Excerpts from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Divine Mother

The Divine Mother is the power of all causation. She energizes every cause unmistakably to produce the effect. Her will is the only law, and as She cannot make a mistake, nature's laws--Her will--can never be changed. She is the life of the law of karma, or causation. She is the fructifier of every action. Under Her guidance we are manufacturing our lives through our deeds or karma.

From notes discovered among Swami Vivekananda's papers. He evidently intended to write a book and jotted down these points for the work. Complete Works, 5:434.

Excerpts from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

Do you feel for others? If you do, you are growing in oneness. If you do not feel for others, you may be the most intellectual giant ever born, but you will be nothing; you are but dry intellect, and you will remain so. And if you feel, even if you cannot read any book and do not know any language, you are in the right way. The Lord is yours. Complete Works Vol. 2 p.307

Excerpts from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda ~ Volume 5 ~ Epistles - First Series ~ LXI Dr. Nanjunda Rao

Go on bravely. Do not expect success in a day or a year. Always hold on to the highest. Be steady. Avoid jealousy and selfishness. Be obedient and eternally faithful to the cause of truth, humanity, and your country, and you will move the world. Remember it is the person, the life, which is the secret of power — nothing else. Keep this letter and read the last lines whenever you feel worried or jealous. Jealousy is the bane of all slaves. It is the bane of our nation. Avoid that always.

Excerpts from The Gospel of Holy Mother - Grief

People complain about their griefs and sorrows and how they pray to God but find no relief from pain. But grief itself is a gift from God. It is the symbol of His compassion. C220-2l & TN249 In the Company of the Holy Mother. By Her Direct Disciples. Calcutta : Advaita Ashrama, 1980 & Swami Tapasyananda and Swami Nikhilananda. Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1977.

Poverty, Wealth... (Excerpt from a article from RKM)

Poverty is a curse. It saps all energy, enthusiasm and higher aspirations of human beings. If a man is worried about his daily bread he cannot do any good to others. Material prosperity is only a means and not an end. It sets free people from the constant struggle for survival. But if it becomes an end then it becomes a curse. It unleashes all the animal instincts in man. Eat, drink and enjoy only such hedonistic ideas will prevail. Satisfaction of the physical cravings and no other higher ideal will dictate life. The purpose of evolution is to lift animal to man and man to divine. Here spiritual wisdom steps in. Secular life without spirituality is blind and spirituality without secular life is lame. Therefore the emphasis of the Vedas on both – from the stage of an active life one must move onto the life of spirituality. Our eternal soul is encased in an impermanent physical body. This covering of matter or the body is not everything. It has to be well looked after, taken care of but it should not become an object of worship. It should help us to discover the immortal soul inside.

Excerpts from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Lectures And Discourses/Steps To Realisation

All the misery we have is of our own choosing; such is our nature

In some oil mills in India, bullocks are used that go round and round to grind the oil-seed. There is a yoke on the bullock's neck. They have a piece of wood protruding from the yoke, and on that is fastened a wisp of straw. The bullock is blindfolded in such a way that it can only look forward, and so it stretches its neck to get at the straw; and in doing so, it pushes the piece of wood out a little further; and it makes another attempt with the same result, and yet another, and so on. It never catches the straw, but goes round and round in the hope of getting it, and in so doing, grinds out the oil. In the same way you and I who are born slaves to nature, money and wealth, wives and children, are always chasing a wisp of straw, a mere chimera, and are going through an innumerable round of lives without obtaining what we seek.
...Study your own lives, and find how little of happiness there is in them, and how little in truth you have gained in the course of this wild-goose chase of the world.

...We may study all the books that are in the world, yet we may not understand a word of religion or of God. We may talk all our lives and yet may not be the better for it; we may be the most intellectual people the world ever saw, and yet we may not come to God at all. On the other hand, have you not seen what irreligious men have been produced from the most intellectual training?

...If you are pure, you will reach God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." If you are not pure, and you know all the sciences in the world, that will not help you at all; you may be buried in all the books you read, but that will not be of much use. It is the heart that reaches the goal. Follow the heart. A pure heart sees beyond the intellect; it gets inspired; it knows things that reason can never know, and whenever there is conflict between the pure heart and the intellect, always side with the pure heart, even if you think what your heart is doing is unreasonable. When it is desirous of doing good to others, your brain may tell you that it is not politic to do so, but follow your heart, and you will find that you make less mistakes than by following your intellect. The pure heart is the best mirror for the reflection of truth, so all these disciplines are for the purification of the heart. And as soon as it is pure, all truths flash upon it in a minute; all truth in the universe will manifest in your heart, if you are sufficiently pure.