29 Swami Vivekananda Quotes on Freedom

Swami Vivekananda quotes on freedom

1. Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one, or more, or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

21. The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.

24. The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him -- that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

64. Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.

66. Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?

71. 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.

84. Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.

85. Go on saying, 'I am free.' Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, 'I am bound.' Dehypnotize the whole thing.

96. If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man's head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.

99. If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.

106. Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom. If we can bring ourselves down by our karma, surely it is in our power to raise ourselves by our own karma.

114. Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.

118. Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom-physical, mental, and spiritual-and help others to do so.

122. Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are ...but unless you realize the Truth, there is no freedom.

123. Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are :[but] unless you realize the Self (atman), there is no freedom.

127. So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

128. Soft-brained people, weak-minded, chicken-hearted, cannot find the truth. One has to be free, and as broad as the sky.

139. The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another according to the samskaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom.

145. The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.

154. The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.

157. There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself:. Burst your own cocoon and come out as the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.

160. There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of the struggle toward freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that human beings are the same as this little body.

173. We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.

181. We want to know in order to make ourselves free. That is our life: one universal cry for freedom.

185. When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were but we shall understand the whole thing. The same phenomena will remain but with a new meaning.

186. When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were, only we shall understand the whole thing.

192. Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.

194. Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.

209. A man who has attained certain powers through medicines, or through words, or through mortification, still has desires, but that man who has attained to Samadhi through concentration is alone free from all desires.