Vivekananda (1863-1902) was born as Narendranath Datta, and became the chief disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa. He was an Indian monk, philosopher, author, teacher, and key person in introducing yoga and Vedanta to the Western world. Swamiji became a popular figure after the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where he was so impactful that one newspaper described him as "an orator by divine right." Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math to provide spiritual training, and the Ramakrishna Mission to provide charity, social work, and education.

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Swami Vivekananda

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<h4>SWAMI VIVEKANANDA explains the scientific basis of Yoga and the importance of observation in the process.</h4>
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<img decoding="async" class="lazyload img-float-right has-img-center-in-mobile"
 src="http://cdn-prod.heartfulness.org/hfnmag/images/2016/dec/observation-blog.jpg">All our
 knowledge is based upon experience. What we call inferential knowledge, in which we go from the less to the more
 general, or from the general to the particular, has experience as its basis. In what are called the exact sciences,
 people easily find the truth, because it appeals to the particular experiences of every human being. The scientist
 does not tell you to believe in anything, but he has certain results which come from his own experiences, and
 reasoning on them when he asks us to believe in his conclusions, he appeals to some universal experience of humanity.

In every exact science there is a basis which is common to all humanity, so that we can
 at once see the truth or the fallacy of the conclusions drawn therefrom. Now, the question is: Has religion any such
 basis or not? I shall have to answer the question both in the affirmative and in the negative.
Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is said to be based upon faith
 and belief, and, in most cases, consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason why we find all
 religions quarrelling with one another. These theories, again, are based upon belief. One man says there is a great
 Being sitting above the clouds and governing the whole universe, and he asks me to believe that solely on the
 authority of his assertion. In the same way, I may have my own ideas, which I am asking others to believe, and if they
 ask a reason, I cannot give them any.
This is why religion and metaphysical philosophy have a bad name nowadays. Every
 educated man seems to say,“Oh, these religions are only bundles of theories without any standard to judge them by,
 each man preaching his own pet ideas.” Nevertheless, there is a basis of universal belief in religion, governing all
 the different theories and all the varying ideas of different sects in different countries. Going to their basis we
 find that they also are based upon universal experiences.


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<h5 style="text-align: center;">We first observe facts, 
 then generalise, and 
 then draw conclusions 
 or principles.</h5>


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<h4 style="text-align: center;">From&nbsp;Raja Yoga&nbsp;by VIVEKANANDA</h4>
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Observation

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<h4>SWAMI VIVEKANANDA explains why it is necessary to have a teacher in the spiritual field, just as it is in most
 other areas of life.</h4>
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Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection. Whatever
 we are now is the result of our acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be in the future will be
 the result of what we think and do now. But this, the shaping of our own destinies, does not preclude our
 receiving help from outside; nay, in the vast majority of cases such help is absolutely necessary. When it
 comes, the higher powers and possibilities of the soul are quickened, spiritual life is awakened, growth is
 animated, and man becomes holy and perfect in the end.
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<h5 style="text-align: center;">The Guru is the bright mask which God wears 
 in order to come to us. 
 As we look steadily on, gradually the mask falls off 
 and God is revealed.</h5>
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This quickening impulse cannot be derived from books. The soul can only receive impulses from another soul, and
 from nothing else. We may study books all our lives, we may become very intellectual, but in the end we find
 that we have not developed at all spiritually. It is not true that a high order of intellectual development
 always goes hand in hand with a proportionate development of the spiritual side in Man. In studying books we are
 sometimes deluded into thinking that thereby we are being spiritually helped; but if we analyze the effect of
 the study of books on ourselves, we shall find that at the utmost it is only our intellect that derives profit
 from such studies, and not our inner spirit. This inadequacy of books to quicken spiritual growth is the reason
 why, although almost every one of us can speak most wonderfully on spiritual matters, when it comes to action
 and the living of a truly spiritual life, we find ourselves so awfully deficient. To quicken the spirit, the
 impulse must come from another soul.
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">From Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,&nbsp;Vol. 3, Chapter 4</h4>
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The need of Guru

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 />There is a Persian poem that tells how a lover came to the door of his
 beloved, and knocked. She asked, “Who art thou?” and he replied “I am so
 and so, thy beloved!” and she answered only, “Go! I know none such!” But
 when she had asked for the fourth time, he said “I am thyself, O my
 beloved, therefore open thou to me!” and the door was opened.


