Ignorance is death, knowledge is life. Life is of very little value, if it is a life in the dark, groping through ignorance and misery.
Class on Karma Yoga. New York, December 20, 1895. Complete Works, 1:52.
Ignorance and Life
Subjects: death , ignorance , karma yoga , knowledge , life
Desire and pain
As desire increases, so increases the power of pleasure,
so the power of pain.
From notes discovered among Swami Vivekananda's papers.
He evidently intended to write a book and
jotted down these points for the work.
Complete Works, 5:429.
He evidently intended to write a book and
jotted down these points for the work.
Complete Works, 5:429.
Universal brotherhood
As soon as you make a sect, you protest against universal brotherhood. Those who really feel universal brotherhood do not talk much, but their very actions speak aloud.
Sayings and Utterances. Complete Works, 5:410.
Subjects: sayings and utterances , sectarianism , universal brotherhood
Laying foundation
My children must plunge into the breach, must renounce the world--then the firm foundation will be laid.
Letter to Dr, Nanjunda Rao. From Switzerland: August 26, 1896. Complete Works, 5.114.
Subjects: letters , nanjunda rao
Scriptures in today's India
How many in India truly understand the scriptures nowadays? They have only learnt such words as Brahman, Maya, Prakriti, and so on, and confuse their heads with them. Setting aside the real meaning and purpose of the scriptures, they fight only over the words.
Sayings and Utterances. Complete Works, 5.420.
Subjects: sayings and utterances , scriptures , scriptures and indians
Love and Reasoning
All desires are but beads of glass. Love of God increases every moment and is ever new, to be known only by feeling it. Love is the easiest of all, it waits for no logic, it is natural. We need no demonstration, no proof. Reasoning is limiting something by our own minds. We throw a net and catch something, and then say that we have demonstrated it, but never, never can we catch God in a net.
Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 24, 1895. Complete Works, 7.10.
Subjects: limits of reasoning , love , reasoning , thousand island park
Brahman and Maya
The metaphysical and the physical universe are one, and the name of this One is Brahman. The perception of separateness is an error called māyā or avidyā. This is the culmination of knowledge.
From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 5.520.
Subjects: avidya , brahman , maya , metaphysical universe , physical universe , the east and the west