3rd January 2024- Learn to help without pitying or feeling that there is any misery. Learn to be the same to enemy and to friend; then when you can do that and no longer have any desire, the goal is attained.
5th January 2024- We have to realize the teachings Sri Ramakrishna has given us about religious practice and devotion, concentration and meditation, and such higher ideas and truths, and then preach these to everyone. The infinite number of faiths are only so many paths. I am not born to found one more sect in a world already teeming with sects.
6th January 2024- “God is the inexplicable, inexpressible essence of love,” to be known, but never defined.
The first step is: What do we want? Let us ask this question every day, do we want God? You may read all the books in this universe, but this love is not to be had by the power of speech, not by the highest intellect, not by the study of various sciences. Whoever desires God will get love, unto them God gives themselves.
8th January 2024- The powers acquired by the practice of Yoga are not obstacles for the Yogi who is perfect, but are apt to be so for the beginner, through the wonder and pleasure excited by their exercise. Siddhis are the powers which mark success in the practice, and they may be produced by various means, such as the repetition of a Mantra, by Yoga practice, meditation, fasting, or even by the use of herbs and drugs.
9th January 2024- All the different steps in yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state, or Samadhi. Inspiration is as much in our nature as it was in that of the ancient prophets. Those prophets were not unique; they were human beings like you and me. They were great yogis. They had gained this superconsciousness, and you and I can get the same. The very fact that one person ever reached that state, proves that it is possible for everyone to do so. Not only is it possible, but every person must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion.
All the great prophets, saints, and seers of the world- what did they do? In one span of life they lived the whole life of humanity, traversed the whole length of time that it takes ordinary humanity to come to perfection. In one life they perfect themselves; they have no thought for anything else, never live a moment for any other idea, and thus the way is shortened for them. This is what is meant by concentration, intensifying the power of assimilation, thus shortening the time. Raja Yoga is the science which teaches us how to gain the power of concentration.
10th January 2024- We should always try to see the duty of others through their own eyes, and never judge the customs of other peoples by our own standard. I am not the standard of the universe. I have to accommodate myself to the world, and not the world to me.
11th January 2024- Death is stalking day and night over this earth of ours, but at the same time we think we shall live eternally. A question was once asked of King Yudhishtir, “What is the most wonderful thing on this earth?” And the king replied, “Everyday people are dying around us, and yet we think we will never die.” And this is māyā.
12th January 2024- Neither the body nor the mind is free. The body is dying every minute. The mind is constantly changing. The body is a combination, and so is the mind, and as such can never reach to a state beyond all change. But beyond this momentary sheathing of gross matter, beyond even the finer covering of the mind is the Atman, the true Self, the permanent, the ever free.
PERFECT SINCERITY, HOLINESS, GIGANTIC INTELLECT, and an ALL CONQUERING WILL. Let only a handful of men work with these, and the WHOLE WORLD WILL BE REVOLUTIONIZED.
It is the patient UPBUILDING OF CHARACTER, the INTENSE STRUGGLE TO REALIZE THE TRUTH, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.
13th January 2024- 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 our own bounty, just as God gives to us.
Karma Yoga says: first destroy the tendency to project the tentacle of selfishness, and when you have the power of checking it, hold it in and do not allow the mind to get into the ways of selfishness. Then you may go out into the world and work as much as you can. Mix everywhere, go where you please, you will never be contaminated with evil.
15th January 2024- You must not forget that my interests are international and not Indian alone.
The mother is nursing a child with great care; all her soul, her life, is in that child. The child grows, becomes a man, perchance becomes a blackguard and a brute, kicks her and beats her everyday; and yet the mother clings to the child; and when her reason awakes, she covers it up with the little idea of love. She little thinks that it is not love, that it is something which has got hold of her nerves, which she cannot shake off; however she may try, she cannot shake off the bondage she is in. And this is māyā.
16th January 2024- “I have no birth, no death, I am the Atman untouched by anything”- lose yourself completely in this idea. If you can once become one with this idea, then in the hour of sorrow and tribulation, it will rise of itself in your mind, and you will not have to strive with difficulty to bring it up.
17th January 2024- The national laws are the embodied will of a majority of the nation- always a state of thing wished for, not actually existing.
Ramakrishna’s command was that all his all-renouncing devotees should group themselves together, and I am entrusted with seeing to this. … His opinion was that absolute homeless wandering suited them alone who were perfected to the highest point. Before that state, it is proper to settle somewhere to dive down into practice. When all the ideas of body and the like are dissolved of themselves, a person may then pursue whatever state comes to him. Otherwise, it is baneful for a practicing spiritual seeker to be always wandering.
18th January 2024- When people cease to think of the past or future, when they give up the idea of body, because the body comes and goes and is limited, then they have risen to a higher ideal. The body is not the Real Me, neither is the mind, for the mind waxes and wanes. It is the Spirit beyond, which alone can live for ever.
