Volume V

...every being is only your own self multiplied.

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...this is the school of misery, which is also the school for great souls and prophets for the cultivation of sympathy, of patience, and, above all, of an indomitable iron will which quakes not even if the universe be pulverised at our feet.

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...great convictions are the mothers of great deeds.

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no good thing can be done without obstruction. It is only those who persevere to the end that succeed.

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Even idiots may stand up to hear themselves praised, and cowards assume the attitude of the brave when everything is sure to turn out well, but the true hero works in silence.

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Upon ages of struggle a character is built.

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I will die a thousands deaths rather than lead a jelly-fish existence and yield to every requirement of this foolish world.

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Come out if you can of this network of foolishness they call this world. Then I will call you indeed brave and free. If you cannot, cheer those that dare dash this false God, society, to the ground and trample on its unmitigated hypocrisy; if you cannot cheer them, pray, be silent, but do not try to drag them down again into the mire with such false nonsense as compromise and becoming nice and sweet.

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I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath.

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Infinite patience, infinite purity, and infinite perseverance are the secret of success in a good cause.

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God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash.

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The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.

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The Lord of all cannot be any particular individual. [It]...must b e the sum total.

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The one great lesson I was taught is that life is misery, nothing but misery.

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One atom has the power of the whole universe at its back.

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A shoemaker who can turn out a strong, nice pair of shoes in the shortest possible time is...better...according to...[their]...profession and...[their]...work, than a professor who talks nonsense every day of...[their]...life.

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Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone.

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If there is any road to Heaven, it is through Hell. Through Hell to Heaven is always the way. When the soul has wrestled with circumstance and has met death, a thousand times death on the way, but nothing daunted has struggled forward again and again and yet again - then the soul comes out as a giant and laughs at the ideal...[they have]...been struggling for, because...[they find]...how much greater...[are they]...than the ideal.

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The flesh and the devil are but degrees of difference from God.

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This very world is seen by the five senses as matter, by the very wicked as hell, by the good as heaven, and by the perfect as God.

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The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.

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If we are inseparable from God, have we no individuality? Oh, yes: that is God. Our individuality is God. This is not the individuality you have now; you are coming towards that.

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The whole universe is worshipping, consciously or unconsciously; only it does not know that even while it is cursing, it is in another form worshipping the same God it is cursing, because those who are cursing are also struggling for freedom.

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...throw away even the Vedas, throw away even the Personal God, throw away even the universe, throw away even your own body and mind, and let nothing remain, in order to get rid of hypnotism perfectly.

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One ounce of practice is worth a thousand pounds of theory.

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Q - What is the peculiarity of the Vedas?
A - One peculiarity of the Vedas is that they are the only scriptures that again and again declare that you must go beyond them. The Vedas say that they were written just for the child mind; and when you have grown, you must go beyond them.

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We are not individuals now, in our present earthly environment. We shall not have reached individuality until we shall have ascended to the higher state, when the divine spirit within us will have a perfect medium for the expression of its attributes.

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A golden chain is as much a chain as the iron one.

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Think of death always and new life will come within.

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When you think you are a body, you are apart from the universe; when you think you are a soul, you are a spark from the great Eternal Fire; when you think you are Atman (Self), you are All.

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To believe that mind is all, that thought is all, is only a higher materialism.

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There is really but one Self in the universe, all else is but Its manifestations.

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Do we dream of revenging ourselves on this drop of sea-spray? But it is a great thing to a mosquito!

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[They]...who...[have]...seen even a single spirit...[are]...greater than many a book-learned Pandit.

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"Swami, you have no idea of time", remarked an impatient American devotee, afraid of missing a steamer. "No," retorted Swamiji calmly, "you live in time; we live in eternity."

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The...[one]...of great imagination is thwarted by the intensity of...[their]...feeling of loss, or fear of loss, or perception of defects.

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We are struggling hard to conquer pain, succeeding in the attempt, and yet creating new pains at the same time.

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We say we do, we are made to do. We say we work, we are made to labour. We say we live, we are made to die every moment. We are in the crowd, we cannot stop, must go on - it deserves no cheering. Had it not been so, no amount of cheering would make us undertake all this pain and misery for a grain of pleasure - which, alas, in most cases is only a hope.

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Our pessimism is a dread reality, our optimism is a faint cheering, making the best of a bad job.

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...your life is a veritable hell here, and so is the life hereafter.