The Barrier of Caste

From the time of the Upanishads down to the present day, nearly all our great teachers have wanted to break through the barrier of caste, i.e. caste in its degenerate state, not the original system. What little good you see in the present caste clings to it from the original caste, which was the most glorious social institution. Buddha tried to reestablish caste in its original form.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5: 198.

Those who think themselves too high ...

What you call majority is mainly composed of fools and people of ordinary intellect. Those who have brains to think for themselves are few, everywhere. These few people with brains are the real leaders in everything and in every department of work. The majority are guided by them as with a string, and that is good, for everything goes right when they follow in the footsteps of these leaders. Those who think themselves too high to bend their heads to anyone are fools, and they bring on their own ruin by acting on their own judgment.

Conversation: Saturday, January 22, 1898. Recorded in Bengali by Surendra Nath Sen in his private diary. Complete Works, 5.333.

... think we know something!

Knowledge is mere classification. When we find many things of the same kind, we call the sum of them by a certain name and are satisfied. We discover "facts," never "why." We take a circuit in a wider field of darkness and think we know something!

Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 25, 1895. Complete Works, 7.18

Liberty is our natural right ...

Liberty is our natural right to be allowed to use our own body, intelligence, or wealth according to our will, without doing harm to others; and all the members of a society ought to have the same opportunity for obtaining wealth, education, or knowledge.

Letter to Mrinalini Bose. Written in Bengali from Deoghar on January 3, 1899. Complete Works, 5.146.

... that man is a holy man, a saint, call him what you will.

A man may believe in all the churches in the world, he may carry in his head all the sacred books ever written, he may baptize himself in all the rivers of the earth--still, if he has no perception of God, I would class him with the rankest atheist.

And a man may have never entered a church or a mosque, nor performed any ceremony, but if he feels God within himself and is thereby lifted above the vanities of the world, that man is a holy man, a saint, call him what you will.

Talk given at Unity Hall, Hartford (Connecticut), USA, on March 8, 1895,
as reported in "Hartford Times" (March 11, 1895). Complete Works, 1.325.

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What is dharma? What is mukti?

What is dharma? Dharma is that which makes us seek for happiness in this world or the next. Dharma is established on karma, and it impels us day and night to run after and work for happiness.

What is mukti? That which teaches that even the happiness in this life is slavery, and the same is true of the happiness in the life to come, because neither this world nor the next is beyond the laws of nature... Again, happiness, wherever it may be, being within the laws of nature, is subject to death and will not last ad infinitum. So we must aspire to become mukta. We must go beyond the bondage of the body. Slavery will not do.

From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 5.446.

Everybody wants to be a leader

Here in India, everybody wants to be a leader, and there is nobody to obey. Everyone should learn to obey before he can command. There is no end to our jealousies; and the more important the Hindu, the more jealous he is. Until this absence of jealousy and obedience to leaders are learnt by the Hindu, there will be no power of organization. We shall have to remain the hopelessly confused mob that we are now, hoping and doing nothing.

Interview in The Hindu. Chennai, 1896. Complete Works, 5: 216.

Our Tendencies

Our tendencies are the result of past conscious actions. A child is born with certain tendencies. Whence do they come? No child is born with a tabula rasa--with a clean, blank page--of a mind. The page has been written on previously. The old Greek and Egyptian philosophers taught that no child came with a vacant mind. Each child comes with a hundred tendencies generated by past conscious actions. The child did not acquire these in this life, and we are bound to admit that it must have acquired them in past lives.

Talk given at Unity Hall, Hartford (Connecticut), USA, on March 8, 1895, as reported in "Hartford Times" (March 11, 1895). Complete Works, 1.320-21.

Infinite Freedom

In whom is the universe, who is in the universe, who is the universe; in whom is the Soul, who is in the soul, who is the soul; knowing that Truth--and therefore the universe--as our Self, alone extinguishes all fear, brings an end to misery, and leads to infinite freedom.

Written by Swami Vivekananda in March 1899, to be included in the prospectus of the Advaita Ashrama at Mayavati in the Himalayas. Complete Works, 5.435.

