If you cannot love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?

Vedanta is to know man as he really is, and this is its message, that if you cannot worship your brother man, the manifested God, how can you worship a God who is unmanifested?

Do you not remember what the Bible says, “If you cannot love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?” If you cannot see God in the human face, how can you see him in the clouds, or in images made of dull, dead matter, or in mere fictitious stories of our brain? I shall call you religious from the day you begin to see God in men and women, and then you will understand what is meant by turning the left cheek to the man who strikes you on the right. When you see man as God, everything, even the tiger, will be welcome. Whatever comes to you is but the Lord, the Eternal, the Blessed One, appearing to us in various forms, as our father, and mother, and friend, and child — they are our own soul playing with us.

Swami Vivekananda from Practical Vedanta

You have contact but you don’t have connection

A Monk of the RamaKrishna Mission was being interviewed by a journalist from NY.

The journalist  started interviewing the Monk as planned earlier.

Journalist – “Sir, in your last lecture, you told us about Jogajog (contact) & Sanjog (connection). It’s really confusing. Can you explain ? ” Continue reading

Freedom is never to be reached by the weak


Swami VivekanandaMentally repeat, “Let all beings be happy; let all beings be peaceful; let all beings be blissful.” So do to the east, south, north and west. The more you do that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest way to make ourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy. Continue reading

Give up nibbling at things…..

Image result for vivekanandaThose who really want to be Yogis must give up, once for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Continue reading