Swami Vivekananda Quotes
It is nature that is driving us towards perfection, and eventually she will bring everyone there.
Vivekananda, Swami. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Vol. 1, Advaita Ashrama, 1947, p. 110.
This particular quotation is particularly distressful to some religious fundamentalists who not only will not accept that man evolved, but find it worse to accept that man is continuously evolving.
Darwin believed at the time that large populations were critical to national success and development. The next 100 years would prove that large population was a handicap to progress and real growth of standard of living.
Fisk realized the effect on man of his environment and social conditions, but made the mistake of believing that the normal evolutionary effects as a result of natural selection had stopped. As these changes are slow over many generations, they are hard to personally observe within a human lifetime. Also our effect on our environment changes the environment and that in turn often alters the rules under which natural selection operates. Evolution only stops when a species is extinct.
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta (Bengali: [nɔrendronatʰ dɔto]), was an Indian Hindu monk. He was a chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He was a major force in the contemporary Hindu reform movements in India, and contributed to the concept of nationalism in colonial India. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. He is perhaps best known for his speech which began with the words "Sisters and brothers of America ...," in which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.
