Sister Nivedita

• To Indian thought alone, there is nothing startling in the words to labour is to pray. Its own message has been nothing less. Struggle is worship. What else does the Gita teach its people? All knowledge is beatitude.

• Ideal There is a vast difference between the human being who lives his life like a mouse or a mole----------------from moment to moment, and sensation to sensation, ----------------------and the man who lives for an idea. Even a mistaken idea is infinitely higher than the life of the senses. • The world’s work is the great Sadhana, wherein we accumulate character, by which, when the time comes, we can rise even into the Nirvikalpa Samadhi itself. Character is self-restraint. Self-restraint is self-direction. Self-direction is concentration. Concentration when perfect is Samadhi. From perfect work to perfect Mukti. This is the swing of the soul. Let us then be perfect in work. • Back to simplicity, and the lofty uses of simplicity! Back to the bareness that was beauty, and the depth of thought that meant culture! Back to the mat on the bare floor, and the thoughts that were so lofty! Let us ordain ourselves free of the means of living; let us give our whole mind to the developing of life itself. • Unless we train the FEELINGS and the CHOICE, our man is not educated. He is only decked out in certain intellectual tricks that he has learnt to perform. By these tricks he can earn his bread. He can not appeal to the heart, or give life. He is not a man at all; he is a cleaver ape. 1.

• Education 1. The training of the attention---------------rather than the learning of any special subject, or the development of any particular faculty------------------has always been as

Vivekananda claimed for it, the chosen goal of Hindu education. •

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2. All power is in the human mind. We can master anything, simply by giving our attention to it.