https://www.facebook.com/108991141720476/

Ramakrishna Vivekananda Divinity School

Home
India
Pune
Ramakrishna Vivekananda Divinity School

Awake! And Stop not till the goal is reached.

Get connected to start your day with inspirational quotes and teachings from Ramakrishna Vivekananda Vedanta Literature and Divine Life incidents of Sri Ramakrishna, Maa Sarada Devi & Swami Vivekananda

Arise!

27/08/2026

Then, there is the tremendous fact of death. The whole world is going towards death; everything dies. All our progress, our vanities, our reforms, our luxuries, our wealth, our knowledge, have that one end — death. That is all that is certain. Cities come and go, empires rise and fall, planets break into pieces and crumble into dust, to be blown about by the atmospheres of other planets. Thus it has been going on from time without beginning. Death is the end of everything. Death is the end of life, of beauty, of wealth, of power, of virtue too. Saints die and sinners die, kings die and beggars die. They are all going to death, and yet this tremendous clinging on to life exists. Somehow, we do not know why, we cling to life; we cannot give it up. And this is Maya.

The mother is nursing a child with great care; all her soul, her life, is in that child. The child grows, becomes a man, and perchance becomes a blackguard and a brute, kicks her and beats her every day; and yet the mother clings to the child; and when her reason awakes, she covers it up with the idea of love. She little thinks that it is not love, that it is something which has got hold of her nerves, which she cannot shake off; however she may try, she cannot shake off the bo***ge she is in. And this is Maya.

We are all after the Golden Fleece. Every one of us thinks that this will be his. Every reasonable man sees that his chance is, perhaps, one in twenty millions, yet everyone struggles for it. And this is Maya.

Death is stalking day and night over this earth of ours, but at the same time we think we shall live eternally. A question was once asked of King Yudhishthira, "What is the most wonderful thing on this earth?" And the king replied, "Every day people are dying around us, and yet men think they will never die." And this is Maya.

~Swami Vivekananda
Complete-Works / Volume 2 / Jnana-Yoga / MAYA AND ILLUSION
(Delivered in London)

26/08/2026

I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything he really deserves.

The past was great no doubt, but I sincerely believe that the future will be more glorious still.

May Shankara keep us steady in purity, patience, and perseverance!

~Swami Vivekananda
Complete Works / Volume 4 / Writings: Prose / Reply to the Calcutta Address

25/08/2026

[Place: On the way from Calcutta to Cossipore and in the garden of the late Gopal Lal Seal. Year: 1897.]

Swamiji: Learn that truth from us, understand it, and realise it and then spread that idea broadcast, in cities, in towns, and in villages.

Go and preach to all, "Arise, awake, sleep no more; within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries. Believe this, and that power will be manifested."

Teach this to all, and, with that, spread among the masses in plain language the central truths of science, philosophy, history, and geography. I have a plan to open a centre with the unmarried youths; first of all I shall teach them, and then carry on the work through them.

Disciple: But that requires a good deal of money. Where will you get this money?

Swamiji: What do you talk! Isn't it man that makes money. Where did you ever hear of money making man? If you can make your thoughts and words perfectly at one, if you can, I say, make yourself one in speech and action, money will pour in at your feet of itself, like water.

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda / Volume 6 / Conversations and Dialogues / II

(The disciple is Sharatchandra Chakravarty, who published his records in a Bengali book, Swami-Shishya-Samvâda, in two parts. The present series of "Conversations and Dialogues" is a revised translation from this book. Five dialogues of this series have already appeared in the Complete Works, Vol. V. )

24/08/2026

Everything that we see, or imagine, or dream, we have to perceive in space. This is the ordinary space, called the Mahâkâsha, or elemental space.

When a Yogi reads the thoughts of other men, or perceives supersensuous objects he sees them in another sort of space called the Chittâkâsha, the mental space.

When perception has become objectless, and the soul shines in its own nature, it is called the Chidâkâsha, or knowledge space.

~Swami Vivekananda
Complete-Works / Volume 1 / Raja-Yoga / THE PSYCHIC PRANA

23/08/2026

Science and Vedas
_______________

Truth is of two kinds:

(1) that which is cognizable by the five ordinary senses of man, and by reasoning based thereon;

(2) that which is cognizable by the subtle, supersensuous power of Yoga.

Knowledge acquired by the first means is called science; and knowledge acquired by the second is called the Vedas.

~Swami Vivekananda
Complete-Works / Volume 6 / Writings: Prose and Poems / HINDUISM AND SHRI RAMAKRISHNA

22/08/2026

Swami Vivekananda, late in the year l895 wrote in a letter to an English friend, "Mr. Tesla thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy. I am to go and see him next week to get this new mathematical demonstration. In that case the Vedantic cosmoloqy will be placed on the surest of foundations. I am working a good deal now upon the cosmology and eschatology of the Vedanta. I clearly see their perfect union with modern science, and the elucidation of the one will be followed by that of the other."

Here Swamiji uses the terms force and matter for the Sanskrit terms Prana and Akasha. Tesla used the Sanskrit terms and apparently understood them as energy and mass. (In Swamiji's day, as in many dictionaries published in the first half of the present century, force and energy were not always clearly differentiated. Energy is a more proper translation of the Sanskrit term Prana.)

Tesla apparently failed in his effort to show the identity of mass and energy. Apparently he understood that when speed increases, mass must decrease. He seems to have thought that mass might be "converted" to energy and vice versa, rather than that they were identical in some way, as is pointed out in Einstein's equations. At any rate, Swamiji seems to have sensed where the difficulty lay in joining the maps of European science and Advaita Vedanta and set Tesla to solve the problem. It is apparently in the hope that Tesla would succeed in this that Swamiji says "In that case the Vedantic cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations." Unfortunately Tesla failed and the solution did not come till ten years later, in a paper by Albert Einstein. But by then Swamiji was gone and the connecting of the maps was delayed.

