SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

quotes of Swami Vivekananda


swami Vivekananda was one of the most famous and influential spiritual leaders of the Vedanta philosophy, He was the chief disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and was the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission Many consider him an icon for his fearless courage, his positive exhortations to the youth, his broad outlook on social problems, and countless lectures and discourses on Vedanta philosophy Narendranath Datta (Vivekananda) was born into a prominent Calcutta (now Kolkata) family on January 12, 1863. 

His father was a well-known lawyer and his mother was a cultured and aristocratic woman. As a child, he was uncontrollably boisterous and high-spirited. As a boy, he was an excellent athlete and superlative student. He read everything ravenously and retained everything he read. Never content to believe what he was told, he always demanded incontrovertible proof or experiential certainty before he would believe anything.


Vivekananda was deeply religious and this same integrity colored his quest for God. He went from one religious man to another and asked them if they had seen God. Finally, he met Sri Ramakrishna who was the only one to tell him that yes, he had seen God and could show him, too. Thus began the discipleship of this highly educated and cultured boy to the mostly illiterate rustic temple priest saint.


After five years of training, his teacher died. Before Sri Ramakrishna had named Narendranath, the leader of all of his disciples, young Narendra took the monastic name, Swami Vivekananda and founded a monastery where he and his brother disciples could carry on their spiritual practices. Following Indian monastic tradition he and the other monastics divided their time between the monastery and traveling as itinerant monks, Swami Vivekananda spent many years traveling through all parts of the Indian subcontinent.


In May of 1893, a group of his disciples sent the Swami to the United States to attend the Parliament of World Religions that was being conducted in conjunction with the World's Fair in Chicago. His speeches at the Parliament so impressed listeners that Swami Vivekananda was invited to speak all around Chicago, and then all through the eastern United States. Everywhere he went he inspired people with his master's message: Each soul is divine and the goal of life is for each of us to realize that divinity for ourselves.