let us put the chemicals together; the crystallization will take its own course.

  12. First deluge the land with spiritual ideas. The first work that demands our attention is that the most wonderful truths confined in our Upanishads, in our scriptures, in our Puranas must be brought out from the books, brought out from the monasteries, brought out from the forests, brought out from the possession of selected bodies of people and scattered broadcast all over the land, so that these truths may run like fire all over the country from north to south and east to west.

  13. It is remarkable also that the possession of India by a foreign power has always been a turning - point in the history of that power, bringing to it wealth, prosperity, dominion, and spiritual ideas. While the Western man tries to measure how much it is possible for him to possess and to enjoy, the Eastern seems to take the opposite course, and to measure how little of material possession he can do with.

  14. The Vedanta lays down that each man should be treated not as what he manifests, but as what he stands for. Each human being stands for the divine, and, therefore, every teacher should be helpful, not by condemning man, but by helping him to call forth the divinity that is within him.

10. Serve Man as God

  1. This is the gist of all worship - to be pure and to do good to others. he who sees Shiva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased,  really worships Shiva; and if he sees Shiva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary. After so much austerity, I have understood this as the real truth - God is present in every Jiva; there is other God besides that. 'Who serves Jiva, serves God indeed'.

  2. The great duty of the householder is to earn a living, but he must take care that he does not do it by telling lies, or by cheating, or by robbing others; and he must remember that his life is for the service of God, and the poor.

  3. Who feels there for the two hundred millions of men and women sunken for ever in poverty and ignorance? Where is the way out? Who feels for them? They cannot find light or education. Who will bring the light to them -- who will travel from door to door bringing education to them? Let these people be your God -- think of them , work for them, pray for them incessantly -- the Lord will show you the way. Him I call a Mahatman (great soul) whose heart bleeds for the poor, otherwise he is a Duratman (wicked soul).

  4. The only God to worship is the human soul in the human body. Of course, all animals are temples too, but man is the highest, the Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship in that, no other temple will be of any advantage.

  5. The fool dwelling on the bank of the Ganga, digs a well for water, such are we! Living in the midst of God - we must go and make images. We project Him in the form of the image, while all the time He exists in the Temple of our body. We are lunatics and this is the great delusion. Worship everything as God - every form is His temple. All else is delusion.

  6. We may all manage to maintain our bodies more or less satisfactorily and for longer or shorter intervals of time. Nevertheless, our bodies have to go; there is no permanence about them. Blessed are they who bodies get destroyed in the service of others.

  7. This life is short, the vanities of world transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. if the Lord grants that you can help any one of His children, blessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship.

  8. May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries, so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls - and above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my god the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.

  9. You must give your body, mind and speech to 'the welfare of the world'. You have read - 'Matru Devo Bhava, Pitru, Devo Bhava - Look upon your mother as God, Look upon your father as God', but I say, 'Daridra Devo Bhava, Murkha Devo Bhava - the poor, the illiterate, the ignorant, the afflicted - let these be your God'. Know that service to these alone is the highest religion.

  10. Take my advice: Set yourself wholly to the service of others, when you come from your colleges. Believe me, far greater happiness would then be ours than if you had had a whole treasury full of money and other valuables at your command. As you go on your way, serving others, you will advance accordingly in the path of knowledge.

  11. Even the least work done by others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instils into the heart the strength of a lion. I love you all ever so much, but I wish you all to die working for others - I should rather be glad to see you do that!

  12. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. he who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.

  13. In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can but keep out barter. Make no conditions, and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.

  14. The highest aim of all disciplines, all spiritual paths, is the attainment of the knowledge of Atman. If you, by being devoted to the service of others and by getting your heart purified by such work, attain to the vision of all beings as the Self, what else remains to be attained in the way of Self - realisation?

11. Action

  1. Our Karma determines what we deserve and what we can assimilate. We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.

  2. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God? In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all - powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions.

  3. No one can get anything unless he earns it. This is an eternal law. We may sometimes think it is not so, but in the long run we become convinced of it. A man may struggle all his life for riches; he may cheat thousands, but he finds at last that he did not deserve to become rich, and his life becomes a trouble and a nuisance to him.

  4. All the actions that we see in the world, all the movements in human society, all the works that we have around us, are simply the display of thought, the manifestation of the will of man. Machines or instruments, cities, ships, or men-of-war, all these are simply the manifestation of the will of man, and this will is caused by character, and character is manufactured by Karma.

  5. This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres. You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results.

