Poetry & Prose

( Report of a lecture delivered in Oakland on Monday, March 19, 1900, with editorial comments of the Oakland Enquirer)

Report of a lecture delivered in Oakland on Monday, March 12, 1900, with editorial comments of the Oakland Enquirer)

( Report of a lecture delivered in Oakland on March 8, 1900, with editorial comments of the Oakland Tribune)

(Delivered on Wednesday, March 7, 1900 at the Unitarian Church of Oakland, CA)

An audience that filled the Unitarian Church heard the renowned monk, Swami Vivekananda, deliver a lecture last night on the manners and customs of his country. His eloquent and graceful manner pleased his listeners, who followed him from beginning to end with the closest attention, showing appr

( A lecture delivered in the Unitarian Church of Detroit on February 20, 1894 and reported in the Detroit Free Press)

( Report of a lecture in the Chicago Herald, September 25, 1893 )

( Report of a lecture in the Chicago Sunday Herald, September 24, 1893 )

(As many women as could crowd into Hall 7 yesterday afternoon flocked thither to hear something as to the lives of their sisters of the Orient. Mrs. Potter Palmer and Mrs. Charles Henrotin sat upon the platform, surrounded by turbanned representatives of the women of the East. It may interest th

First of all we will try to understand a little of the meaning of Prânâyama. Prâna stands in metaphysics for the sum total of the energy that is in the universe. This universe, according to the theory of the philosophers, proceeds in the form of waves; it rises, and again it subsides, melts away

Jesus Christ was God — the Personal God become man. He has manifested Himself many times in different forms and these alone are what you can worship. God in His absolute nature is not to be worshipped. Worshipping such God would be nonsense. We have to worship Jesus Christ, the human manifestati

My idea is that what you call a Personal God is the same as the Impersonal Being, a Personal and Impersonal God at the same time. We are personalised impersonal beings. If you use the word in the absolute sense, we are impersonal; but if you use it in a relative meaning, we are personal. Each on

There was a very powerful dynasty in Southern India. They made it a rule to take the horoscope of all the prominent men living from time to time, calculated from the time of their birth. In this way they got a record of leading facts predicted, and compared them afterwards with events as they h

I never take much notice of these things. I have come to deal with principles. I have only to preach that God comes again and again, and that He came in India as Krishna, Râma, and Buddha, and that He will come again. It can almost be demonstrated that after each 500 years the world sinks, and a

( Delivered at the Shakespeare Club House, in Pasadena, California, on January 18, 1900 )

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C. Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and finally printed in 1913 for private circulation — Ed .) Sushumnâ: It is very useful to meditate on t

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C. Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and finally printed in 1913 for private circulation — Ed .) Pratyâhâra and Dhâranâ: Krishna says, "All

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C. Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and finally printed in 1913 for private circulation — Ed .) Before we can control the mind we must study

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C. Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and finally printed in 1913 for private circulation — Ed .) Kundalini: Realise the soul not as matter, b

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C. Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and finally printed in 1913 for private circulation — Ed .) This Yoga is known as the eightfold Yoga, be

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C. Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and finally printed in 1913 for private circulation — Ed .) Râja-Yoga is as much a science as any in the

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) Expression is necessarily degeneration, because spirit can only be expressed by the "letter", and as St.

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) Both happiness and misery are chains, the one golden, the other iron; but both are equally strong to bind

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) The Self is the condition of all in the universe, but It can never be conditioned. As soon as we know that

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) Thought is all important, for "what we think we become". There was once a Sannyâsin, a holy man, who sat u

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) The question why there cannot be eternal bodies is in itself illogical, as "body" is a term applied to a c

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) All men, so-called, are not yet really human beings. Every one has to judge of this world through his own

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) Jnâna teaches that the world should be given up, but not on that account to be abandoned. To be in the wor

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Shankârachârya. By solid reasoning he extracted from th

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in America (1896), copied them out from her notebook — Ed .) Om Tat Sat! To know the Om is to know the secret of the universe. The object of Jnâna-Yoga is the same as