CALL UP THE DIVINITY WITHIN YOU. IF ANY SOCIAL INSTITUTION STANDS IN YOUR WAY OF BECOMING GOD, IT WILL GIVE WAY BEFORE THE POWER OF SPIRIT

Call up the divinity within you, which will enable you to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold. Sitting in luxurious homes, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and doling out a little amateur religion may be good for other lands, but India has a truer instinct. It intuitively detects the mask. You must give up. Be great. No great work can be done without sacrifice. The Purusha Himself sacrificed Himself to create this world. Lay down your comforts, your pleasures, your names, fame or position, nay even your lives, and make a bridge of human chains over which millions will cross this ocean of life. Bring all the forces of good together. Do not care under what banner you march. Do not care what be your colour — green, blue, or red — but mix up all the colours and produce that intense glow of white, the colour of love. Ours is to work. The results will take care of themselves. If any social institution stands in your way of becoming God, it will give way before the power of Spirit. I do not see into the future; nor do I care to see. But one vision I see dear as life before me: that the ancient Mother has awakened once more, sitting on Her throne rejuvenated, more glorious than ever. Proclaim Her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction.

- Swami Vivekananda
REPLY TO THE MADRAS ADDRESS

THESE WAVES ARE TO BE STOPPED BY THE POWER OF MEDITATION

How is it to be attained? In a dozen different ways. Each temperament has its own way. But this is the general principle: get hold of the mind. The mind is like a lake, and every stone that drops into it raises waves. These waves do not let us see what we are. The full moon is reflected in the water of the lake, but the surface is so disturbed that we do not see the reflection clearly. Let it be calm. Do not let nature raise the wave. Keep quiet, and then after a little while she will give you up. Then we know what we are. God is there already, but the mind is so agitated, always running after the senses. You close the senses and [yet] you whirl and whirl about. Just this moment I think I am all right and I will meditate upon God, and then my mind goes to London in one minute. And if I pull it away from there, it goes to New York to think about the things I have done there in the past. These [waves] are to be stopped by the power of meditation.

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

MEDITATION IS THE POWER WHICH ENABLES US TO RESIST ALL THIS

What is meditation? Meditation is the power which enables us to resist all this. Nature may call us, "Look there is a beautiful thing!" I do not look. Now she says, "There is a beautiful smell; smell it! " I say to my nose, "Do not smell it", and the nose doesn't. "Eyes, do not see!" Nature does such an awful thing - kills one of my children, and says, "Now, rascal, sit down and weep! Go to the depths!" I say, "I don't have to." I jump up. I must be free. Try it sometimes. ... [In meditation], for a moment, you can change this nature. Now, if you had that power in yourself, would not that be heaven, freedom? That is the power of meditation.

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

HOSPITALS WILL TUMBLE DOWN. RAILROAD GIVERS WILL ALL DIE. THIS EARTH WILL BE BLOWN TO PIECES, SUNS WIPED OUT. THE SOUL ENDURETH FOR EVER

The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. He is there. He is the soul of all souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom. Let us ask each other how much we are advanced in that: how much we are worshippers of the body, or real believers in God, the spirit; how much we believe ourselves to be spirit. That is selfless. That is freedom. That is real worship. Realise yourself. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are — infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will vanish. That alone will never vanish. It Is eternal. Hospitals will tumble down. Railroad givers will all die. This earth will be blown to pieces, suns wiped out. The soul endureth for ever.
- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Practice of Religion

YOU ARE THE SELF, AND THAT MUST BE REALISHED

This truth about the soul is first to be heard. If you have heard it, think about it. Once you have done that, meditate upon it. No more vain arguments! Satisfy yourself once that you are the infinite spirit. If that is true, it must be nonsense that you are the body. You are the Self, and that must be realised. Spirit must see itself as spirit. Now the spirit is seeing itself as body. That must stop. The moment you begin to realise that, you are released.

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

NOT TALKING, THEORISING, ARGUMENTATION, BUT REALISATION. THAT I CALL PRACTIAL RELIGION.

[You may] pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are, [but] unless you realise the soul there is no freedom. Not talking, theorising, argumentation, but realisation. That I call practical religion.

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

MIND YOU, THE GREAT BENEFIT IN THIS LIFE IS STRUGGLE. IT IS THROUGH THAT WE PASS. - I AM THE END, MY OWN SELF, AND NOTHING ELSE......

It is not truth, but development, that is the great aim. The struggle is the great lesson. Mind you, the great benefit in this life is struggle. It is through that we pass. If there is any road to Heaven, it is through Hell. Through Hell to Heaven is always the way. When the soul has wrestled with circumstance and has met death, a thousand times death on the way, but nothing daunted has struggled forward again and again and yet again—then the soul comes out as a giant and laughs at the ideal he has been struggling for, because he finds how much greater is he than the ideal. I am the end, my own Self, and nothing else…

- Swami Vivekananda