  6. Inactivity should be avoided by all means. Activity always means resistance. Resist all evils, mental and physical; and when you have succeeded in resisting, then will calmness come. It is very easy to say, "Hate nobody, resist not evil," but we know what that kind of thing generally means in practice.

  7. Three things are necessary to make every man great, every nation great: 1. Conviction of the powers of goodness. 2. Absence of jealousy and suspicion. 3. Helping all those who are trying to be and do good.

  8. One man who has purified himself thoroughly accomplishes more than a regiment of preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.

12. Karma-Yoga

  1. Karmayoga is the attaining through unselfish work of that freedom which is the goal of all human nature. Every selfish action, therefore, retards our reaching the goal, and every unselfish action takes us towards the goal; that is why the only definition that can be given of morality is this: That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral. I.110

  2. All expansion is life, all contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.

  3. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and unselfishness are note merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power.

  4. There is one thing which is the world and another which is God; and this distinction is very true. What they mean by world is selfishness. Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world. 

  5. Everything that makes for unity is moral, everything that makes for diversity is immoral. Know the one without a second, that is perfection. The one who manifests in all is the basis of the universe; and all religion, all knowledge, must come to this point.

  6. Fire, by itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps us warm we say, "How beautiful is fire!" When it burns our fingers, we blame it. Still, in itself it is neither good nor bad. According as we use it, it produces in us the feeling of good or bad; so also is this world. It is perfect. By perfection is meant that it is perfectly fitted to meet its ends.

  7. Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.

  8. It is a privilege to help others. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, "Here, my poor man," but be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver.

  9. You should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but not do slave's work. Pay as much attention to means as to the end.

  10. First it is feeling, the it becomes willing, and out of that willing comes the tremendous force for work that will go through every vein and nerve and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is changed into an instrument of the unselfish Yoga of work, and the desired result of perfect self - abnegation and utter unselfishness is duly attained.

  11. Be pure and help anyone who comes to you, as much as lies in your power. And this is good Karma.  by the power of this, the heart becomes pure (Chitta-shudhi), and then Shiva who is residing in every one will become manifest.

  12. All the great systems of ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this absolute unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of him? He is no more the little Mr. So - and - so; he has acquired infinite expansion. The little personality which he had before is now lost to him for ever he has become infinite, and the attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all religions and of all moral and philosophical teachings. 

  13. It is the level-headed man, the calm man, of good judgement and cool nerves, of great sympathy and love, who does good work and so does good to himself.

  14. Each work has to pass through these stages -- ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Each man who thinks ahead of his time is sure to be misunderstood. So opposition and persecution are welcome, only I have to be steady and pure and must have immense faith in God, and all these will vanish.

  15. The difference between God and the devil is in nothing except in unselfishness and selfishness. The devil knows as much as God, is as powerful as God; only he has no holiness -- that makes him a devil. Apply the same idea to the modern world: excess of knowledge and power without holiness, makes human beings devils.

  16. Whatever you do, think well on it. All your actions will be magnified, transformed, deified, by the very power of the thought.

  17. The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you.

  18. Competition rouses envy and it kill the kindliness of the heart. To the grumble all duties are distasteful; nothing will every satisfy him, and his whole life is doomed to prove a failure.

  19. Misery comes through attachment, not through work. As soon as we identify ourselves with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we do not identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery.

  20. Reserve unto yourself the power of detaching yourself from everything, however beloved, however much the soul might yearn for it; however great the pangs of misery you feel if you were going to leave it; still, reserve the power of leaving it whenever you want.

  21. As nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you, but do not think of that now, it will come back multiplied a thousand fold; but the attention must not be on that. Yet have the power to give: give, and there it ends. Ask, therefore, nothing in return; but the more you give, the more will come to you. The quicker you can empty the air out of this room, the quicker it will be filled by the external air.

  22. Everybody can show what evil is, but he is the friend of mankind who finds a way out of the difficulty. Where is the man who will lend us a hand to drag us out? Where is the man who really loves us? Where is the man who has sympathy for us? That man is wanted.

  23. 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.

  24. The majority of us cannot see beyond a few years, just as some animals cannot see beyond a few steps. Just a little narrow circle -- that is our world. We have not the patience to look beyond, and this become immoral and wicked. This is our weakness, our powerlessness.

  25. First of all comes the gift of food; next is the gift of learning, and the highest of all is the gift of knowledge.

13. Youth of India, Arise

  1. It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body -- to cast it off like a worn-out garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.

