This article is on Swami Vivekananda‘s quotes and comments on Mind or Human Mind.
A—E
- A pious missionary went out on business. All of a sudden his three sons died of cholera. His wife covered the three dead bodies of her beloved children with a sheet and was awaiting her husband at the gate. When he returned, she detained him at the gate and put him the question, “My dear husband, some one entrusts something to you and in your absence suddenly takes it back. Will you feel sorry?” He replied, “Certainly I would not”. Then she took him in, removed the sheet and showed the three corpses. He bore this calmly and buried the bodies. Such is the strength of mind of those who hold firm faith in the existence of an all – merciful God who disposes of everything in the universe.[Source]
- All difference is, therefore, due to the mind.[Source]
- All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.
- All knowledge that we have, either of the external or internal world, is obtained through only one method — by the concentration of the mind. No knowledge can be had of any science unless we can concentrate our minds upon the subject. The astronomer concentrates his mind through the telescope… and so on. If you want to study your own mind, it will be the same process. You will have to concentrate your mind and turn it back upon itself. The difference in this world between mind and mind is simply the fact of concentration. One, more concentrated than the other, gets more knowledge.[Source]
- All minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and controls his own mind knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind.[Source]
- All that we see, we project out of our own minds.[Source]
- All these senses, external and internal, must be under the disciple’s control. By hard practice he has to arrive at the stage where he can assert his mind against the senses, against the commands of nature. He should be able to say to his mind, “You are mine; I order you, do not see or hear anything”, and the mind will not see or hear anything — no form or sound will react on the mind. [Source]
- All things in nature work according to law. Nothing is excepted. The mind as well as everything in external nature is governed and controlled by law.[Source]
- Always keep your mind joyful; if melancholy thoughts come, kick them out.[Source]
- Both matter and mind exist in a third, a unity which divides itself into the two.[Source]
- Every ounce of pleasure brings its pound of pain. It is the same energy that at one time manifests itself as pleasure, at another time as pain. As soon as one set of sensations stops, another begins. But in some cases, in more advanced persons, one may have two, yea, even a hundred different thoughts entering into active operation at the same time.[Source]
- Excessive hilarity is quite as objectionable as too much of sad seriousness, and all religious realisation is possible only when the mind is in a steady, peaceful condition of harmonious equilibrium.[Source]
- Excessive mirth should be avoided. Excessive mirth makes us unfit for serious thought. It also fritters away the energies of the mind in vain.[Source]
F—J
- Get hold of the mind. The mind is like a lake, and every stone that drops into it raises waves. These waves do not let us see what we are.[Source]
- Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven. Control the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but spiritual freedom.
- Hold to the idea, “I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act,” and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.
- Just as I sit down to meditate, all the vilest subjects in the world come up. The whole thing is nauseating. Why should the mind think thoughts I do not want it to think? I am as it were a slave to the mind. [Source]
- “If I know one lump of clay, I know the whole mass of clay.” The universe is all built on the same plan. The individual is only a part, like the lump of clay. If we know the human soul—which is one atom—its beginning and general history, we know the whole of nature. Birth, growth, development, decay, death—this is the sequence in all nature and is the same in the plant and the man. The difference is only in time. The whole cycle may be completed in one case in a day, in the other in three score years and ten; the methods are the same. The only way to reach a sure analysis of the universe is by the analysis of our own minds.[Source]
- If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished—mountains can be crumbled into atoms.
- If the mind is not under control, it is no use living in a cave because the same mind will bring all disturbances there. We will find twenty devils in the cave because all the devils are in the mind. If the mind is under control, we can have the cave anywhere, wherever we are.[Source]
- Internal and external nature, mind and matter, are in time and space, and are bound by the law of causation. The freedom of the mind is a delusion. How can the mind be free when it is controlled and bound by law?[Source]
- If there is no strength in body and mind, the Atman cannot be realised. First you have to build the body by good nutritious food—then only will the mind be strong.
- It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world — that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves![Source]
- It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties. And this, the hardest task of all, the cutting of our way out of the net of Maya, is the work reserved only for giant wills.[Source]
K—S
- Let it ring day and night in your minds like a song, and at the point of death declare “I am He.” That is the Truth; the infinite strength of the world is yours.[Source]
- Let the mind be cheerful but calm. Never let it run into excesses, because every excess will be followed by a reaction.[Source]
- Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the thought-waves and the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate you will keep your growth.
