Hold On to the Ideal - Swami Vivekananda

That is the one great first step--the real desire for the ideal.
Everything comes easy after that... The struggle is the great lesson.
Mind you, the greater benefit in this life is struggle. It is through
that we pass. If there is any road to Heaven, it is through Hell.
Through Hell to Heaven is always the way. When the soul has wrestled
with circumstances and has met death, a thousand times death on the
way, but nothing daunted has struggled forward again and again and yet
again, then the soul comes out as a giant and laughs at the ideal he
has been struggling for, because he finds how much greater is he than
the ideal. I am the end, my own self, and nothing else, for what is
there to compare to my own Self? Can a bag of gold be the ideal of my
Soul? Certainly not! My Soul is the highest ideal that I can have.
Realising my own real nature is the one goal of my life.

There is nothing that is absolutely evil. The devil has a place here
as well as God, else he would not be here. Just as I told you, it is
through Hell that we pass to Heaven. Our mistakes have places here. Go
on! No not look back if you think you have done something that is not
right. Now, do you believe you could be what you are today, had you
not made those mistakes before? Bless your mistakes, then. They have
been angels unawares. Blessed be torture! Blessed be happiness! Do not
care what be your lot. Hold on to the ideal. March on! Do not look
back upon little mistakes and things. In this battle field of ours,
the dust of mistakes must be raised. Those who are so thin-skinned
that they cannot bear the dust, let them get out of the ranks.

If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the
man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to
have an ideal. And this ideal we must hear about as much as we can,
till it enters into our hearts, into our brains, into our very veins,
until it tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every pore
in our body. We must meditate upon it. "Out of the fullness of the
heart the mouth speaketh," and out of the fullness of the heart the
hand works too.

It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with
the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after
month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the
beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It
would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would
be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never
heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow--never a man. So never
mind these failures, these little backslidings;hold the ideal a
thousand times, and if you fail thousand times, make the attempt once
more. The ideal of man is to see God in everything. But if you cannot
see that thing which you like best, and then see infinite life before
the soul. Take your time and you will achieve your end.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life--think of it, dream of
it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of
your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea
alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual
giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines.

The life of the practical is in the ideal. It is the ideal that has
penetrated the whole of our lives, whether we philosophise, or perform
the hard, everyday duties of life. The rays of the ideal, reflected
and refracted in various straight or tortuous lines, are pouring in
through every aperture and windhole, and consciously or unconsciously,
every function has to be performed in its light, every object has to
be seen transformed, heightened, or deformed by it. It is the ideal
that has made us what we are, and will make us what we are going to
be. It is the power of the ideal that has enshrouded us, and is felt
in our joys or sorrows, in our great acts or mean doings, in our
virtues and vices.