 A great saint said, using the language of a girl, describing love. “Four
 eyes met. There were changes in two souls. And now I cannot tell whether
 he is a man, and I a woman, or he a woman and I a man. This only I
 remember, two souls were. Love came, and there was one.”


 In the highest love, union is only of the spirit. All love of another
 kind is quickly evanescent. Only the spiritual lasts, and this grows.


 Love sees the Ideal. This is the third angle of the triangle. God has
 been cause, Creator, Father. Love is the culmination. The mother regrets
 that her child is humpbacked, but when she has nursed him for a few
 days, she loves him and thinks him most beautiful. The lover sees
 Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt. We do not commonly realize what
 happens. The brow of Egypt is merely a suggestion: the man sees Helen.
 His ideal is thrown upon the suggestion and covers it, as the oyster
 makes sand into a pearl. God is this ideal, through which man may see
 all.


 Hence we come to love Love itself. This love cannot be expressed. No
 words can utter it. We are dumb about it.


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 Believe first in yourself, then in God. 
 A handful of strong men will move the world. 
 We need a heart to feel; a brain to conceive; 
 and a strong arm to do the work.


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 The senses become very much heightened in love. Human love, we must
 remember, is mixed up with attributes. It is dependent, too, on the
 other’s attitude. Indian languages have words to describe this
 interdependence of love. The lowest love is selfish; it consists in the
 pleasure of being loved. We say in India, ‘one gives the cheek the other
 kisses.’ Above this is mutual love. But this also ceases mutually. True
 love is all giving. We don’t even want to see the other, or to do
 anything to express our feeling. It is enough to give. It is almost
 impossible to love a human being like this, but it is possible so to
 love God. …


 The three angles of the triangle are: Love begs not. Love knows no fear.
 Love is always of the ideal.


 “Who would be able to live one second, 
 Who would be able to breathe one moment, 
 If the Loving one had not filled this universe?”


 Most of us will find that we were born for service. We must leave the
 results to God. If failure comes, there need be no sorrow. The work was
 done only for God.


 In women, the mother-nature is much developed. They worship God as the
 child. They ask nothing, and will do anything. …


 Deepen your own power of thought and love. Bring your own lotus to
 blossom: the bees will come of themselves. Believe first in yourself,
 then in God. A handful of strong men will move the world. We need a
 heart to feel; a brain to conceive; and a strong arm to do the work.
 Buddha gave himself for the animals. Make yourself a fit agent to work.
 But it is God who works, not you. One man contains the whole universe.
 One particle of matter has all the energy of the Universe at its back.
 In a conflict between the heart and the brain follow your heart.


 Notes of a lecture delivered in London on November 16, 1895, 
 from Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 8.

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<h4 style="text-align: center">Article by SWAMI VIVEKANANDA</h4>

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The religion of love

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<h4>SWAMI VIVEKANANDA explains the relationship between consciousness,
 superconsciousness and Samadhi.</h4>
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Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is
 above consciousness, and which also is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on
 the middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line, there is no feeling of ‘I’, and yet the mind works.
 When the mind goes beyond this line of selfconsciousness, it is called Samadhi or superconsciousness.
How, for instance, do we know that a man in Samadhi has not gone below
 consciousness, has not degenerated instead of going higher? In both cases the works are unaccompanied with egoism.
 The answer is, by the effects, by the results of the work, we know that which is below, and that which is above.
 When a man goes into deep sleep, he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time, he
 breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is unconscious, and
 when he returns from his sleep, he is the same man who went into it. The sum total of the knowledge which he had
 before he went into the sleep remains the same; it does not increase at all. No enlightenment comes. But when a man
 goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a fool, he comes out a sage.
What makes the difference? From one state a man comes out the very same man that he went
 in, and from another state the man comes out enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed,
 his life changed, illumined. These are the two effects. Now the effects being different, the causes must be
 different. As this illumination with which a man comes back from Samadhi is much higher than can be got
 from unconsciousness, or much higher than can be got by reasoning in a conscious state, it must, therefore, be
 superconsciousness, and Samadhi is called the superconscious state.


