Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.
It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment.
In nature alone are forms. That which is not of nature cannot have any forms, fine or gross. It must be formless.
Change is the nature of all objective things.
Man in his true nature is substance, soul, spirit.
Realize your true nature. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are – infinite Spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will perish.
Man can never be a woman’s equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
Take any path you like; follow any prophet you like; but have only that method which suits your own nature, so that you will be sure to progress.
The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material condition and feel our divine nature.
The progress and civilisation of the human race simply mean controlling this nature.
Never say, ‘No’, never say, ‘I cannot’, for you are infinite. Even time and space are as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almighty
God is cruel and not cruel. He is all being and not being at the same time. Hence He is all contradictions. Nature also is nothing but a mass of contradictions.
We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
These births and deaths are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in us.
Internal and external nature, mind and matter, are in time and space, and are bound by the law of causation.
He who has conquered the internal nature controls the whole universe; it becomes his servant.
If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.
Man is born to conquer nature and not to follow it.
And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature.
The biggest changes in a women’s nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition
Those which are produced from causes are not produced. they do not have an inherent nature of production. those which depend on causes are said to be empty; those who know emptiness are aware.
Every action that helps us manifest our divine nature more and more is good; every action that retards it is evil.
Each man is perfect by his nature; prophets have manifested this perfection, but it is potential in us.
The only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of fearlessness. Either in this world or in the world of religion, it is true that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature.
Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external.
The glory of man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of man to think and therein he differs from animals
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.
Each man is divine. Each man that you see is a God by his very nature.
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
You know it already that each one of us is the effect of the infinite past; the child is ushered into the world not as something flashing from the hands of nature, as poets delight so much to depict, but he has the burden of an infinite past; for good or evil he comes to work out his own past deeds
Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies. But the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality.
To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.
Only those who want nothing are masters of Nature.
One of the most important things for the growth of a child is exposure to nature and to the elements. Without a healthy body, there is no healthy mind.
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.
We have seemingly been divided, limited, because of our ignorance; and we have become as it were the little Mrs. so – and – so and Mr. so – and – so. But all nature is giving this delusion the lie every moment. I am not that little man or little woman cut off from all else; I am the one universal existence. The soul in its own majesty is rising up every moment and declaring its own intrinsic Divinity.
To the person who desires nothing and does not get entangled in desires, the manifold changes of nature are one panorama of beauty and sublimity.
It is nature that is changing, not the soul of man. This never changes.
External nature is only internal nature writ large.
The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.
If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.
We want Shraddhâ, we want faith in our own selves. Strength is life, weakness is death. ‘We are the Âtman, deathless and free; pure, pure by nature. Can we ever commit any sin? Impossible!’ – such a faith is needed. Such a faith makes men of us, makes gods of us. It is by losing this idea of Shraddha that the country has gone to ruin.
Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
Man cannot be satisfied by wealth. Man cannot go beyond his nature, no more than you can jump out of your body.