20th January 2024- If an engine, with a certain amount of coal, runs two miles an hour, it will run the distance in less time with a greater supply of coal. Similarly, why shall not the soul, by intensifying its action, attain perfection in this very life? All beings will at last attain to that goal, we know. But who cares to wait all these million of aeons? Why not reach it immediately, in this body even, in this human form? Why shall I not get that infinite knowledge, infinite power, now?
21st January 2024- You and I cannot become the Personal God. When Vedanta says that you and I are God, it does not mean the Personal God. Take this example. Out of clay a huge elephant is manufactured, and out of the same clay, a little clay mouse is made. Would the clay mouse ever be able to become the clay elephant? But put them both in water and they are both clay. As clay they are both one, but as mouse and elephant there will be an eternal difference between them. The Infinite, the Impersonal, is like the clay in the example. We and the Ruler of the Universe are one, but as manifested beings, we are his eternal slaves, his worshipers. Thus we see that the Personal God remains. Everything else in this relative world remains, and religion is made to stand on a better foundation. Therefore it is necessary that we first know the Impersonal in order to know the Personal. (From a lecture on “Reason and Religion” in England on November 18, 1896. Complete works, 1.379.)
23rd January 2024- “Let go the rope,” delusion cannot touch the Ātman. When we lay hold of the rope- that is, identify ourselves with māyā- she has the power over us. Let go of it, be only the Witness, then you can admire the picture of the universe undisturbed. (Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. July 23, 1895. Complete works, 7.65)
“mine,” misery will immediately come. ….Do not say “my house”, do not say, “my body”. The whole difficulty is there. The body neither is yours, nor mine, nor anybody’s. These bodies come and go by the law of nature, but we are free, standing as witness. This body is not more free than a picture or a wall. Why should we be attached so much to a body? If somebody paints a picture, he does it and passes on. Do not project that tentacle of selfishness, “I must possess it.” As soon as that is projected, misery will begin. (Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete works, 1.100-101)
24th January 2024- 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 processed from the evil spirit of fear… Therefore I say, “Be fearless, be fearless.”
25th January 2024- There is only one idea of duty which has been universally accepted by all mankind, of all ages and sects and countries, and that has been summed up in a Sanskrit aphorism thus: “Do injure any being; not injuring any being is virtue, injuring any being is sin.” (Karma Yoga. New York, 1895. Complete works, 1.64)
Cut down the banyan tree of desire with the axe of non-attachment, and it will vanish utterly. It is all illusion. “He from whom blight and delusion have fallen, he who has conquered the evils of associated, he alone is āzād (free). (Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. July 24, 1895. Complete Works, 7.66)
26th January 2024- Everything that we see, or imagine, or dream, we have to perceive in space. This is the ordinary space, called the Mahākāśa, or elemental space.
When a Yogi reads the thoughts of other people, or perceives supersensous objects, he sees them in another sort of space called the Cittākāśa, the mental space.
When perception has become objectless, and the soul shines in it’s own nature, it is called the Cidākāśa, or knowledge space. (From Swamiji’s book “Raja Yoga,” Chapter four, “The Psychic Prana.” Complete works, 1.162)
In this world, you will be tossed again and again on the waves of happiness and misery, prosperity and adversity- but know them all to be momentary. Never care for them. “I am birthless, I am the deathless Atman, whose nature is consciousness”- implanting this idea firmly in your heart, you should pass the days of your life.
27th January 2024- It is our duty to do that work which will exalt and ennoble us in accordance with the ideals and activities of the society in which we are born. But it must be particularly remembered that the same ideals and activities do not prevail in all societies and countries. Our ignorance of this is the main cause of much of the hatred of one nation towards another.
28th January 2024- In all sensible religions, they never allow prayers to God, but they allow prayers to gods. That is quite natural. The Roman Catholics pray to the saints; that is quite good. But to pray to God is senseless. To ask God to give you a breath of air, to send down a shower of rain, to make fruits grow in your garden, and so on, is quite unnatural. The saints, however, who were little beings like ourselves, may help us. But to pray to the Ruler of the Universe, prating every little need of ours, and from our childhood saying, “O Lord, I have a headache; let it go,” is ridiculous.
There have been millions of souls that have died, and they are all here; they have become gods and angels; let them come to your help. But God! It cannot be. Unto him we must go for higher things.
A fool indeed is he who, resting on the banks of the Ganga, digs a little well for water. A fool indeed is he who, living near a mine of diamonds, digs for bits of crystal. (From a lecture on “Reason and Religion” in England on November 18, 1896. Complete works.)
30th January 2024- The Divine Mother is the power of all causation. She energizes every cause unmistakably to produce the effect. Her will is the only law, and as She cannot make a mistake, nature’s laws- Her will- can never be changed. She is the life of the law of karma, or causation. She is the fructifier of every action. Under Her guidance we are manufacturing our lives through our deeds or karma. (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, 5.434.)
31st January 2024- “Mother! Thy light stops not for the saint or the sinner; it animates the lover and the murderer.” Mother is ever radiating through all. The light is not polluted by what it shines on, nor benefited by it. The light is ever pure, ever changeless. Behind every creature is the “Mother,” pure, lovely, never changing.