~Swami Vivekananda - Anecdotes

21/08/2026

There came to him an atheist, the Assistant Professor of Science in the Christian College, Singdravelu Mudaliar. He saw the pragmatic values of Christianity and criticised Hinduism. He came to argue, but at the end of the conversation he was converted to the Swami's way of thinking and became his ardent disciple.

The Swami loved him very much and called him "Kidi”. He said of him afterwards jocularly: “Caesar said: “I came, I saw, I conquered”. But Kidi came, he saw, and was conquered!” After a time Kidi devoted his life to the Swami’s cause, and when at his suggestion the Prabuddha Bharata was started in Madras, Kidi became its honorary manager. He later renounced the world to lead the life of a recluse and died a saintly death.

Mr. V. Subramanya Iyer says that he went with some of his class-fellows to the house of Mr. Bhattacharya, intending to have some fun. They found the Swami smoking his Ho**ah in a sort of half-awake, half-dreamy state, seemingly in deep contemplation. One bolder than the others advanced and asked: “Sir, what is God?” The Swami smoked on, as if entirely oblivious of the question. Then he raised his eyes, and said as if by way of reply: “Well, my fellow, what is energy?” When the boy and his companions were unable to give any real definition, the Swami roused himself and said: “What is this! You cannot define a simple word like “energy”, which you use every day of your life, and yet you want me to define God!” They asked other questions, but the Swami’s replies crushed them.

After a time the boys left, but Mr. Iyer, who was greatly impressed remained and accompanied the Swami and his disciples on his daily walk to the seashore. Casually the Swami asked Mr. Iyer: “Well, my boy, can you wrestle?” Receiving an answer in the affirmative the Swami said in fun. “Come, let us have a tussle”. Surprised at the Swami’s athletic skill and strength of muscle, Mr. Iyer called him “Taiwan Swami” or the “Athlete Swami”.

~Swami Vivekananda – A Biography: By His Eastern & Western Disciples / In Madras and Hyderabad

20/08/2026

A gathering was an everyday occurrence when Swami ji used to stay in Calcutta. At every hour of the day, from early morning till eight or nine at night, men would flock to him. ... "His only reply was, ‘They take so much trouble to come, walking all the way from their homes, and can I, sitting here, not speak a few words to them, merely because I risk my health a little?’"

The Swami at that time was an embodiment of love. His heart went out to meet everybody. His grace descended upon all, saints and sinners alike. The misery of the world afflicted him terribly. Perhaps he also knew that the time for his final passing away was approaching. So he could not deny his blessings and benediction to anybody. As a result it was found that many persons who apparently led indifferent lives were initiated by him into the mysteries of spirituality. Soon a whisper went round the Math that the Swami was not a proper judge of a man’s inner propensities, that one could easily satisfy him with a few words of praise. Otherwise how could he give his blessings to men of such worldly propensities?

These gossips particularly wounded the feeling of a disciple, and he one day, as the Swami was taking his evening stroll in the Math compound, approached him and said, “Well, Swamiji, I have something to ask you.” “Yes,” said the Swami without turning his head. Then the disciple said, cMuch talk is going round the Math that you cannot properly discriminate a right person from a wrong one. You bestow your grace upon everybody without looking into his previous life or inner propensities. As a result we find some of your disciples leading an indifferent life even after receiving your blessings.”

The Swami suddenly turned his head towards the disciple and exclaimed moved with emotion, “My boy, do you say that I do not know a man! What! When I see a man I not only find out the working of his inner self, but even get a glimpse of his previous life. I know what is going on in his subconscious mind. Even he does not know it. But, then, do you know why I bless such persons? The poor souls have knocked at every gate to get a little peace of mind. But they have been refused everywhere. They have come to me at last. If I, too, refuse them, they will have nothing else to fall back upon. So I do not discriminate. Oh, they are so afflicted! The world is so full of miseries! ”

In this he was so like his Master, Shri Ramakrishna!

~SWAMI VIVEKANANDA - A Biography By His Eastern and Western Disciples / ###IV / AMONGST HIS OWN PEOPLE

19/08/2026

We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.

You will say, “What is the use of learning how to work? Everyone works in some way or other in this world.” But there is such a thing as frittering away our energies.

With regard to Karma-Yoga, the Gita says that it is doing work with cleverness and as a science; by knowing how to work, one can obtain the greatest results. You must remember that all work is simply to bring out the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. The power is inside every man, so is knowing; the different works are like blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.

~Swami Vivekananda
Complete Works/Volume 1/Karma-Yoga/Karma In Its Effect On Character
CWSW/Vol. 1/Karma-Yoga/Karma In Its Effect On Character

18/08/2026

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas.

If you have assimilated five ideas and mad e them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.

यथा खरश्चन्दनभारवाही भारस्य वेत्ता न तु चन्दनस्य। — "The ass carrying its load of sandalwood knows only the weight and not the value of the sandalwood."

If education is identical with information, the libraries are the greatest sages in the world, and encyclopaedias are the Rishis.

The ideal, therefore, is that we must have the whole education of our country, spiritual and secular, in our own hands, and it must be on national lines, through national methods as far as practical.

~Swami Vivekananda
Complete-Works / Volume 3 / Lectures from Colombo to Almora / THE FUTURE OF INDIA

Address

Ramakrishna Math
Pune

Telephone

+919284758211

Website

facebook.com

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ramakrishna Vivekananda Divinity School posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The School

Send a message to Ramakrishna Vivekananda Divinity School:

Want your school to be the top-listed School/college in Pune?