- Mental pleasures are greatly superior to physical joys. Mental pains are more poignant than physical tortures.[Source]
- Mind and matter cannot explain each other.[Source]
- Mind is action of its own nature. Mind-activity means creation. The thought is followed by the word, and the word by the form. All of this creating will have to stop, both mental and physical, before the mind can reflect the soul.[Source]
- Mind is changed into matter, matter is changed into mind.[Source]
- Mind is cognised by the Atman, but it is not self-illuminated. The Atman cannot be the cause of anything. How can it be? How can the Purusha join itself to Prakriti (nature)? It does not; it is only illusively thought to do so….[Source]
- Mind is material.[Source]
- Mind is the name of a stream of consciousness or thought continuously changing.[Source]
- Mind is very fine matter; it is the instrument for manifesting Prana.[Source]
- No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man “knows”, should, in strict psychological language, be what he “discovers” or “unveils”; what a man “learns” is really what he “discovers”, by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge. We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not in the apple nor in anything in the centre of the earth.[Source]
- No two persons have the same mind or the same body.[Source]
- Our mind is acting on three planes: the subconscious, conscious, and superconscious. Of men, the Yogi alone is superconscious. The whole theory of Yoga is to go beyond the mind. These three planes can be understood by considering the vibrations of light or sound. There are certain vibrations of light too slow to become visible; then as they get faster, we see them as light; and then they get too fast for us to see them at all. The same with sound.[Source]
T—Z
- (T)hat which we call matter and mind are one and the same substance. The only difference is in the degree of vibration. Mind at a very low rate of vibration is what is known as matter. Matter at a high rate of vibration is what is known as mind. Both are the same substance; and therefore, as matter is bound by time and space and causation, mind which is matter at a high rate of vibration is bound by the same law…. Mind becomes matter, and matter in its turn becomes mind, it is simply a question of vibration.[Source]
- The body is here, beyond that is the mind, yet the mind is not the Atman.[Source]
- The book one must read to learn natural sciences is the book of nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart.
- The binding link of “I and mine” is in the mind.[Source]
- The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.[Source]
- The direction of the mind which always runs after the senses has to be turned within. The mind has to be killed.[Source]
- The mind cannot be easily conquered. Minds that rise into waves at the approach of every little thing at the slightest provocation or danger, in what a state they must be! What to talk of greatness or spirituality, when these changes come over the mind? This unstable condition of the mind must be changed.[Source]
- The mind cannot reach the pure Self, no, nor even the intellect.[Source]
- The mind is constantly changing and vacillating.[Source]
- The mind is like a lake. Throw a stone in a lake and a reactionary wave comes towards the stone; this wave is not like the stone at all, it is a wave.[Source]
- The mind is omnipresent and can be heard and felt anywhere.[Source]
- “The mind must always think of the Lord.” It is very hard at first to compel the mind to think of the Lord always, but with every new effort the power to do so grows stronger in us. “By practice, O son of Kunti, and by non-attachment is it attained”, says Shri Krishna in the Gita.[Source]
- The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down, for ever—rend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us. So it must be controlled, and psychology teaches us how to do it.[Source]
- The perfected mind can be attached to all the organs simultaneously.[Source]
- The powers of the mind are like rays of light dissipated; when they are concentrated, they illumine.[Source]
- The purer the mind, the easier it is to control. Purity of the mind must be insisted upon if you would control it. Do not think covetously about mere mental powers. Let them go. One who seeks the powers of the mind succumbs to them. Almost all who desire powers become ensnared by them.[Source]
- There is no desire for a peaceful mind.[Source]
- This mind is a part of the universal mind. Each mind is connected with every other mind. And each mind, wherever it is located, is in actual communication with the whole world.[Source]
- This mind is like a lake, and every thought is like a wave upon that lake. Just as in the lake waves rise and then fall down and disappear, so these thought-waves are continually rising in the mind-stuff and then disappearing, but they do not disappear for ever.[Source]
- The mind should always go towards God.[Source]
- Time, space, and causation are the three conditions through which mind perceives. Time is the condition for the transmission of thought, and space for the vibration of grosser matter. Causation is the sequence in which vibrations come. Mind can only cognise through these. Anything therefore, beyond mind must be beyond time, space, and causation.[Source]
- When the mind becomes functionless, it reflects the Brahman-consciousness.[Source]
- Whenever you suppress a thought, it is simply pressed down out of sight, in a coil like a spring, only to spring out again at a moment’s notice, with all the pent-up force resulting from the suppression, and do in a few moments what it would have done in a much longer period.[Source]
- “Whys” and “wherefores” are in mind only.[Source]
- You are not bound by law. That is in your nature. The mind is in nature and is bound by law. All nature is bound by law, the law of its own action; and this law can never be broken. If you could break a law of nature, all nature would come to an end in an instant. There would be no more nature. He who attains freedom breaks the law of nature, and for him nature fades away and has no more power over him. Each one will break the law but once and for ever; and that will end his trouble with nature.[Source]
Freedom of the mind
Main article: Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on the freedom of the mind
- Man’s free agency is not of the mind, for that is bound. There is no freedom there.[Source]
- The Western man does not want to think his mind is governed by law. In India it was accepted as soon as it was propounded by the most ancient Indian system of philosophy. There is no such thing as freedom of the mind;[Source]
- What do I care if the mind is controlled or uncontrolled! Let it run on. What of that! I am not the mind, Let it go on![Source]
Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on meditation
Main article: Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on meditation
- First, meditation should be of a negative nature. Think away everything. Analyse everything that comes in the mind by the sheer action of the will. Next, assert what we really are—existence, knowledge, and bliss—being, knowing, and loving.[Source]
- Holy meditation helps to burn out all mental impurities.[Source]
- Meditation is the means of unification of the subject and object. Meditate.[Source]
- Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all these processes purification of the elements — making the one melt the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit.[Source]
- The power of meditation gets us everything. If you want to get power over nature, [you can have it through meditation]. It is through the power of meditation all scientific facts are discovered today. They study the subject and forget everything, their own identity and everything, and then the great fact comes like a flash. Some people think that is inspiration. There is no more inspiration than there is expiration; and never was anything got for nothing.[Source]
See also
External links
- The Power of the Mind from The Complete Woks of Swami Vivekananda Volume VI
