Swami Vivekananda

  ------------------------------------------------------------ Monday, October 19, 2020. 08 : 11. AM. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] Post-13. ------------------------------------------------------------- As children we all think that the world is made so very nice, and that masses of pleasures are simply waiting for our going out to them. That is every schoolboy's dream. And when he goes out into the world, the everyday world, very soon his dreams vanish. So with nations. When they see how every city is built upon ruins — every forest stands upon a city — then they become convinced of the vanity of this world. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All the power of knowledge and wealth once made has passed away — all the sciences of the ancients, lost, lost forever. Nobody knows how. That teaches us a grand lesson. Vanity of vanities; all is vani...

  ------------------------------------------------------------ Monday, September 28, 2020. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] Post-12. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. So with us. The majority of mankind delights in this fish smell — this world, this enjoyment of the senses, this money and wealth and chattel and wife and children. All this nonsense of the world — this fishy smell — has grown upon us. We can hear nothing beyond it, can see nothing beyond it; nothing goes beyond it. This is the whole universe. 2. All this talk about heaven and God and soul means nothing to an ordinary man. He has heaven already here. He has no other idea beyond this world. When you tell him of something higher, he says, "That is not a comfortable religion. Give us something comfortable". That is to say that religion is nothing but what he is doing. 3. If he is a thief and you tell him that s...

  ------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, September 11, 2020.7:32. AM. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] Post-11. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The first obstruction to our following reason is our unwillingness to go to truth. We want truth to come to us. In all my travels, most people told me: "Oh, that is not a comfortable religion you talk about. Give us a comfortable religion!" 2. I do not understand what they mean by this "comfortable religion". I was never taught any comfortable religion in my life. I want truth for my religion. Whether it be comfortable or not, I do not care. Why should truth be comfortable always? Truth many times hits hard — as we all know by our experience. Gradually, after a long intercourse with such persons, I came to find out what they meant by their stereotypical phrase. These people have got into a...

------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, August 14, 2020.8:41. PM. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] Post-10. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. To be a rationalist requires more than unbelief. You must be able not only to reason, but also to follow the dictates of your reason. If reason tells you that this body is an illusion, are you ready to give it up? Reason tells you that heat and cold are mere illusions of your senses; are you ready to brave these things? If reason tells you that nothing that the senses convey to your mind is true, are you ready to deny your sense perception? If you dare, you are a rationalist. 2. It is very hard to believe in reason and follow truth. This whole world is full either of the superstitious or of half-hearted hypocrites. I would rather side with superstition and ignorance than stand with these half-hearted hypocrites. T...

------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, July 31., 2020.2:33. AM. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] ------------------------------------------------------------- How to know ourselves? the question remains now. There are various ways to know this Self, but in Jnana-Yoga it takes the help of nothing but sheer intellectual reasoning. Reason alone, intellect alone, rising to spiritual perception, shows what we are. There is no question of believing. Disbelieve everything — that is the idea of the Jnani. Believe nothing and disbelieve everything — that is the first step. Dare to be a rationalist. Dare to follow reason wherever it leads you. We hear everyday people saying all around us: "I dare to reason". It is, however, a very difficult thing to do. I would go two hundred miles to look at the face of the man who dares to reason and to follow reason. Nothing is easier to say, an...

------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, June 28, 2020.7:19. AM. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The main cause of all bondage is ignorance. Man is not wicked by his own nature — not at all. His nature is pure, perfectly holy. Each man is divine. Each man that you see is a God by his very nature. This nature is covered by ignorance, and it is ignorance that binds us down. Ignorance is the cause of all misery. Ignorance is the cause of all wickedness; and knowledge will make the world good. Knowledge will remove all misery. Knowledge will make us free. This is the idea of Jnana-Yoga: knowledge will make us free! What knowledge? Chemistry? Physics? Astronomy? Geology? They help us a little, just a little. But the chief knowledge is that of your own nature. "Know thyself." You must know what you are, what your r...

============================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 21, 2020. [A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda] ------------------------------------------------------------- Someone takes advantage of the light of the sun to break into your house and rob you. And then when he is caught by the policeman, he may cry: "Oh sun, why did you make me steal?" It was not the sun's fault at all, because there are thousands of other people who did much good to their fellow beings under the light of the same sun. The sun did not tell this man to go about stealing and robbing. Each one of us reaps what we ourselves have sown. These miseries under which we suffer, these bondages under which we struggle, have been caused by ourselves, and none else in the universe is to blame. God is the least to blame for ...