A perfect sannyāsin

I am a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a perfect sannyāsin whose influence and ideas I fell under. This great sannyāsin never assumed the negative or critical attitude towards other religions, but showed their positive side--how they could be carried into life and practiced. To fight, to assume the antagonistic attitude, is the exact contrary of his teaching, which dwells on the truth that the world is moved by love.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5.190.

I claim no supernatural authority ....

My teaching is my own interpretation of our ancient books, in the light which my Master shed upon them. I claim no supernatural authority. Whatever in my teaching may appeal to the highest intelligence and be accepted by thinking people, the adoption of that will be my reward.

Interview, October 23, 1895. Complete Works, 5.186.

All religions have for their object the teaching either of devotion, knowledge, or yoga, in a concrete form. Now, the philosophy of Vedanta is the abstract science which embraces all these methods, this it is that I teach, leaving each one to apply it to their own concrete forms. I refer each individual to their own experiences, and where reference is made to books, the latter are procurable, and may be studied by anyone. Above all, I teach no authority proceeding from hidden beings speaking through visible agents, any more than I claim learning from hidden books or manuscripts. I am not an exponent of any occult society, nor do I believe that good can come of such bodies. Truth stands on its own authority, and truth can bear the light of day.

Interview, October 23, 1895. Complete Works, 5.186-87.

I had a deep interest in religion and philosophy from my childhood, and our books teach renunciation as the highest ideal to which we can aspire. It only needed the meeting with a great Teacher--Ramakrishna Paramahamsa--to kindle in me the final determination to follow the path he himself had trod, as in him I found my highest ideal realized.

Interview, October 23, 1895. Complete Works, 5: 186

Concentrating the powers of the mind is the only way to knowledge. In external science, concentrating the mind is--putting it on something external; and in the internal science, it is--drawing towards one's Self. This concentration of mind we call Yoga.

Conversation at Harvard, 1896. Complete Works, 5.299.

All morality can be divided into the positive and the negative elements. It says either "Do this" or "Do not do this." When it says, "Do not," it is evident that it is a check to a certain desires which would make us slaves. When it says, "Do," its scope is to show the way to freedom and to the breaking down of a certain degradation which has already seized the human heart.

Written in answer to a question put by a Western Disciple. Complete Works, 8.147.

Those who depend upon the world for enjoyment are the "bound" (tāmasika). Then there are the "egotistical" (rājasika), who always talk about "I," "I," "I." They do great work sometimes and may become spiritual. But the highest are the "introspective" (sāttvika), who live only in the Ātman.

Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 25, 1895. Complete Works, 7.12.

When you give something to a man and expect nothing--do not even expect the man to be grateful--his ingratitude will not affect you, because you never expected anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way of return. You gave him what he deserved. His own karma got it for him, your karma made you the carrier thereof. Why should you be proud of having given away something? You are the porter that carried the money or other kind of gift, and the world deserved it by its own karma. Where is then the reason for pride in you? There is nothing very great in what you give to the world.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 3, 1896. Complete Works, 1.90.

Truth and Sannyasa

Truth is of two kinds: (1) that which is known through the five ordinary senses and by reasoning based thereon; (2) that which is known through the subtle, supersensuous power of yoga.

Knowledge acquired by the first means is called science; and knowledge acquired by the second is called the Vedas.

From "Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 6.181.

Sannyāsa is recognized in the Vedas without making any distinction between men and women. Do you remember how Yājñavalkya was questioned at the court of King Janaka? His principal examiner was Vācaknavī, the maiden orator--Brahmāvadinī, as the word of the day was. "Like two shining arrows in the hand of the skilled archer," she says, "are my questions." Her gender is not even commented upon. Again, could anything be more complete than the equality of boys and girls in our old forest universities? Read our Sanskrit dramas--read the story of Śakuntalā, and see if Tennyson's "Princess" has anything to teach us!

Interview in the Prabuddha Bharata. December 1898. Complete Works, 5.230.

If the scriptures cannot help!!!

If the scriptures cannot help all people in all conditions at all times, of what use, then, are such scriptures? If the scriptures show the way to only the monk and not to the householder, then what need has a householder for such one-sided scriptures? If the scriptures can only help people when they give up all work and retire into the forests, and cannot show the way of lighting the lamp of hope in the hearts people of the workaday world--in the midst of their daily toil, disease, misery, and poverty, in the despondency of the penitent, in the self-reproach of the downtrodden, in the terror of the battlefield, in lust, anger and pleasure, in the joy of victory, in the darkness of defeat, and finally, in the dreaded night of death--then weak humanity has no need at all of such scriptures, and such scriptures will be no scriptures at all!

