Inspired Talks: My Master and Other Writings

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The present volume is a reprint of Inspired Talks, My Master and Other Writings, with the addition of new materials including an introductory chapter "Swami Vivekananda at Thousand Island Park," the Swami's lecture "Christ, the Messenger" and his paper on "Hinduism" read at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, the poem "Song of the Sannyasin," which was written at Thousand Island Park in 1895.

The chapter "Swami Vivekananda at Thousand Island Park," the materials for which have been collected from various sources, gives the setting of the Swami's Inspired Talks. The talks themselves are a record of the Swami's intimate conversations with chosen devotees and disciples who lived with him at the cottage. The reader will be struck with the brilliant flashes of illumination, the lofty flights of eloquence, and the words of profound wisdom revealed here. The conversations were taken down by the Swami's disciple, Miss S. E. Waldo, of New York, to whom he also dictated his translation and explanation of Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, published later as Raja-Yoga, Swami Vivekananda had great confidence in Miss Waldo's ability and would often hand over to her the transcripts of his lectures with the instruction to edit or change them as she thought best. Once, when she was reading a portion of the manuscript of Inspired Talks to some friends at the Thousand Island Park house, the Swami paced up and down, apparently unconscious of what was going on, till the listeners had left the room, when he turned and said: "How could you have caught my thought and words so perfectly? It was as if I heard myself speaking."

From the chapter, "Inspired Talks"

Wednesday, June 19, 1895

(This day marks the beginning of the regular teaching given daily by Swami Vivekananda to his disciples at Thousand Island Park. He opened the Bible at the Book of John, saying that since the students were all Christians, it was proper that he should begin with the Christian scriptures.)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Hindu calls this maya, the manifestation of God, because it is the power of God. The Absolute reflecting through maya is what we call nature. The Word has two manifestations: the general one of nature, and the special one of the great Incarnations of God - Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Ramakrishna. Christ, the special manifestation of the Absolute, is known and knowable. The Absolute cannot be known. We cannot know the Father; we can only know the Son. We can only see the Absolute through the "tint of humanity," through Christ.

In the first five verses of John is the whole essence of Christianity; each verse is full of the profoundest philosophy.

The perfect never becomes imperfect. It is in the darkness but it is not affected by the darkness. God's mercy goes to all but is not affected by man's wickedness. The sun is not affected by any disease in our eyes which makes us see it distortedly. In the twenty-ninth verse, "taketh away the sin of the world" means that Christ will show us the way to become perfect. God became Christ to show man his true nature - that we too are God. We are human coverings over the Divine; but as the Divine Man, Christ and we are one.

The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man. Neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten his divinity - that Christ can help us; in him there is no imperfection. These Incarnations are always conscious of their own divinity; they know it from their birth. They are like the actors whose play is over, but who, after their work is done, return to please others. These great ones are untouched by aught of earth. They assume our form and our limitations for a time in order to teach us; but in reality they are never limited, they are ever free.

Good is near Truth but is not yet Truth. After learning not to be disturbed by evil, we have to learn not to be made happy by good. We must find that we are beyond both evil and good; we must study their adjustment and see that they are both necessary.

The idea of dualism comes from the ancient Persians. Really good and evil are one and the same, and are in our own mind. When the mind is tranquil neither good nor evil affects it. Be perfectly free; then neither can affect you, and you will enjoy freedom and bliss. Evil is the iron chain; good is the gold one. Both are chains. Be free, and know once for all that there is no chain for you. Lay hold of the gold chain to loosen the hold of the iron one; then throw both away. The thorn of evil is in our flesh; take another thorn from the same bush and extract the first thorn, and then throw away both and be free.

In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out of barter. Make no conditions and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.

The Lord is the only giver; all men in the world are only shopkeepers. Get His cheque and it will be honoured everywhere.

God is the inexplicable, inexpressible essence of love - to be known but never defined.

In our miseries and struggles the world seems to us a very dreadful place. But just as when we watch two puppies playing and biting we do not concern ourselves at all - realizing that it is only fun and that even a sharp nip now and then will do no actual harm - so all our struggles are but play in God's eyes. This world is all for play and only amuses God; nothing in it can make God angry.

Mother, in the sea of life my bark is sinking!

The whirlwind of illusion, the storm of attachment, is growing every moment;

My five oarsmen are foolish, and the helmsman is weak;

My bearings are lost, my boat is sinking.

O Mother, save me!

"Mother, Thy light stops not for the saint or the sinner; it animates the lover and the murderer."

Mother is ever manifesting through all. The light is not polluted by what it shines on, nor benefited by it. The light is ever pure, ever changeless. Behind every creature is the Mother - pure, lovely, never changing.

"Mother, manifested as light in all beings, we bow down to Thee." She is equally in suffering, hunger, pleasure, sublimity.

"When the bee sucks honey, the Lord is eating." Knowing that the Lord is everywhere, the sages give up praising and blaming.

Know that nothing can hurt you. How can it? Are you not free? Are you not the Atman? He is the life of our lives, the hearing of our ears, the sight of our eyes.

We go through the world like a man pursued by a policeman and see the barest glimpses of the beauty of it. All this fear that pursues us comes from believing in matter. Matter gets its whole existence from the presence of mind behind it. What we see is God percolating through nature.

Be brave and be sincere; then follow any path with devotion and you must reach the Lord. Lay hold of one link of the chain, and the whole chain must come by degrees. Water the roots of the tree - that is, reach the Lord - and the whole tree is watered. Getting the Lord, we get all.

One-sidedness is the bane of the world. The more sides you develop, the more varied will be your enjoyment of the universe. You will enjoy it as a jnani, a bhakta, and in all other ways. Determine your own nature and stick to it. Nishtha is the only method for the beginner; but with devotion and sincerity it will lead to all. Churches, doctrines, forms, are the hedges to protect the tender plant, but they must later be broken down that the plant may become a tree. So the various religions, Bibles, Vedas, dogmas, all are just pots for little plants; but they must get out of the pots. Nishtha is, in a manner of speaking, placing the plant in the pot, shielding the struggling soul on its chosen path.

Look at the ocean and not at the wave; see no difference between ant and angel. Every worm is the brother of the Nazarene. How can you say one is greater and one less great. Each is great in his own place.

We are in the sun and in the stars as much as here. Spirit is beyond space and time, and is everywhere. Every mouth praising the Lord is my mouth; every eye seeing is my eye. We are confined nowhere. We are not the body; the universe is our body. We are magicians waving magic wands and creating scenes before us at will.

We are a spider in a huge web, who can go on the varied strands wheresoever he desires. The spider is now conscious only of the spot where he is; but he will in time become conscious of the whole web. We too are conscious of our existence only where our body is; we can use only one brain. But when we reach ultra-consciousness we know all, we can use all brains. Even now we can "give the push" to consciousness and it will go beyond and act in superconscious.

We are striving to "be" and nothing more; there will not even be "I" - just pure crystal, reflecting all, but itself ever the same. When that state is reached there is no more doing; the body becomes a mere mechanism, pure without our trying for purity; it cannot become impure.

Know you are the Infinite; then fear will die. Say ever, "I and my Father are one."

In time to come Christs will be born in numbers like bunches of grapes on a vine; then the play will be over and all will pass out - as water in a kettle beginning to boil shows first one bubble, then another, then more and more, until all is in ebullition and passes out as steam. Buddha and Christ are the two biggest "bubbles" the world has yet produced. Moses was a tiny bubble; greater and greater ones came. Sometime, however, all will be bubbles and escape. But creation, ever new, will bring new water to go through the process all over again.