OUR BUSINESS IS WITH THE GOOD. WE ARE NOT HERE TO DEAL WITH FAULTS. OUR BUSINESS IS TO BE GOOD.

My old master used to say, "When the lotus of the heart has bloomed, the bees will come by themselves." Men like that are there yet. They need not talk. ... When the man is perfect from his heart, without a thought of hatred, all animals will give up their hatred [before him]. So with purity. These are necessary for our dealings with our fellow beings. We must love all. ... We have no business to look at the faults of others: it does no good We must not even think of them. Our business is with the good. We are not here to deal with faults. Our business is to be good.

- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/Concentration
(Delivered at the Washington Hall, San Francisco, on March 16, 1900)

RELIGION IS A QUESTION OF BEING AND BECOMING, NOT OF BELIEVING

Stand up and reason out, having no blind faith. Religion is a question of being and becoming, not of believing.

- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Claims of Religion

BELIEVE WHAT ? HAVE DELIBERATION AND ANALYSE, AND WHEN THE RESULT AGREES WITH REASON AND CONDUCES TO THE GOOD OF ONE AND ALL, ACCEPT IT AND LIVE UP TO IT

Believe what? To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly. Why degrade the soul to the level of animals? You not only hurt yourselves thereby, but you injure society, and make danger for those that come after you. Stand up and reason out, having no blind faith. Religion is a question of being and becoming, not of believing. This is religion, and when you have attained to that you have religion. Before that you are no better than the animals. "Do not believe in what you have heard," says the great Buddha, "do not believe in doctrines because they have been handed down to you through generations; do not believe in anything because it is followed blindly by many; do not believe because some old sage makes a statement; do not believe in truths to which you have become attached by habit; do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Have deliberation and analyse, and when the result agrees with reason and conduces to the good of one and all, accept it and live up to it."

- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Claims of Religion

BABIES JUDGE THE WHOLE UNIVERSE FROM THEIR OWN STANDPOINT, THAT OF PRODUCING GINGERBREAD, AND SO DO THE BABIES OF THE WORLD

What right have you to say, "Here is my standard, and the whole universe must be governed by my standard?" What right have you to say that every truth shall be judged by this standard of yours — the standard that preaches mere bread, and money, and clothes as God?

Religion does not live in bread, does not dwell in a house. Again and again you hear this objection advanced: "What good can religion do? Can it take away the poverty of the poor and give them more clothes?" Supposing it cannot, would that prove the untruth of religion? Suppose a baby stands up among you, when you are trying to demonstrate an astronomical theory, and says, "Does it bring gingerbread?" "No, it does not," you answer. "Then," says the baby, "it is useless." Babies judge the whole universe from their own standpoint, that of producing gingerbread, and so do the babies of the world.

- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Claims of Religion

IT DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IN YOUR POCKET, OR THE DRESS YOU WEAR, OR THE HOUSE YOU LIVE IN, BUT IN THE WEALTH OF SPIRITUAL THOUGHT IN YOUR BRAIN.

Religion wants to know the truth. And the first thing it has discovered is that without a knowledge of this truth there will be no life worth living.

Life will be a desert, human life will be vain, it we cannot know the beyond. It is very good to say: Be contented with tile things of the present moment. The cows and the dogs are, and so are all animals, and that is what makes them animals. So if man rests content with the present and gives up all search into the beyond, mankind will all have to go back to the animal plane again. It is religion, this inquiry into the beyond, that makes the difference between man and an animal. Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down. That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation, and the sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as salvation. It does not consist in the amount of money in your pocket, or the dress you wear, or the house You live in, but in the wealth of spiritual thought in your brain. That is what makes for human progress; that is the source of all material and intellectual progress, the motive power behind, the enthusiasm that pushes mankind forward.

- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Claims of Religion

AS WE RISE HIGHER AND HIGHER IN THE SCALE OF BEING, THE MEDIUM BECOMES MORE AND MORE TRANSLUCENT.

Every human personality may be compared to a glass globe. There is the same pure white light — an emission of the divine Being — in the centre of each, but the glass being of different colours and thickness, the rays assume diverse aspects in the transmission. The equality and beauty of each central flame is the same, and the apparent inequality is only in the imperfection of the temporal instrument of its expression. As we rise higher and higher in the scale of being, the medium becomes more and more translucent.

- Swami Vivekanadna
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/Indian Religious Thought

BUT NO GOOD RESULTS UNLESS THE PATH IS TRODDEN WITH UNFLINCHING STEPS!

What good is it, if we acknowledge in our prayers that God is the Father of us all, and in our daily lives do not treat every man as our brother? Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps!

- Swami Vivekananda 
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/Indian Religious Thought