Sayings and Utterances. Complete Works, 5.420-21.

Don't -touchism

What do you consider to be the function of your movement as regards India?
Vivekananda: To find the common bases of Hinduism and awaken the national consciousness to them. At present there are three parties in India included under the term "Hindu"--the orthodox, the reforming sects of the Muslim period, and the reforming sects of the present time. Hindus from North to South are only agreed on one point, viz. on not eating beef.

With which of these three parties do you identify yourself, Swamiji?

Vivekananda: With all of them. We are orthodox Hindus, but we refuse entirely to identify ourselves with "Don't-touchism." That is not Hinduism: it is in none of our books; it is an unorthodox superstition which has interfered with national efficiency all along the line.

Interview in the Prabuddha Bharata. September 1898. Complete Works, 5: 226

Karma Yoga

Here are two Sanskrit words: Pravṛtti, which means revolving towards, and the other is Nivṛtti, which means revolving away. The "revolving towards" is what we call the world, the "I and mine"; it includes all those things which are always enriching that "me" by wealth and money and power, and name and fame, and which are of a grasping nature, always tending to accumulate everything in one center, that center being "myself." That is the Pravṛtti, the natural tendency of every human being; taking everything from everywhere and heaping it around one center, that center being our own sweet self.

When this tendency begin to break, when it is Nivṛtti, or "going away from," then begin morality and religion. ... Nivṛtti is the fundamental basis of all morality and all religion, and the very perfection of it is entire self-abnegation, readiness to sacrifice mind and body and everything for another being. When we reach that state, we have attained to the perfection of Karma Yoga.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 3, 1896. Complete Works, 1.85-86.

Jealousy is the bane of our race

Hold on with faith and strength. Be true, be honest, be pure, and don't quarrel among yourselves. Jealousy is the bane of our race.

Letter to Alasinga Perumal. From New York: December 20, 1895. Complete Works, 5.99.

Lesser to a higher truth

In all religions we travel from a lesser to a higher truth, never from error to truth. There is Oneness behind all creation, but minds are various. "That which exists is one, sages call it variously." What I mean is that one progresses from a smaller to a greater truth. The worst religions are only bad readings of the truth. One gets to understand bit by bit. Even devil-worship is but a perverted reading of the ever-true and immutable Brahman. Other phases have more or less truth in them. No form of religion possesses it entirely.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5: 202.

Sects must gradually disappear

Sects must gradually disappear as liberty and knowledge increase. Sects are founded on the nonessential, which by the nature of things cannot survive. The sects have served their purpose, which was that of an exclusive brotherhood on lines comprehended by those within it. Gradually we reach the idea of universal brotherhood by flinging down the walls of partition which separate such aggregation of individuals.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5:197-98.

Is it comparative religion you want to preach?

It is really the philosophy of religion, the kernel of all its outward forms. All forms of religion have an essential and a nonessential part. If we strip from them the latter, there remains the real basis of all religion, which all forms of religion possess in common. Unity is behind them all. We may call it God, Allah, Jehovah, the Spirit, Love; it is the same unity that animates all life, from its lowest form to its noblest manifestation in human beings. It is on this unity that we need to lay stress, whereas in the West, and indeed everywhere, it is the nonessential that people are apt to lay stress. They will fight and kill each other for these forms, to make their fellows conform. Seeing that the essential is love of God and love of human beings, this is curious, to say the least.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5: 197.

What is dharma? What is mukti?

What is dharma? Dharma is that which makes us seek for happiness in this world or the next. Dharma is established on karma, and it impels us day and night to run after and work for happiness.

What is mukti? That which teaches that even the happiness in this life is slavery, and the same is the happiness of the life to come, because neither this world nor the next is beyond the laws of nature... Again, happiness, wherever it may be, being within the laws of nature, is subject to death and will not last ad infinitum. So we must aspire to become mukta. We must go beyond the bondage of the body. Slavery will not do.

From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali
by Swami Vivekananda. Complete Works, 5:446.

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