  2. This is the time to decide your future -- while you possess the energy of youth, not when you are worn out and jaded, but in the freshness and vigour of youth. Work -- this is the time; for the freshest, the untouched, and unsmelled flowers alone are to be laid at the feet of the Lord, and such He receives. Rouse yourselves, therefore, for life is short.

  3. My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions.

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

  5. Brave, bold men, these are what we want. What we want is vigour in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion. Mystery mongering and superstition are always signs of weakness.

  6. Arise, awake, for your country needs this tremendous sacrifice. It is the young men that will do it. 'The young, the energetic, the strong, the well-built, the intellectual' - for them is the task.

  7. Lay down your comforts, your pleasures, your names, fame or position, nay even your lives, and make a bridge of human chains over which millions will cross this ocean of life.

  8. Do not be frightened. Awake, be up and doing. Do not stop till you have reached the goal.

  9. We want some disciples -- fiery young men -- do you see? intelligent and brave, who dare to go to the jaws of Death, and are ready to swim the ocean across. Do you follow me? We want hundreds like that, both men and women. Try your utmost for that end alone. Make converts right and left, and put them into our purity - drilling machine.

  10. Have patience, perseverance, and purity. A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord, and nerved to lion's courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising-up - the gospel of equality.

  11. I sincerely believe that there will be thousands coming up from the ranks to take up the work and carry it further and further, beyond all my most hopeful imagination every painted. I have faith in my country, and especially in the youth of my country.

  12. His power of self - preservation can never become fully manifest who is always protected in every respect by another. Even the strongest youth remains but a child if he is always looked after as a child by his parents. Being always governed by kings of godlike nature, to whom is left the whole duty of protecting and providing for the people, they can never get any occasion for understanding the principles of self-government.

  13. I would rather see every one of you rank atheists than superstitious fools, for the atheist is alive and you can make something out of him. But if superstition enters, the brain is gone, the brain is softening, degradation has seized upon the life.

  14. Work unto death - I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes - wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm.

14. Truthfulness

  1. 'Truth alone triumphs, not untruth'. Stand upon Truth and you have got God.

  2. Truth is to be judged by truth and by nothing else. Doing good is not the test of truth; the Sun needs no torch by which to see it. Even if truth destroys the whole universe, still it is truth; stand by it.

  3. Our duty is to encourage everyone in his struggle to live up to his own highest ideal, and strive at the same time to make the idea as near as possible to the truth.

  4. Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die. Societies should be moulded upon truth, and truth has not to adjust itself to society.

  5. By this continuous reflex of good thoughts, good impressions moving over the surface of the mind, the tendency for doing good becomes strong, and as the result we feel able to control the Indriyas (the sense-organs, the nerve centres). Thus alone will character be established, then alone a man gets to truth.

  6. That society is the greatest, where the highest truths are made practical. That is my opinion, and if society is not fit for the highest truths, make it so, and the sooner the better.

  7. The highest creed is Oneness. I am so - and - so is a limited idea, not true of the real "I". I am the universal; stand upon that and ever worship the highest through the highest form, for God is Spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Through lower forms of worship, man's material thoughts rise to spiritual worship and the Universal Infinite.

  8. Know it for certain that without steady devotion for the Guru and unflinching patience and perseverance, nothing is to be achieved. You must have strict morality. Deviate an inch from this, and you are gone forever.

  9. You must remember that humanity travels not from error to truth, but from truth to truth; it may be, if you like it better, from lower truth to higher truth, but never from error to truth.

  10. Do not say. "You are bad"; say only, "You are good", but be better!

  11. Do not pity anyone. Look upon all as you equal, cleanse yourself of the primal sin of inequality. We are all equal and must not think, "I am good and you are bad, and I am trying to reclaim you". Equality is the sign of the free.

  12. Truth, purity, and unselfishness-wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor therefor. Equipped with these, one individuals able to face the whole universe in opposition.

15. True Religion

  1. Religion is the realisation of spirit as spirit. What are we doing now? Just the opposite, realising spirit as matter. Out of the immortal God we manufacture death and matter, and out of dead dull matter we manufacture spirit.

  2. Religion is the inherent divinity of the soul; the soul is perfect, and religion is the manifestation of divinity already existing in man.Religion is the manifestation of the natural strength that is in man.

  3. It is the nature of the brute to remain where he is (not to progress); it is the nature of man to seek good and avoid evil; it is the nature of God to seek neither, but just to be eternally blissful. Let us be God!

