Swami Vivekananda

"I am fully in support of learning in all ways from everywhere and everybody but I am not at all in support of foolishness and hypocrisy. Get the difference please. I am absolutely in support of learning from wherever it is possible to learn but I am not at all in support of using the various avenues to learn to not to learn."

Now, mind is movement, right? Why does the mind move at all? The mind wants to reach somewhere. Where does the mind want to reach? Is that place within the mind? The mind wants to reach somewhere. Every thought, every action, every motivation, every emotion rides on a desire, is…

Questioner: In light of our topic, one thing that really comes to mind is the concept of cancel-culture.

I am just summarising what it really means. Individuals on the platforms of social media or digital platforms, in general, have a kind of justice system, where someone can be kicked out…

Something is very wrong somewhere. The first thing in liberation is: do not be dependent on somebody, at least for your bread, for your basic sustenance. What kind of empowerment is this that happily accepts dependence on somebody else’s money on a date, and also for an entire lifetime? It…

Prarabdha refers to the sum total of (apparent)movements in time and space that have resulted in the (apparent) formation of the jiva – the human being, or any other being.Everything that the being appears to be is prarabdha. And prarabdha is all past.

So,– having 5 fingers is prarabdha…

When does one finish being a student? When the resistance to being a student is finished.

Who is the teacher? The teacher is the most obedient and voluntary of all students. The teacher is not a non-student; the teacher is the first student, the best student, the most voluntary student.…

The world is your playground. So don’t be so particular about moving only within your pre-existing circle. If your cause is worth it, show some courage and move out.

If you have a tender and precious sapling in your palm, would you plant it in a desert? No. You will…

The one relationship that is of maximum importance is the one you have with yourself.

When you are not alright with yourself, obviously you will seek an alternative to your company: “Can there be somebody to relate to? Can there be somebody to sit with, fill myself up with, form…

Fight for the right cause and let it consume you fully. That is the only way of living life. Fight for the right one and devote yourself totally to him. That is the only way of living and fighting. Give yourself up so totally that you cannot now be blamed…

We all need space. Man’s inner nature is freedom. When I say man, I mean both man and woman, mankind. Just as you need free mental space, you also need free physical space.

In fact, I find the idea of a shared bed quite vulgar. The double bed is an…

When you say that you go to your workplace for a purpose, the purpose is never work, or is it? The purpose is the salary cheque. In fact, if work could be bypassed and you could straight away reach the salary cheque, then who would want to work? Now, why…

Let nobody say that he or she is making the right choices in life because she does not know. We all know. We prefer to suppress the inner knowledge. It’s an inner conspiracy against ourselves, just because we want to continue enjoying certain privileges in life—certain physical privileges, material privileges,…

Both the genders have become even more anchored to their physical identity. The more you do that, the more you are in misery because, really, the body is not who you are.

There are places better and higher than the place of your gender specific hormones. Why do you want…

Spirituality just needs basic self-honesty, self-awareness. There is nothing mystical, nothing magical about it, but that is what it has been associated with. I am not talking of chanting; I am not talking of chakras; I am not talking of flying snakes; I am not talking of magical seeds. Not…

If your goals are small, they are no goals. You will be frustrated if you don’t achieve them, and you will be doubly frustrated if you achieve them. Having achieved them, you will find that the next goal is waiting for you, and that is deep frustration. You will feel…

When you are serious about victory, you do not strike at the enemy without being fully prepared. Those who just plunge themselves into battles without having checked their preparedness are the ones who don’t love victory too much. Because this battle is important, and because this battle must be won,…

Man has the capacity to choose, and man must take responsibility of how he is living his life, what he has turned the Earth into.

In fact, I feel impelled to say this: When I was in the process of quitting my corporate career and moving to teaching, I was…

Emotions, they can do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter how I am feeling. What matters is what I must do.

Ask yourself: Had you not been feeling this way or that way, what would have you done? And you will get a very good answer.

When you…

There is only one way to test whether you have done the maximum you can. If you have done the maximum you can, then you will find that things have started happening on their own, in unexpected, unplanned, unprecedented ways. You are now helpless; you can do no more, but…

Every young person who is about to choose a career, decide on work in life, must keep this in mind, my humble advice: See what is it that really, really troubles you, and then work should be the medicine for your trouble. That’s the way you must choose work.

Therefore,…

Pay attention to all your thoughts, emotions, actions. Something unknown is waiting there for you. Most people know nothing about themselves.

