Sayings Of Swami Vivekananda-4

• We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work.

• Do one thing at a time and while doing it put your whole soul into it to the exclusion of all else. • Let not a ripple conquer the mind....................................... BE ‘UNATTACHED’; let things work; let brain-centers work; work incessantly, but let not a ripple conquer the mind. Work as if you were a stranger in this land, a sojourner; work incessantly, but do not bind yourselves; bondage is terrible. • WE SHALL HAVE TO WORK, GIVING UP ALTOGETHER ALL DESIRE FOR RESULTS. People will call us both good and bad. BUT WE SHALL HAVE TO WORK LIKE LIONS, KEEPING THE IDEAL BEFORE US, without caring whether “the wise ones praise or blame us”.

• What is the purpose of life?

Work, work, for to work only for the good of others is life. • When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for the little being. • It is the worker who is attached to the results that grumbles abut the nature of the duty which has fallen to his lot; to the unattached worker all duties are equally good, and form efficient instrument with which selfishness and sensuality may be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured. • Think that the whole work is upon your shoulders. • Do not give up the world; live in the world, imbibe its influences as much as you can; but if it be for your own enjoyment’s sake, work not at all.

• Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come out. • Stop not to look for name, or fame, or any such nonsense. Throw self overboard and work. • Work in harmony. • Work on with all energy. • Go on working. • Have patience and work. • Hold yourself as a witness and go on working. • The calmer we are the less disturbed our nerves, the more shall we love and the better will our work be.

• Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things! Let not the barks of puppies frighten you------------------no, not even the thunder bolts of heaven-------------------but stand up and work! • Work, work-------------------conquer all by your love! • Arise, ye mighty one, and be strong! Work on and on, struggle on and on! • •

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The Lord has hidden Himself best and His work is best; so he who hides himself best, accomplishes most. Work hard. Be holy and pure and the fire will come. Our best work and our greatest influence is when we are without a thought of self. We need a heart to feel, a brain to conceive, and a strong arm to do the work. Work on! Hold on! Be brave! Dare anything and everything. Patience and steady work----------this is the only work. Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over the others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And the truth is with us!

• You work best when you work for others. • I shall work incessantly until I die; and even after death I shall work for the good of the world. Truth is infinitely more weighty than untruth; so is goodness. If you possess these, they will make their way by sheer gravity. • Do not be anxious, do not be in a hurry. Slow, persistent and silent work does everything. • If you are poor, work. If you are rich, work. If you are burdened with un-seemingly unfair responsibilities, work. If disappointments come, work. If sorrow overwhelms you and loved ones seem not true, work. If health is threatened, work. When dreams are shattered and hope seems dead, work. Work as if your life is in peril. Its really is. No matter what ails you, work. Work faithfully. Work in faith. Work is the great remedy available for both mental and physical afflictions. • "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof" (Gita, 2.47). We can train ourselves to know and to practice that, says the Karma Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part of our very being, then we will not seek for any motive outside. Class on Karma Yoga. New York, 1896. Complete Works, 1:116. •

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Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is possible to come out. Through this machinery itself is the way out. Karma Yoga is a method of purifying the mind through work. ... All fear and all desire to enjoy here or hereafter must be banished for ever by the Karma Yogi. The karma without desire of return will destroy the selfishness, which is the root of all bondage. The watchword of the Karma Yogi is "not I, but Thou," and no amount of self-sacrifice is too much for such a person. Work is a part of nature's foundation, and work always goes on. Those who believe in God understand this better, because they know that God is not such an incapable being as will need our help. Although this universe will go on always, our goal is

freedom, our goal is unselfishness. According to Karma Yoga, that goal is to be reached through work.

• Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business. • Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming. • Do you think these sannyasi children of Sri Ramakrishna are born to simply to sit under trees lighting dhuni-fires? Whenever any of them will take up some work, people will be astonished to see their energy. Learn from them how to work. • Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste. No work is petty. Everything in this world is like a banyan-seed, which, though appearing tiny as a mustard-seed, has yet the gigantic banyan tree latent within it. He indeed is intelligent who notices this and succeeds in making all work truly great……………. • Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles. • It is only work that is done as a free-will offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment. • Look here--we shall die! Bear this in mind always, and then the spirit within will wake up. Only then will meanness vanish from you, practicality in work will come, you will get new vigor in mind and body, and those who come in contact with you will also feel that they have really got something uplifting from you.

Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work. • Put God behind everything—human beings, animals, food, and work. Make this a habit. • The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work. • Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God. •

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To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean”, says the persevering soul; “at my will mountains will crumble up”. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.

• We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we are ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the Light. • What about this marvelous experience of standing alone, discarding all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty, and of working a whole life, joyful, free -- not goaded on to work like slaves by false human love or ambition? Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you get. In the long run, nature did her work through you, and when you die

your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round. • What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love--selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt. Awake, awake, great souls! The world is burning in misery. Can you sleep? Work unto death--I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes--wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth than to die like a worldly worm. Advance! • Whose meditation is real and effective? Who can really surrender to the will of God? Only the person whose mind has been purified by selfless work.

• Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower. • Work unto death—I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. Your country requires Heroes; Be Heroes! Your duty is to go on working, and then every thing will follow of itself. • Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood. • Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste. •

• Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

• Work, work, work - let this be your motto. • None can help you, help yourself; work out your own salvation. • He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else. • Put yourself to work, and you will find such tremendous power coming to you that you will feel it hard to bear. • Readiness to jump into the fire……………… • The watchword of all well-being, of all moral good, is not ‘I’ but ‘Thou’. Who cares whether there is a heaven or a hell, who cares if there is a soul or not, who cares if there is an unchangeable or not? Here is the world, and it is full of misery. Go out into it as Buddha did, and struggle to lessen it or die in the attempt. Forget yourselves; this is the first lesson to be learnt, whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you are an agnostic or a Vedantist or a Christian or a Mohammedan. • Plunge in! Do the duty at hand. • Let us be brave. KNOW THE TRUTH AND PRACTISE THE TRUTH. THE GOAL MAY BE DISTINCT, BUT AWAKE, ARISE, AND STOP NOT TILL THE GOAL IS REACHED. • You have to plunge in and work, without thinking of the result. •

Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness and all care as to what becomes of you.

Your duty is to go on working, and then everything will follow of itself. • Slow but sure. • We speak of many things parrot-like, but never do them; speaking and not doing has become a habit with us. What is the cause of that? Physical weakness. This sort of weak brain is not able to do anything. We must strengthen it. First of all our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through a study of the Gita. You will understand Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little stronger. You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of Krishna better with a little of strong blood in you. You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman when your body stands firm upon your feet and you feel yourselves as men. •

• What is now wanted is a combination of the greatest heart with the highest intellectuality, of infinite love with the infinite knowledge. • Life is short: Give it up to a Great cause. Arise! awake! and stop not till the goal is reached. • Take up an idea, devote yourself to it, struggle on in patience, and the sun will rise for you. • Do not search for God in obscure places, for God is there in front of you in millions forms. He who loves creation is serving God…………….Throw away the paraphernalia of worship! Go out and worship man, for God has appeared in the form

of man, and to worship man is to serve man and to serve is to toil and labour. • Work on with a heart. • Lay off our refusal to strive and conquer the material world, our refusal to work hard. This desire to strive, to prosper was what we lacked and had perhaps lacked throughout our history. It was but for this desire to strive and prosper, that Europe had encompassed the whole world. We need that striving, we need that love for freedom, we need that quality of self-reliance, we need unassailable patience, we need skill, that impregnable sense of unity, that striving for improvement, a new spirit, which will stop us from looking back and will make us look ahead. We need these qualities in our blood-stream throb ling in every vein of our bodies.

• We are everything, ready to do everything, we can do everything, and man must do everything. • Every work should be made thorough. • Be content to work---------------and, above all, be true to yourself. • Now, do not talk; work, work, work! • Get up, and put your shoulders to the wheel.

• No great things were ever done without great labour. • You must be ready to plunge into fire-----------------then will work be done. • The true hero works in silence. • Whatever you do let that be your worship for the time. • We must all work incessantly. • Idleness won’t do.

• Off with laziness. • Give up jealousy and conceit. Learn to work unitedly for others. This is the great need of our country. • Flying from work is never the way to find peace. • Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. • None of us can get anything other than what we fix our hearts upon. • Appreciation or no appreciation, sleep not, slacken not. • The man who is pure and who dares, does all things. • Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. Never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times; and if you fail a thousand times make the attempt once more. • I have experienced even in my insignificant life that good motives, sincerity and infinite love can conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark design of millions of hypocrites and brutes. • Purity, patience, and perseverance overcome all obstacles. •

Refer UNSELFISHNESS; LOVE LOVE LOVE; THINKING; LOVE; SUCCESS;

• Perfect sincerity, holiness, gigantic intellect, and an all conquering will. • Accept the beneficial, discard the pleasure. • The highest man cannot work, for in them there is no attachment. • Take heart and work. • Doing good is not always smooth! • The true hero works in silence. • Work for work’s sake. • Work of your own free will, not from duty. • Take courage and work on.

• I want my work to be quick like lightening, and firm as adamant. • Patience and steady work-------------this is the only way. • Too much sentiment hurts work. • Some would call you a saint, some a Chandala; some a lunatic, others a demon. Go on then straight to thy work without heeding either. • We want infinite energy, infinite zeal, infinite courage, and infinite patience, then only will great things be achieved. • Live for an ideal, and leave no place in the mind for anything else. • Keep the ideal in view and work towards it. • Great enterprise, boundless courage, tremendous energy, and above all, perfect obedience-----------these are the only traits that lead to individual and national regeneration. • Work out the salvation of this land and of the whole world, each of you thinking that the entire burden is on your shoulders. •

Work through freedom! Work through love! The word “love” is very difficult to understand; love never comes until there is freedom. There is no true love possible in the slave.