  4. Behind everything the same divinity is existing, and out of this comes the basis of morality. Do not injure another. Love everyone as your own self, because the whole universe is one. In injuring another, I am injuring myself; in loving another, I am loving myself.

  5. Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the world wants is character.

  6. It is very good to be born in a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. It is very good to be born within the limits of certain forms that help the little plant of spirituality, but of a man dies within the bounds of these forms, it shows that he has not grown, that there has been no development of the soul.

  7. Religion is not in books, not in theories, nor in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in reasoning. It is being and becoming.

  8. My children, the secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice. To be good and to do good - that is the whole of religion.

  9. Religion is the idea which is raising the brute unto man, and man unto God.

  10. I do not believe in a God or religion which cannot wipe the widow's tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan's mouth.

16. India: Our Motherland

  1. The longest night seem to be passing away, the sorest trouble seems to be coming to an end at last, the seeming corpse appears to be awaking ... she is awakening, this motherland of ours, from her deep long sleep. None can resist her any more; no outward powers can hold her back any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.

  2. Differentiation, infinitely contradictory, must remain, but it is not necessary that we should hate each other therefore; it is not necessary therefore that we should fight each other. Therefore we have again to learn the one central truth that was preached only here in our Motherland, and that has to preached once more from India. One vision I see clear as life before me, that the ancient Mother has awakened once more, sitting on Her throne rejuvenated, more glorious than ever. Proclaim Her to an world with the voice of peace and benediction.

  3. Our nation is totally lacking in organisation. It is this one drawback which produces all sorts of evil. We are altogether averse to making a common cause for anything. The first requisite for organisation is obedience.

  4. If there is any land on this earth that can lay claim to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to which soul on this earth must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending its way Godward must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness, above all, the land of introspection and of spirituality - it is India,

  5. O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worship is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Uma; forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not for thy individual personal happiness; forget not that thou are born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers.

  6. We must grow according to our nature. Vain is it to attempt the liens of action that foreign societies have engrafted upon us: it is impossible. Glory unto God, that it is impossible that we cannot be twisted and tortured into the shape of other nations. I do not condemn the institutions of other races; they are good for them, but not for us. What is meat for them may be poison to us.

  7. The national ideals of India are Renunciation and Service. Intensify her in those channels, and the rest will take care of itself. The tidal wave of Western civilization is now rushing over the length and breadth of the country. It won't do now simply to sit in meditation on mountain tops without realizing in the least its usefulness. Now is wanted intense Karmayoga, with unbounded courage and indomitable strength in the heart. Then only will people of the country be roused.

  8. Religion is the one and sole interest of the people of India. This is the one great truth India has to teach to the world, because it is nowhere else. This is spirituality, the science of the soul.

  9. Our life-blood is spirituality. If it flows clear, if it flows strong and pure and vigorous, everything is right; political, social, any other material defects, even the poverty of the land, will all be cured if that blood is pure.

  10. India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction but with the flag of peace and love.

  11. But mark you, if you give up that spirituality, leaving it aside to go after the materializing civilization of the West,the result will be that in three generations you will be an extinct race; because the backbone of the nation will be broken, the foundation upon which the national edifice has been built will be undermined, and the result will be annihilation all round.

  12.  What India wants is a new electric fire to stir up a fresh vigour in the national veins.

  13. Let us all work hard, my brethren; this is no time for sleep. On our work depends the coming of the India of the future. She is there ready waiting. She is only sleeping. Arise and awake, and see her seated here, on her eternal throne, rejuvenated, more glorious than she ever was - this Motherland of ours.

  14. I consider that the great national sin is the neglect of the masses, and that is one of the causes of our downfall. No amount of politics would be of any avail until the masses in India are once more well educated, well fed and well cared for.

  15. Let New India arise out of the peasant's cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer's shop, from beside the oven of the fritter seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains. 

  16. We are destined by the Lord to do great things in India.

17. East and West

  1. India has to learn from Europe the conquest of external nature, and Europe has to learn from India the conquest of internal nature. Then there will be neither Hinds nor Europeans -- there will be the ideal humanity which has conquered both the natures, the external and the internal. We have developed one phase of humanity, and they another. It is the union of the two that is wanted.
  2. The combination of the Greek mind represented by the external European energy added to the Hindu spirituality would be an ideal society for India. For instance, it is absolutely necessary for you, instead of frittering away your energy and often talking of idle nonsense, to learn from the Englishman the idea of prompt obedience to leaders, the absence of jealousy, the indomitable perseverance and the undying faith in himself.
  3. With all my love for India, and with all my patriotism, I cannot but think that we have to learn many things from other nations. At the same time we must not forget that we have also to teach a great lesson to the world. We cannot do without the world outside India.

