Vedanta Society of Ottawa
THE TEACHINGS OF VEDANTA: SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
"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."
- Swami Vivekananda
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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and a world spokesperson for Vedanta. His lectures, letters and poems are published
as The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Swamiji believed it was best to teach universal principles rather than personalities and people. Therefore, his teaching and writing focus on Vedanta philosophy.
TEACHINGS
• All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.
• All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue
• Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
• As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?
• Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.
• Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.
• Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.
NEW UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION
• One of the most significant contributions of Swami Vivekananda to the modern world is his interpretation of religion
as a universal experience of transcendent Reality, common to all humanity. Swamiji met the challenge of modern science by
showing that religion is as scientific as science itself; religion is the ‘science of consciousness’. As such, religion and science are not contradictory to each other but are complementary.
• This universal conception frees religion from the hold of superstitions, dogmatism, priestcraft and intolerance, and makes religion the highest and noblest pursuit
– the pursuit of supreme Freedom, supreme Knowledge, supreme Happiness.
ADDRESS IN CHICAGO: FIRST WORLD PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS
• Vivekananda represented Hinduism at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions convened during the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. With his
opening words, “Sisters and brothers of America”, Swamiji brought the crowd to its feet. Subsequently he was invited to speak all over America and Europe. In fact, most Vedanta
Societies which were founded in America and Europe up through the 1930s can trace their origins directly to Vivekananda or the people who heard him speak from 1893 through 1900.
• There, Swamiji gave six powerful speeches: the Welcoming Speech, 'Why We Disagree', 'Paper on Hinduism', 'Religion not the Crying Need of India', 'Buddhism: the Fulfillment of Hinduism', and the Closing Speech.
They can all be read here.
Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and a world spokesperson for Vedanta. His lectures, letters and poems are published as The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Swamiji believed it was best to teach universal principles rather than personalities and people. Therefore, his teaching and writing focus on Vedanta philosophy.
TEACHINGS
• All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else.
• All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue
• Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.
• As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?
• Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.
• Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.
• Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.
NEW UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION
• One of the most significant contributions of Swami Vivekananda to the modern world is his interpretation of religion as a universal experience of transcendent Reality, common to all humanity. Swamiji met the challenge of modern science by showing that religion is as scientific as science itself; religion is the ‘science of consciousness’. As such, religion and science are not contradictory to each other but are complementary.
• This universal conception frees religion from the hold of superstitions, dogmatism, priestcraft and intolerance, and makes religion the highest and noblest pursuit – the pursuit of supreme Freedom, supreme Knowledge, supreme Happiness.
ADDRESS IN CHICAGO: FIRST WORLD PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS
• Vivekananda represented Hinduism at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions convened during the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. With his opening words, “Sisters and brothers of America”, Swamiji brought the crowd to its feet. Subsequently he was invited to speak all over America and Europe. In fact, most Vedanta Societies which were founded in America and Europe up through the 1930s can trace their origins directly to Vivekananda or the people who heard him speak from 1893 through 1900.
• There, Swamiji gave six powerful speeches: the Welcoming Speech, 'Why We Disagree', 'Paper on Hinduism', 'Religion not the Crying Need of India', 'Buddhism: the Fulfillment of Hinduism', and the Closing Speech. They can all be read here.