swamiji on Bhakti

Some persons worship God for the sake of obtaining wealth, others
because they want to have a son, and they think themselves Bhâgavatas
(devotees). This is no Bhakti, and they are not true Bhagavatas. When
a Sâdhu comes who professes that he can make gold, they run to him,
and they still consider themselves Bhagavatas. It is not Bhakti if we
worship God with the desire for a son; it is not Bhakti if we worship
with the desire to be rich; it is not Bhakti even if we have a desire
for heaven; it is not Bhakti if a man worships with the desire of
being saved from the tortures of hell. Bhakti is not the outcome of
fear or greediness. He is the true Bhagavata who says, "O God, I do
not want a beautiful wife, I do not want knowledge or salvation. Let
me be born and die hundreds of times. What I want is that I should be
ever engaged in Thy service."

Sayings and utterances. Complete Works, 5:411.

We never die, nor are we ever born. Bodies die, but we never die.

Sayings and utterances. Complete Works, 5:411.

Excerpt from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 3/Lectures from Colombo to Almora/Reply to the Address of Welcome at Paramakudi

The Omnipresent Lord has been hidden through ignorance, and the responsibility is on yourself. You have not to think that you were brought into the world without your choice and left in this most horrible place, but to know that you have yourself manufactured your body bit by bit just as you are doing it this very moment. You yourself eat; nobody eats for you. You assimilate what you eat; no one does it for you. You make blood, and muscles, and body out of the food; nobody does it for you. So you have done all the time. One link in a chain explains the infinite chain. If it is true for one moment that you manufacture your body, it is true for every moment that has been or will come. And all the responsibility of good and evil is on you. This is the great hope. What I have done, that I can undo. And at the same time our religion does not take away from mankind the mercy of the Lord. That is always there. On the other hand, He stands beside this tremendous current of good and evil. He the bondless, the ever-merciful, is always ready to help us to the other shore, for His mercy is great, and it always comes to the pure in heart.

Gospel of Holy Mother

Will they abstain because of my prohibition if their desire for
enjoyment is strong? And to those who have understood by virtue of
great merit that all this is Maya's play, and believe that God alone
is the reality, should I not offer a little help and encouragement?
P. 393 The Gospel of The Holy Mother

Edgar Cayce Reading 3744-5

What one thinks continually, they become; what one cherishes in their heart and mind they make a part of the pulsation of their heart, through their own blood cells, and build in their own physical, that which its spirit and soul must feed upon, and that with which it will be possessed, when it passes into the realm for which the other experiences of what it has gained here in the physical plane, must be used.

Edgar Cayce Reading 3744-5

Swamiji on Ahimsa

The test of Ahimsa is absence of jealousy. Any man may do a good deed or make a good gift on the spur of the moment or under the pressure of some superstition or priestcraft; but the real lover of mankind is he who is jealous of none. The so-called great men of the world may all be seen to become jealous of each other for a small name, for a little fame, and for a few bits of gold. So long as this jealousy exists in a heart, it is far away from the perfection of Ahimsa. The cow does not eat meat, nor does the sheep. Are they great Yogis, great non-injurers (Ahimsakas)? Any fool may abstain from eating this or that; surely that gives him no more distinction than to herbivorous animals. The man who will mercilessly cheat widows and orphans and do the vilest deeds for money is worse than any brute even if he lives entirely on grass. The man whose heart never cherishes even the thought of injury to any one, who rejoices at the prosperity of even his greatest enemy, that man is the Bhakta, he is the Yogi, he is the Guru of all, even though he lives every day of his life on the flesh of swine.