18. True Leadership

  1. Being of one mind is the secret of society. And the more you go on fighting and quarrelling about all trivialities the further you are off from that accumulation of energy and power which is going to make the future India. For mark you, the future India depends entirely upon that. That is the secret-accumulation of will-power, co-ordination, bringing them all, as it were, into one focus.

  2. Here in India, everybody wants to become a leader, and there is nobody to bey. Everyone should learn to obey before he can command. There is no end to our jealousies; and the more important the person, the more jealous he is. Until this absence of jealousy and obedience to leaders are learnt, there will be no power of organisation.

  3. An English friend of mine, named General Strong, was in India during Sepoy Mutiny. One day, in the course of conversation, I asked him how it was that the sepoys who had enough of guns and ammunition, and were also trained veterans, came to suffer such a defeat. he replied that the leaders among them, instead of advancing forward, only kept shouting from a safe position in the rear,  "Fight on, brave lads," and so forth; but unless the commanding officer goes ahead and faces death, the rest will never fight with heart. It is the same in every branch.

  4. "A captain must sacrifice his head," they say. If you can lay down your life for a cause, then only you can be a leader. But we all want to be leaders without making the necessary sacrifice. And the result is zero - nobody listens to us!

  5. He never becomes a leader in whose love there is a consideration of high or low.  He whose love knows no end, and never stops to consider high or low, has the whole world lying at his feet.

  6. What you call majority is mainly composed of men of common intellect. Men  who have brains to think for themselves are few, everywhere. These few men with brains are the real leaders in everything and in every department of work. 

  7. There is no allegiance possible where there is no character in the leader, and perfect purity ensures the most lasting allegiance and confidence. 

  8. The difficulty is not in organisation and making plans; the test, the real test, of the leader, lies in holding widely different people together along the line of their common sympathies. A leader must accommodate a thousand minds. And this can only be done unconsciously, never by trying. 

  9. It is very difficult task to take on the role of a leader. One must crush all one's own self under the feet of the community. One must be a servant of servants. There must not be a shade of jealously or selfishness, then you are a leader.

  10. Always first learn to be a servant, and then you will be fit to be a master. Avoid this jealousy, and you will do great works that have yet to be done.

  11. Do not try to be a ruler. He is the best ruler who can serve well. Be true unto death. The work we want - we do not seek wealth, name or fame.

19. Our Women

  1. The Goddess Herself lives in the house of virtuous men as Lakshmi.

  2. In the Vedas and the Upanishads, women taught the highest truths and received the same veneration as men.

  3. The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can any real good come about for the country, for India. It is only in the homes of educated and pious mothers that great men are born.

  4. If you do not raise the women, who are the living embodiment of the Divine Mother, don't think that you have any other way to rise. The ideal of womanhood in India is motherhood - that marvellous, unselfish, all suffering, ever forgiving mother.

  5. Sita, purer than purity itself, all patience and all suffering. She who suffered that live of suffering without a murmur, she the ever-chaste and ever-pure wife, she the ideal of the people, the ideal of the Gods, the great Sita, our national God she must always remain.

  6. Mark my words: Sita has gone into the very vitals of our race. She is there in the blood of every Hindu man and woman; we are all children of Sita. Any attempt to modernise our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see every day.The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the only way.

  7. Gods bless those families where women are happy and well treated. Daughters should be supported and educated with as much care and attention as the sons. There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing.

  8. Our women are not so learned but, they are more pure. To every woman, every man, except her husband, should be as her son. To every man, every woman, except his own wife, should be as his mother. Women must be put in a position to solve their problems in their own way. No one can or ought to do this for them. And our Indian women are as capable of doing it as any in the world.

  9. Along with other things, our women should acquire that spirit of valour and heroism. In the present day, it has become necessary for them also to learn self-defence. See, how grand was the Queen of Jhansi! Who are you to solve women's problems? Are you the Lord God that you should rule over every widow and every woman? Hands off! They will solve their own problems.

  10. Any attempt to modernize our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see every day. The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the only way.

20. Meditation

  1. Meditation is the focusing of the mind on some object. If the mind acquires concentration on one object, it can be so concentrated on any object whatsoever

  2. Within there is the lion - the eternally pure, illumined and ever-free Atman; and directly one realises Him through meditation and concentration, this world of Maya vanishes.

