Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Being is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.

I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I Am,' or divine spark within the soul.

The state of self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been.

How do we awaken to this true Self? By going within and putting our attention on the silent presence in our heart - the silent witness that is detached from sensory experience and at the same time enjoys that experience in complete freedom.

There is no mind to control if you realise the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth. In the realised man, the mind may be active or inactive, the self remains for him.

Our identification with the mind and body is the chief reason for our failure to know our self as we truly are.

Discover your undying Self and be immortal and happy.

Healing is the discovery of the Divinity within.

Do not feed your ego and your problems with your attention. ...Slowly, surely, the ego will lose weight, until one fine day it will be nothing but a thin ghost of its former self. You will be able to see right through it, to the divine presence that shines in each of us.

Pray to yourself, because I'm in your self and you're in My self. We are one Spirit, saith the Lord.

Remove the Ego and Avidya (Ignorance) is gone. Look for it, the ego vanishes and the real Self alone remains.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.

You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.

I think that we all carry the divine within us.

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

For those who have obtained unobstructed knowledge of Self, the world is seen merely as a bondage causing imagination.

Let the inner god that is in each one of us speak. The temple is your body, and the priest is your heart: it is from here that every awareness must begin.

Understanding dissolves fear. When we understand the true nature of our being, fears dissipate. We are spiritual beings, not human beings.

The closest you'll get to God, ever, in your existence, is measured by how close you get to yourself. Because your connection with God is you. He created you. That is the ultimate connection you have with God is you.

One of the tenets in Quaker meditation is that you 'go inside to greet the light.' I am interested in this light that's inside greeting the light that's outside.

The song that starts with 'Neene Rama, neene Shama, neene Allah, neene Yesu,' is very profound. It exhorts people to stop looking for god everywhere and to instead look within themselves.

If you are convinced of God's existence then it rests with you to seek Him, to see Him and to realize Him. Do not search for God outside of you. God can only be found within you, for His only abode is the heart.

I think the source of our sorrow and the source of our joy are intimately entwined. Our sorrow is that we have forgotten who we are, we have forgotten we are one with that source of all life - absolutely indestructible, perfect, joyful. The source of our joy is when we remember that.

When all the Self was conquered and dead, when all passions and desires were silent, then the last must awaken, the innermost of Being that is no longer Self - the great secret!