3rd June 2024- Above all, beware of compromises. I do not mean that you are to get into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others’ “fads” through the greed of getting supporters. Your Atman is the support of the universe- whose support do you stand in need of?
4th June 2024- When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for the time being. … The right performance of the duties of any station in life, without attachment to results, leads us to the highest realisation of the perfection of the soul.
5th June 2024- I hope you will always bear in mind this one ideal, that religion is neither in books, nor in intellectual assent, nor in reasoning. Reasoning, theories, documents, doctrines, books, religious ceremonies, are all helps to religion: religion itself consists in realization.
6th June 2024- Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the world; it is simply a statement of facts as they exist, that the very basis of our being is contradiction, that wherever there is evil, there must be some good; wherever there is life, death must follow as its shadow; and everyone who smiles will have to weep, and vice versa. Nor can this state of things be remedied. We may verily imagine that there will be a place where there will be only good and no evil, where we shall only smile and never weep. This is impossible in the nature of things, because the conditions will remain the same. Wherever there is the power of producing a smile in us, there lurks the power of producing tears. Wherever there is the power of producing happiness, there lurks somewhere the power of making us miserable.
10th June 2024- Last year I came to this country in summer, a wandering preacher of a far distant country, without name, fame, wealth, or learning to recommend me–friendless, helpless, almost in a state of destitution–and American woman befriended me, gave me shelter and food, took me to their homes and treated me as their own son, their own brother. They remained my friends even when their own priests were trying to dissuade them to give up the “dangerous heathen”–even when day after day their best friends had told them not to stand by this “unknown foreigner, may be, of dangerous character.” But, these women are better judges of character and soul–for it is the pure mirror that catches the reflection.
11th June 2024- 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. (Written for the Brahmavadin, from London, June 6, 1896. Complete Works, 4.279.)
12th June 2024- We are striving “to be” and nothing more, no “I” even–just pure crystal, reflecting all, but ever the same. When that state is reached, there is no more doing. The body becomes a mere mechanism, pure without care for it. It cannot become impure.
13th June 2024- Titiksa, the next step-it is a hard task to be a philosopher!-is the most difficult of all. It is nothing less than the ideal forbearance-“Resist not evil.” This requires a little explanation. We may not resist an evil, but at the same time we may feel very miserable. Others may say very harsh things to me, and I may not outwardly hate them for it, may not answer them back, and may restrain myself from apparently getting angry, but anger and hatred may be in my mind, and I may feel very badly towards them. That is not non-resistance! I should be without any feeling of hatred or anger, without any thought of resistance. My mind must be as calm as if nothing had happened. And only when I have got to that state, have I attained to non-resistance, and not before.
14th June 2024- Talk not about impurity, but say that we are pure. We have hypnotized ourselves into this thought that we are little, that we are born, and that we are going to die, and into a constant state of fear. [Jnana Yoga: “The Real Nature of Man” (London, June 21, 1896). Complete Works, 2.86]
15th June 2024- Language is the vehicle of ideas. It is the ideas that are of prime importance, language comes after that.
17th June 2024- When the mind is purified, when one is free from the attachment for lust and gold, one sees lots of visions, most wonderful ones! But one should not pay heed to them. The spiritual seeker cannot advance further if he sets his mind constantly on them. Haven’t you heard that Sri Ramakrishna used to say, “Countless jewels lie uncared for in the outer courts of my beloved Lord’s sanctum”? We must come face to face with the Atman; what is the use of setting one’s mind on vagaries like those? [Conversations (Translated from Bengali): Belur, February 1898. Complete Works, 7.123.”]
18th June 2024- Those who are attached to results grumble about the nature of the duty which has fallen to their lot. To those who are unattached, all duties are equally good and form efficient instruments with which selfishness and sensuality may be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured.
19th June 2024- We all say, “There is a God.” Have you seen God? That is the question. You hear a man say, “There is a God in heaven.” You ask him if he has seen God, and if he says he has, you would laugh at him and say he is a maniac.
20th June 2024- Vedanta is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It takes things as they are. It admits that this world is a mixture of good and evil, happiness and misery, and that to increase the one, one must of necessity increase the other. There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.