  3. The highest ideal of every man is called God. Ignorant or wise, saint or sinner, man or woman, educated or uneducated, cultivated or uncultivated, to every human being the highest ideal is God. The synthesis of all the highest ideals of beauty, of sublimity, and of power gives us the most complete conception of the loving and lovable God.

  4. The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down for ever - rend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us.

  5. It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than anything else. All knowledge depends upon calmness of mind. 

  6. All minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and control his own mind knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind. The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.

  7. The will concentrates the mind, certain things excite and control this will, such as reason, love, devotion, breathing. The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.

  8. The purer the mind, the easier it is to control. 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' This sentence alone would save mankind if all books and prophets were lost. This purity of heart will bring the vision of God.

  9. There is infinite joy, unchanging. Meditation is the gate that opens that to us. Prayers, ceremonials, and all the other forms of worship are simply kindergartens of meditation.

  10. Meditation again is a constant remembrance (of the thing meditated upon) flowing like an unbroken stream of oil poured out from one vessel to another. When this kind of remembering has been attained (in relation to God) all bondages break.

  11. The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend on any external help in meditation. Sri Ramakrishna used to say, 'In the morning and evening the mind remains highly imbued with Sattva ideas; those are the times when one should meditate with earnestness.'

  12. Do not spend you energy in talking but meditate in silence; and do not let the rush of the outside world disturb you. When your mind is in the highest state you are unconscious of it. Accumulate power in silence and become a dynamo of spirituality.

  13. Think of a space in your heart, and in the midst of that space think that a flame is burning. Think of that flame as your own soul and inside the flame is another effulgent life, and that is the Soul of your soul, God. Meditate upon that in the heart.

  14. Dharana is when the mind holds on to some object, either in the body, or outside the body, and keeps itself in that state. The flow of this continuous control of the mind becomes steady when practised day after day, and the mind obtains the faculty of constant concentration.

  15. Meditation is one of the great means of controlling the rising of these waves. By meditation you can make the mind subdue these waves, and if you go on practising meditation for days, and months, and years, until it has become a habit, until it will come in spite of yourself, anger and hatred will be controlled and checked.

  16. 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.

  17. Practise hard; whether you live or die does not matter. You have to plunge in and work, without thinking of the result. If you are brave enough, in six months you will be a perfect yogi. One ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk.

  18. How are we to know that the mind has become concentrated? Because the idea of time will vanish. The more time passes unnoticed the more concentrated we are. In common life we see that when we are interested in a book we do not note the time at all; and when we leave the book, we are often surprised to find how many hours have passed.

21. Sri Ramakrishna

  1. Sri Ramakrishna's life is a search light of infinite power thrown upon the whole mass of Indian religious thought. He was the living commentary to the Vedas and to their aim. He had lived in one life the whole cycle of the national religious existence in India. He is the latest and the most perfect - the concentrated embodiment of knowledge, love, renunciation, catholicity, and the desire to serve mankind.

  2. Sri Bhagavan Ramakrishna, is the reformed and remodelled manifestation of all the past great epoch makers in religion. He lived to root out all the distinction between man and woman, between the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, Brahmins and Chandalas. And he was the harbinger of peace - the separation between Hindus and Mohammedans, between Hindus and Christians, all are now thing of the past. His life and his teachings are to be spread far and wide, are to be made to penetrate every pore of Hindu society. This new dispensation of the age is the source of great good to the whole world, especially to India.

  3. If you speak kind words to boys and encourage them they are bound to improve in time. If you can give them positive ideas, people will grow up to be men and learn to stand on their own legs. In language and literature, in poetry and the arts, in everything we must point out not the mistakes that people are making in their thought and actions,  but the way in which they will gradually be able to do this things better.

  4. This is the message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world: "Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas or sects, or churches, or temples; they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spiritually; and the more this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he for good. Earn that first, acquire that, and criticise no one, for all doctrines and creed have some good in them.

  5. Pointing out mistakes wounds a man's feelings. We have seen how Sri Ramakrishna would encourage even those whom we considered as worthless and change the very course of their lives thereby! His very method of teaching was a unique phenomenon. He never destroyed a single man's special inclinations. He gave words of hope and encouragement even to the most degraded of person and lifted them up, we too must follow in his footsteps and lift all up and rouse them.

  6. "..... this man woke up in the dead of night, entered surreptitiously the house of this Pariah, cleansed his latrine, and with his long hair wiped the place, and that he did day after day in order that he might make himself the servant of all. I bean the fee of that man on my head; he is my hero; that hero's life I will try to imitate."