Swami Vivekananda Quotes

If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer.

God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that he is so.

We're immersed in the spirit of God all the time. We just don't notice.

When I was a little child, my parents taught me by example to pray. I began with a picture in my mind of Heavenly Father being far away. As I have matured, my experience with prayer has changed. The picture in my mind has become one of a Heavenly Father who is close by, who is bathed in a bright light, and who knows me perfectly.

If only we can open our eyes, we'll see God's love everywhere.

Of a truth, there is an inward, formless, inarticulate, almost unconscious, prayer, the very breath of love, whereby the soul is knit fast to the God whom it has tracked, amidst the tangled underwood of human life, to his covert on the eternal hills.

God is nearer to me than I am to myself; He is just as near to wood and stone, but they do not know it.

...churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that sourround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply.

Heavenly Father hears your prayers, He loves you. He knows your name. He loves you beyond your ability to comprehend.

He finally understood that God's presence was everywhere, at all times, and was experienced by everyone at one time or another.

When you pray, remember that you are not praying to a distant God, but to the God that dwells within you. Don't just speak the words; feel what they mean in your life. Don't pray from your lips, but from your heart. Your prayers aren't for God, they are for you, to remind you of the presence of the Holy Spirit within you. When you say "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done," remember that you are loved and protected. God has planned greater things for us than we can imagine. The more we maintain an awareness of God's unchanging love, the safer and more at home we will feel in the world.

If you find it difficult to love the human in someone, then love the divine in him. The divine in him is God. God exists in that person just as God exists in you. To love God is extremely easy because God is divine and perfect. Each time you look at an individual, if you can consciously become aware of God's existence in him, then you will not be disturbed by his or her imperfections or limitations.

The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God. Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God's constant presence with 'the real me.' Jesus lived his everyday life in conscious awareness of his Father.

Somehow, somewhere, I know that God loves me, even though I do not feel that love as I can feel a human embrace, even though I do not hear a voice as I hear human words...God is greater than my senses, greater than my thoughts, greater than my heart. I do believe that He touches me in places that are unknown even to myself.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.

Do you really know the living Jesus - not from books but from being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you?... The devil may try to use the hurts of life, and sometimes our own mistakes - to make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you, is really cleaving to you. This is a danger for all of us. And so sad, because it is completely the opposite of what Jesus is really wanting, waiting to tell you. Not only that He loves you, but even more - He longs for you.

Let's dare to enter into an intimate relationship with God without fear, trusting that we will receive love and always more love.

So when we sing, 'Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,' we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.

My Lord Jesus Christ, who, for the love You bear to mankind, do remain night and day in this Sacrament, full of pity and love, awaiting, calling, and receiving all who come to visit You; I believe that You are present in the Sacrament of the Altar; I adore You from the depths of my own nothingness; I thank You for the many graces You have given me, and especially for having given me Yourself in this Sacrament.

And yet I do love a kind of light, melody, fragrance, food, embracement when I love my God; for He is the light, the melody, the fragrance, the food, the embracement of my inner self - there where is a brillance that space cannot contain, a sound that time cannot carry away, a perfume that no breeze disperses, a taste undimisnished by eating, a clinging together that no saiety will sunder. This is what I love when I love my God.

The soul which has come into intimate contact with God in the silence of the prayer chamber is never out of conscious touch with the Father; the heart is always going out to Him in loving communion, and the moment the mind is released from the task upon which it is engaged, it returns as naturally to God as the bird does to its nest.

We're called to do more than believe in God, we're called to live in God.

True prayer is an approach of the soul by the Spirit of God to the throne of God.

Do you know God? Do you know there is a power greater than ourselves which manifests itself within us as well as everywhere else in the universe? This I call God. Do you know what it is to know God, to have God's constant guidance, a constant awareness of God's presence? To know God is to reflect love toward all people and all creations. To know God is to feel peace within - a calmness, a serenity, an unshakeableness which enables you to face any situation. To know God is to be so filled with joy that it bubbles over and goes forth to bless the world.

I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My... Self. Call on Me, therefore, wherever and whenever you are separate from the peace that I am. I will be there. With Truth. And Light. And Love.