The great secret revealed by this analysis is that good and bad are not two cut-and-dried, separate existences. There is not one thing in this world of ours which you can label as good and good alone, and there is not one thing in the universe which you can label as bad and bad alone. The very same phenomenon which is appearing to be good now, may appear to be bad tomorrow.
21st June 2024- Go into your own room and get the Upanishads out of your own Self. You are the greatest book that ever was or ever will be, the infinite depository of all that is. Until the inner teacher opens, all outside teaching is in vain. It must lead to the opening of the book of the heart to have any value.
22nd June 2024- I worry about everything except you. I have dedicated you to the Mother. She is your shield, your guide. No harm can reach you–nothing hold you down a minute. I know it. (Letter to Sister Christine. Written from Belur Math on July 6, 1901. Complete Works, 5.167.”)
23rd June 2024- “There is a great tendency in modern times to talk too much of work and decry thought. Doing is very good, but that comes from thinking. Little manifestations of energy through the muscles are called work. But where there is no thought, there will be no work. Fill the brain, therefore, with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work. [Jnana Yoga: “The Real Nature of Man” (London, June 21, 1896). Complete Works, 2.85-86.”]
24th June 2024- How many beautiful homes I have seen in America, how many mothers whose purity of character, whose unselfish love for their children is beyond expression, how many daughters and pure maidens, “pure as the icicle on Diana’s temple,” and withal with much culture, education, and spirituality in the highest sense!
25th June 2024- Wherever and whenever a desire, a want, or a prayer has been fulfilled, it was out of this infinite storehouse of power within us that the supply came, and not from any supernatural being. (From Swamiji’s preface to his book, Raja Yoga. Complete Works, 1.122.”)
26th June 2024- “Stand up, men and women, in this spirit, dare to believe in the Truth, dare to practice the Truth! The world requires a few hundred bold men and women. Practice that boldness which dares know the Truth, which dares show the Truth in life, which does not quake before death, nay, welcomes death, makes you know that you are the Spirit, that, in the whole universe, nothing can kill you. Then you will be free. Then you will know your real soul. “This Atman is first to be heard, then thought about and the meditated upon.” [Jnana Yoga: “The Real Nature of Man” (London, June 21, 1896). Complete Works, 2.85]
27th June 2024- “Vedanta teaches us this: You are one with the Universal Being, and, as such, every soul that exists is your soul; and every body that exists is your body; and in hurting anyone, you hurt yourself, in loving anyone, you love yourself. As soon as a current of hatred is thrown outside, whomsoever else it hurts, it also hurts yourself; and if love comes out from you, it is bound to come back to you. For you are the universe; this universe is your body. You are the infinite, only you are not conscious of it now; but you are struggling to get this consciousness of the Infinite, and perfection will be reached when full consciousness of this Infinite comes. (From the lecture on “The Spirit and Influence of Vedanta” at the Twentieth Century Club, Boston, on March 28, 1896. Complete Works, 1.389-90″)
28th June 2024- “Ramakrishna is worshipped by thousands today, Professor,” I said [to Prof.Max Muller]. “To whom else shall worship be accorded, if not to such,” was the answer. The Professor was kindness itself, and asked Mr. Sturdy and myself to lunch with him. He showed us several colleges on Oxford and also the Bodleian library. He also accompanied us to the railway station; and all this he did because, as he said, “It is not every day one meets a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.”
29th June 2024- “Control the mind, cut off the senses, then you are a yogi; after that, all the rest will come. Refuse to hear, to see, to smell, to taste; take away the mental power from the external organs. You continually do it unconsciously as when your mind is absorbed; so you can learn to do it consciously. The mind can put the senses where it pleases. Get rid of the fundamental superstition that we are obliged to act through the body. We are not. (Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. July 27, 1895. Complete Works, 7.71”)
30th June 2024- “It is ordained by Mother we work together; it has been already for the good of many; it shall be for the good of many more; so let it be. It is useless planning, useless high flights; Mother will find Her own way. (Letter to Josephine MacLeod. Written from Belur Math of June 14, 1901. Complete Works, 5.162.”)