If you are angry, it tells you that there is something within you that is resisting the world now. Why is it resisting the world? Go into it. Try…

Man wants progress, and progress means an ascension, an elevation. It is as if man wants to be elevated to some high sky. That’s what you say, right? “I am rising up, I am progressing.” What is the intention of this tendency to keep progressing? The intention is to progress…

If you want to know an atom, you have to go to nuclear physics. There you do not just proudly claim, “Oh, I know atoms. Everything is an atom. I have been with atoms since my birth!” There you want to read a book. There you want to consult somebody…

As long as the goal is not tremendously big, life has no real purpose. If your goals are small they are no goals. You will be frustrated if you don’t achieve them, and you will be doubly frustrated if you achieve them. Having achieved them, you will find that the…

If Facebook is satisfying you, it is not called as time wasted. Full stop. If the purpose of time is your satisfaction, and if doing all kinds of nonsense on Facebook satisfies you, then you cannot call it as wasted of time.

The only thing that determines whether time or…

Love is about giving yourself the highest. When you love somebody, do you want to stop short of giving them the highest possible? Similarly, when you love yourself, would you stop short of giving yourself the highest possible?

The highest possible is not contained in pleasure nor in happiness. Both…

“Enjoy the moment! Go with the flow!” What is that flow? Where is it coming from? Why should I go with it? Why don’t you just pause and ask, which flow are we talking of?

The tsunamis are coming to take you away, and the great master is teaching you:…

As long as the goal is not tremendously big, life has no real purpose. If your goals are small, they are no goals. You will be frustrated if you don’t achieve them, and you will be doubly frustrated if you achieve them. Having achieved them, you will find that the…

Know your duty and give yourself totally to it. Will there be pleasure? No sir, not at all. There would be some higher than pleasure, more fulfilling, more satisfying than pleasure. Pleasure is a turncoat: today one thing, tomorrow another thing.

The one who lives by his duty, his dharma…

There is a kind of entrepreneurship that says, start the company, see which sectors are hot and booming, and when you reach a certain stage after n rounds of funding, sell it off and add a few more zeroes to your personal bank balance. That’s one kind of entrepreneurship. It…

If a bad thought is persevering in your mind, continuing in your mind, then it means that you are just calling it a bad thought. Deeply you are supporting it; deeply you think that it is a good thought. We call them bad. We actually do not consider them bad.…

If you have to invest your hours, your months, your years, invest them on a cause. The cause could be your own development, or general development, social welfare, whatever. But let it be a cause, not a person. Let the cause occupy you fully.

This applies to both men and…

The shopkeeper’s business is to sell his goods, and that’s what most gurus of today are: they have to sell their goods. When that is what you want to do, how can you afford to antagonize a big chunk of the population? And you would never, never do that if…

There is something honorable about dying against a major enemy. But what honor is there in being consumed by the little?

Set a great goal. Even if you lose, it will at least be a great defeat. And if you set a timid, scared, conventional, narrow goal, then even if…

Christmas Eve again, Jesus says to his disciples, “I am going to be killed soon.”

One of his disciples, Peter, starts weeping and crying, and he gets a good scolding from Jesus. Jesus says, “Had you had anything to do with God, had you learned anything from me, how could…

You are a bird; your nature is to fly. You don’t need to be taught your nature; you need to be freed from the cage.

But we are pretty special characters. Instead of opening the door of the cage, we try to teach the bird to fly within the cage,…

Success does not lie in doing any random thing. Do you know why you are doing a certain thing? Are you sure what is worthy enough to be done? That’s the moot question.

Choose the right option. Make the right decision. Fight the right battle. And now it doesn’t matter…

We really do not know how to spend a Sunday, but we want to live two hundred years. If you are given one free day, you do not know what to do with it. You start looking here and there, wondering, “What to do? Some free time is there. How…

Before you excel, ask yourself, “What must I excel in? What is worth it?” Before you speed down a road, ask yourself, “Which road to take?” Speed comes later; choice of the right road comes first.

It is far better to be slow on the right road than to be…

All the economic theories, all the economic systems are predicated on this premise, based on this assumption that the goal of man’s action is to have more money. This they call as welfare, or even luxury. In some theories, they say that maximization of luxury is the objective of man’s…

Real courage is needed only when you fight a real battle, and the real battle is against yourself.

Not all problems are worth facing. Most problems you must totally avoid, even if that means that you will be called a coward by others.

Not all battles are worth fighting. In…