• Work on as if on each of you depended the whole work. • Where is no thought, there will be no work. • The man who gives way to anger, or hatred or any other passion cannot work; he only breaks himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work. • Now, work work work. • Come on to the practical field with tremendous energy; to work, in the fullness of strength!

• Have faith in yourselves, great convictions are the mothers of great deeds. Onward for ever! • Work on, the best way you can. • No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through Love, a passion for Truth, and tremendous energy, that all undertakings are accomplished. • We must persevere until the goal is reached. • Great things can be done by great sacrifices only. • We must have plodding industry and perseverance.

• Be unselfish even unto death, and work.

• Work, work, work---------------------I care for nothing else. Work, work, work, even unto death. • Learn with all devotion. • Do not delay a moment. Leave nothing for tomorrow. Get ready for the final event, which may overtake you immediately, even now. • My children must be ready to jump into fire, if needed, to accomplish their work. •

Throw the ideas broadcast, and let the result take care of itself.

• GREAT WORK------------Who does it Was it ever in the history of the world that any great work was done by the rich? It is the heart and the brain that do it ever and ever and not the purse. • Never turn back to see the result of what you have done. • Take courage and work on. Patience and steady work----------------this is the only way. Go on; remember---------patience and purity and courage and steady work. So long as you are pure, and true to your principles, you will never fail. • O hero, awake, and dream no more.

• Calm and silent and steady work, and no newspaper humbug, no name-making, you must always remember. • The body must go, no mistake about that. Why then let it go in idleness? • On and on, work, work, this is only the beginning. • Work on, the best way you can. • Desire nothing; think of God and look for no return. It is the desire less who bring results. • Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others. • Hold on to the ideal. March on! Do not look back upon little mistakes and things. In this battle-field of ours, the dust of mistakes must be raised. Those who are so thin-skinned that they cannot bear the dust, let them get out of the ranks. • Stand up and say, I am the Master, the Master of all. We forge the chain, and we alone can break it. • Our actions do not harmonise with our thoughts. • Want of sympathy and lack of energy are at the root of all misery, and you must therefore give these two up. • Work for work’s sake. Worship for worship’s sake. Do good because it is good to do good. Ask no more.

• Seek for the highest, aim at that highest and you shall reach the highest. • No foolish talk now, but actual work. • It is better to do something than to stand still. • Work, work the idea, the plan, my boys, my brave, noble, good souls---------------to the wheel, to the wheel put your shoulders.

• What is the purpose of life? Work, work, for to work only for the good of others is life.

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Wait with patience and love and strength; if helpers not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.

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My boys, when death is inevitable, is it not better to die like heroes than as stocks and stones? And what is the use of living a day or two more in this transitory world? It is better to wear out than to rust out---------------- specially for the sake of doing the least good to others.

• The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention. • Get up, and put your shoulders to the wheel-------------how long is this life for? As you have come into this world, leave some mark behind. Otherwise, where is the difference between you and the trees and stones? They, too, come into existence, decay and die. • Rouse yourselves, therefore, or life is short. There are greater works to be done. • Fill yourselves with the ideal; whatever you do think well on it. • God comes to those who work hard. • Every duty is holy, and devotion to duty is the highest form of the worship of God; it is certainly a source of great help in enlightening and emancipating the deluded and ignorance-------------encumbered souls of the Buddhas-----------------the bound ones. • Men should work for work’s sake only, and love for love’s sake. • Duty of any kind is not to be slighted. • Nothing is done by leading idle lives. • Work hard, be steady, and have faith in the Lord. • You do your own duty, and leave the rest to Him.

• Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.

Modified •

Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste. No work is petty. Everything in this world is like a banyan-seed, which, though appearing tiny as a mustard-seed, has yet the gigantic banyan tree latent within it. He indeed is intelligent who notices this and succeeds in making all work truly great…………….

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Work is a part of nature's foundation, and work always goes on. Those who believe in God understand this better, because they know that God is not such an incapable being as will need our help. Although this universe will go on always, our goal is freedom, our goal is unselfishness. According to Karma Yoga, that goal is to be reached through work.

• Give up jealousy and conceit. Learn to work unitedly for others. This is the great need of our country.

• Whatever you do let that be your worship for the time. • Work through freedom! Work through love! The word “love” is very difficult to understand; love never comes until there is freedom. There is no true love possible in the slave. • Work hard. Be holy and pure and the fire will come. • Your country requires Heroes; Be Heroes! Your duty is to go on working, and then every thing will follow of itself. • Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over the others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And the truth is with us!