RELIGION IS REALIZATION..!

 

• SWAMI  VIVEKANAND....
  
  First, feel from the heart. What is in the intellect or reason? It goes a few steps and there it stops. But through the heart comes inspiration. Love opens the most impossible gates; love is the gate to all the secrets of the universe....
  
  Expand your hearts and hopes, as wide as the world. Deep as the ocean, broad as the infinite skies, that is the sort of heart we want.
  
  Work Is Worship
  Power and things like that will come of their own. Put yourself to work, and you will find such tremendous power coming to you that you will feel it hard to bear. Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instils in the heart the strength of a lion. I love you all ever so much, but I wish you all to die working for others....
  
  It is you only who are in this world lying prostrate today like inert matter. You have been hypnotised. From very old times, others have been telling you that you are weak, that you have no power, and you also, accepting that, have for about a thousand years gone on thinking, “We are wretched, we are good for nothing.” (Pointing to his own body) This body (of Vivekanand) also is born of the soil of your country; but I never thought like that.
  
  And hence you see how, through His will, even those who always think of us as low and weak, have done and are still doing me divine honour. If you can think that infinite power, infinite knowledge and indomitable energy lie within you, and if you can bring out that power, you also can become like me.
  
  An Equal Approach
  The essential thing is renunciation. Without renunciation, no one can pour out his whole heart in working for others. The man of renunciation sees all with an equal eye and devotes himself to the service of all. Doesn’t our Vedanta also teach us — himself to the service of all? Doesn’t our Vedanta also teach us to see all with an equal eye?
  
  Why then do you cherish the idea that your spouse and children are your own, more than others? At your very threshold, Narayana himself in the form of a poor beggar is dying of starvation! Instead of giving him anything, would you only satisfy the appetites of your family with delicacies?
  
  Set An Example
  Why not do as much as lies within your power? Even if you cannot give to others for want of money, surely you can at least breathe into their ears some good words or impart some good instruction. Or does that also require money?
  
  So work, my boys, work! The rough part of the work has been smoothened and rounded; now it will roll on better and better every year. Rejoice that you have done so much. When you feel gloomy, think what has been done within the last year. How, rising from nothing, we have the eyes of the world fixed upon us now. Not only India, but the world, is expecting great things of us.
  
  Are you sincere? Unselfish even unto death? And loving? Then fear not; not even death. Onwards, my lads! The whole world requires light. It is expectant! India alone has that light not in magic, mummery and charlatanism, but in the teaching of the glories of the spirit of real religion — of the highest spiritual truth.
  
  That is why the lord has preserved the race through all its vicissitudes unto the present day. Now the time has come. Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things. Let not the barks of puppies frighten you — no, not even the thunderbolts of heaven — but stand up and work!
  
  Wake Up And Be A Servant
  
  Have fire and spread all over. Work, work. Be the servant while leading. Be unselfish, and never listen to one friend in private accusing another. Have infinite patience, and success is yours. I want that there should be no hypocrisy, no roguery.
  
  There shouldn’t be a breath of immorality, nor a stain of policy which is bad. No shilly-shally, no esoteric blackguardism, no secret humbug, nothing should be done in a corner. Onward, my brave boys — money or no money — men or no men! Have you love? Have you God? Onward and forward to the breach, you are irresistible. Take care! Beware of everything that is untrue; stick to truth and we shall succeed, maybe slowly, but surely. Work as if on each of you depended the whole work. Fifty centuries are looking on you, the future of India depends on you. Work on.
  
  There is success and failure in every work. But there is no salvation for a coward. In my eyes, this world is mere play — and it will always remain as such. Should one spend six long months brooding over the questions of honour and disgrace, gain and loss pertaining to this?
  
  O hero, awake, and dream no more.