What Would Vivekananda Do?

Swami Vivekananda's Practical Vedanta

Lecture by Swami Sarvapriyananda

After long searches here and there, in temples and in churches, in earths and in heavens, at last you come back, completing the circle from where you started, to your own soul and find that He, for whom you have been seeking all over the world, for whom you have been weeping and praying in churches and temples, on whom you were looking as the mystery of all mysteries shrouded in the clouds, is nearest of the near, is your own Self, the reality of your life, body and soul.
- Swami Vivekananda




READ ONLINE: 
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

Behold, it comes in might,

The power that is not power,

The light that is in darkness,

The shade in dazzling light.

It is joy that never spoke,

And grief unfelt, profound,

Immortal life unlived,

Eternal death unmourned.

It is not joy nor sorrow,

But that which is between,

It is not now nor morrow,

But that which joins them in.

It is sweet rest in music;

And pause in sacred art;

The silence between speaking;

Between two fits of passion --

It is the calm of heart.

It is beauty never seen,

And love that stands alone,

It is song that lives un-sung,

And knowledge never known.

It is death between two lives,

And lull between two storms,

The void whence rose creation,

And that where it returns.

To it the tear-drop goes,

To spread the smiling form

It is the Goal of Life,

And Peace -- its only home!

- Swami Vivekananda

Ocean of Love: Glimpses of Swami Vivekananda

Lecture by Swami Mahayogananda

"I do not come", said Swamiji 

on one occasion in America, 

"to convert you to a new belief.

 I want you to keep your own belief; 

I want to make the Methodist a better Methodist; 

the Presbyterian a better Presbyterian; 

the Unitarian a better Unitarian. 

I want to teach you to live the truth, 

to reveal the light within your own soul." 

Vivekananda's Life Message

Lecture by Swami Tyagananda

As soon as a man stands up and says he is right or his church is right, and all others are wrong, he is himself all wrong. He does not know that upon the proof of all the others depends the proof of his own. Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness. I do not mean the sentimental statement that all men are brothers, but that one must feel the oneness of human life.

So far as they are not exclusive, I see that the sects and creeds are all mine; they are all grand. They are all helping men towards the real religion. I will add, it is good to be born in a church, but it is bad to die there. It is good to be born a child, but bad to remain a child. Churches, ceremonies, and symbols are good for children, but when the child is grown, he must burst the church or himself.

We must not remain children for ever. It is like trying to fit one coat to all sizes and growths. I do not deprecate the existence of sects in the world. Would to God there were twenty millions more, for the more there are, there will be a greater field for selection. What I do object to is trying to fit one religion to every case.

Though all religions are essentially the same, they must have the varieties of form produced by dissimilar circumstances among different nations. We must each have our own individual religion, individual so far as the externals of it go.  

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.   - From The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda