We recall Swami Vivekananda’s sayings on the National Youth’s Day.
By S.Neyalasinger
National Youth Day is celebrated every year on January 12th to honour Swami Vivekananda, the iconic Guru who inspired an entire generation of Indian’s and represented India and the Hindu culture at a world forum in Chicago. He believed in the power of the youth and in the cultural roots of Sanatana Dharma and provided direction to a confused nation that was plunged in an identity crisis. A protégé of Ramakrishna Paramahmsa, Vivekananda’s thoughts and teachings hold good even today. Here are some of the gems that he delivered.
“The old religions say that a man who does not believe in god is an atheist. But the new religion says that a man who does not believe in himself is an atheist”
“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.”
“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”
“All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”
“The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.”
“If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.”
“I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. As different streams having different sources all mingle their waters in the sea, so different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to God.”
“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these—and be free. This is the whole of religion.
Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.”
“To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean”, says the persevering soul; “at my will mountains will crumble up”. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.”
And finally,
“Arise, Awake and stop not till the goal is reached.”