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<h5 style="text-align: center;">When the mind goes 
 beyond this line of self-consciousness, 
 it is called Samadhi or superconsciousness.
</h5>


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This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its application? The
 application is here. The field of reason, or of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and limited. There is
 a little circle within which human reason must move. It cannot go beyond. Every attempt to go beyond is impossible,
 yet it is beyond this circle of reason that there lies all that humanity holds most dear.
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All these questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether
 there is any supreme intelligence guiding this universe or not, are beyond the field of reason.
Reason can never answer these questions. What does reason say? It says, “I am agnostic;
 I do not know either yea or nay.” Yet these questions are so important to us. Without a proper answer to them, human
 life will be purposeless. All our ethical theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in human
 nature, have been molded upon answers that have come from beyond the circle. It is very important, therefore, that
 we should have answers to these questions. If life is only a short play, if the universe is only a “fortuitous
 combination of atoms,” then why should I do good to another? Why should there be mercy, justice, or fellow-feeling?
 The best thing for this world would be to make hay while the sun shines, each man for himself. If there is no hope,
 why should I love my brother, and not cut his throat? If there is nothing beyond, if there is no freedom, but only
 rigorous dead laws, I should only try to make myself happy here. You will find people saying nowadays that they have
 utilitarian grounds as the basis of morality. What is this basis? Procuring the greatest amount of happiness to the
 greatest number. Why should I do this? Why should I not produce the greatest unhappiness to the greatest number, if
 that serves my purpose?
How will utilitarians answer this question? How do you know what is right, or what is
 wrong? I am impelled by my desire for happiness, and I fulfil it, and it is in my nature; I know nothing beyond. I
 have these desires, and must fulfil them; why should you complain? Whence come all these truths about human life,
 about morality, about the immortal soul, about God, about love and sympathy, about being good, and, above all, about
 being unselfish?
All ethics, all human action and all human thought, hang upon this one idea of
 unselfishness. The whole idea of human life can be put into that one word, unselfishness. Why should we be
 unselfish? Where is the necessity, the force, the power, of my being unselfish? You call yourself a rational man, a
 utilitarian, but if you do not show me a reason for utility, I say you are irrational. Show me the reason why I
 should not be selfish. To ask one to be unselfish may be good as poetry, but poetry is not reason. Show me a reason.
 Why shall I be unselfish, and why be good? Because Mr and Mrs soand- so say so does not weigh with me. Where is the
 utility of my being unselfish? My utility is to be selfish if utility means the greatest amount of happiness. What
 is the answer? The utilitarian can never give it.
The answer is that this world is only one drop in an infinite ocean, one link in an
 infinite chain. Where did those that preached unselfishness, and taught it to the human race, get this idea? We know
 it is not instinctive; the animals, which have instinct, do not know it. Neither is it reason; reason does not know
 anything about these ideas. Whence then did they come?
We find, in studying history, one fact held in common by all the great teachers of
 religion the world ever had. They all claim to have got their truths from beyond, only many of them did not know
 where they got them from. For instance, one would say that an angel came down in the form of a human being, with
 wings, and said to him, “Hear, O man, this is the message.” Another says that a Deva, a bright being, appeared to
 him. A third says he dreamed that his ancestor came and told him certain things. He did not know anything beyond
 that. But this is common that all claim that this knowledge has come to them from beyond, not through their
 reasoning power. What does the science of Yoga teach? It teaches that they were right in claiming that all this
 knowledge came to them from beyond reasoning, but that it came from within themselves.


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<h5 style="text-align: center;">All ethics, all human action and all human thought, 
 hang upon this one idea of unselfishness. 
 The whole idea of human life can be put 
 into that one word, unselfishness.
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The Yogi teaches that the mind itself has a higher state of existence, beyond reason, a
 superconscious state, and when the mind gets to that higher state, then this knowledge, beyond reasoning, comes to
 man. Metaphysical and transcendental knowledge comes to that man. This state of going beyond reason, transcending
 ordinary human nature, may sometimes come by chance to a man who does not understand its science; he, as it were,
 stumbles upon it. When he stumbles upon it, he generally interprets it as coming from outside. So this explains why
 an inspiration, or transcendental knowledge, may be the same in different countries, but in one country it will seem
 to come through an angel, and in another through a Deva, and in a third through God. What does it mean? It means
 that the mind brought the knowledge by its own nature, and that the finding of the knowledge was interpreted
 according to the belief and education of the person through whom it came. The real fact is that these various men,
 as it were, stumbled upon this superconscious state.
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Excerpt from Chapter 7 of Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda.
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by SWAMI VIVEKANANDA</h4>


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Swami Vivekananda

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