Vedanta Society of New York--Strength---the first of the four watchwords of Vedanta

--The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. III, p. 237


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"Arise! Awake! Approach the feet of the master and know THAT. Like the sharp edge of a razor, the sages say, is the path. Narrow it is, and difficult to tread." --Katha Upanisad, 3-14, fr. The Upanisads, p. 20

"Shake off this fever of ignorance Stop hoping for worldly rewards. Fix your mind on the Atman. Be free from sense of ego. Dedicate all your actions to me. Then go forward and fight."
--The Bhagavad-Gita, III-30, fr. The Song of God, p. 48

"If you heat the cup smelling of garlic, you get rid of the smell; it becomes a new cup. The man who says he will not succeed will never succeed. He who feels he is liberated is indeed liberated; and he who feels he is bound verily remains bound. He who forcefully says, 'I am free' is certainly free; and he who says day and night, 'I am bound' is certainly bound." --The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 706

"Bondage is of the mind, and freedom is also of the mind. A man is free if he constantly thinks: 'I am a free soul. How can I be bound, whether I live in the world or in the forest? I am a child of God, the King of Kings. Who can bind me?'..... by repeating with grit and determination, 'I am not bound, I am free, one really becomes so - one really becomes free". --Ibid., p. 138

".... to feel that one is a free soul is very good. By constantly repeating, 'I am free, I am free', a man verily becomes free. On the other hand, by constantly repeating, 'I am bound, I am bound', he certainly becomes bound to worldliness. The fool who says only, 'I am a sinner, I am a sinner' verily drowns himself in worldliness. One should rather say: 'I have chanted the name of God. How can I be a sinner? How can I be bound?" --Ibid, p. 274

"Go forward. Push on. You will discover the forest of sandal-wood. Go farther and you will find the silver-mine. Go farther still and you will see the gold-mine. Do not stop there. Go forward, and you will reach the mines of rubies and diamonds. Therefore I say, go forward." --Ibid., p. 712

"What we want is strength. So believe in yourselves....Make your nerves strong. What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel... anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all-knowledge." --The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. III, pp. 224-225

"This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death." --Ibid, Vol. II, p. 3

"Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immortality, even those who are the weakest in manifestation. Let positive, strong, helpful thought enter into their brains from the very childhood. Lay yourselves open to these thoughts, and not to weakening and paralysing ones. Say to your own minds, "I am He, I am He." 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. Drive out the superstition that has covered your minds. Let us be brave. Know the Truth and practise the Truth. The goal may be distant, but awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached." --Ibid, Vol. II, p. 87

"What makes a man stand up and work? Strength. Strength is goodness, weakness is sin. If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word fearlessness....Either in this world or in the world of religion, it is true that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature." --Ibid., Vol. III, p. 160

"Strength, strength is what the Upanishads speak to me from every page. This is the one great thing to remember, it has been the one great lesson I have been taught in my life; strength, it says, strength, O man, be not weak. Are there no human weaknesses? - says man. There are, say the Upanishads, but will more weakness heal them, would you try to wash dirt with dirt? Will sin cure sin, weakness cure weakness? Strength, O man, strength, say the Upanishads, stand up and be strong. Ay, it is the only literature in the world where you find the word "Abhih", "fearless", used again and again; in no other scripture in the world is this adjective applied either to God or to man. Abhih, fearless!" --Ibid., Vol. III, p. 237

"Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself." --Ibid., Vol. II, p. 301

"The remedy for weakness is not brooding over weakness, but thinking of strength. Teach men of the strength that is already within them..... Never say, "No", never say, "I cannot", for you are infinite. Even time and space are as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almighty." --Ibid., Vol. II, p. 300

"Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life - these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes." --Ibid. Vol. II, p. 152

"Look back on yourself from the state of amoeba to the human being; who made all that? Your own will. Can you deny then that it is almighty? That which has made you come up so high can make you go higher still. What you want is character, strengthening of the will." --Ibid., Vol. II, p. 357

"The will is stronger than anything else. Everything must go down before the will, for that comes from God and God Himself; A pure and a strong will is omnipotent. Do you not believe in it?" --Ibid., Vol. III, p. 224

"To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will drink the ocean" says the persevering soul, "at my will mountains will crumble up". Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard and you will reach the goal." --Ibid., Vol. I, p 178

"Every successful man must have behind him somewhere tremendous integrity, tremendous sincerity, and that is the cause of his signal success in life. He may not have been perfectly unselfish; yet he was tending towards it. If he had been perfectly unselfish, his would have been as great a success as that of the Buddha or of the Christ. The degree of unselfishness marks the degree of success everywhere." --Ibid., Vol. V, p. 240

"Have faith in yourself first - all power is in you - be conscious and bring it out. Say "I can do everything".... Beware! No saying "nay", no negative thoughts! Say "Yea", "Yea", "So'ham", "So'ham" - "I am He", "I am He",..... - "What makes you weep, my friend? In you is all power. Summon up your all-powerful nature, O mighty one, and this whole universe will lie at your feet. It is the Self alone that predominates, and not matter." --Ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 274-275

"Faith, faith, faith in ourselves, faith in God - this is the secret of greatness." --Ibid., Vol. III, p. 190

"Think all of you that you are infinitely powerful Atman, and see what strength comes out....I am the child of the Infinite, the all powerful Divine Mother. What means disease, or fear, or want to me? Stamp out the negative spirit as if it were a pestilence, and it will conduce to your welfare in every way. No negative, all positive, affirmative. I am, God is, everything is in me. I will manifest health, purity, knowledge, whatever I want.... "Thou art Energy, impart energy unto me. Thou art Strength, impart strength unto me. Thou art Spirituality, impart spirituality unto me. Thou art Fortitude, impart fortitude unto me"...."Everything is in me, and I can manifest it at will." Repeat this an hour or so, on a few successive days, and all disease and trouble will vanish into nought." --Ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 276-277

"Arise, awake and stop not till the desired end is reached.... Be bold and fear not. It is only in our scriptures that this adjective is given unto the Lord - Abhih, Abhih. We have to become Abhih, fearless and our task will be done.... Think not that you are poor, that you have no friends. Ay, who ever saw money make man? It is man that always makes money.... We find Nachiketa telling himself, "I am superior to many, I am inferior to few, but nowhere am I the last, I can also do something.... What we want is this Shraddha .... Believe in that Infinite Soul, the Infinite Power, which your books and sages preach.... Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work. The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is the fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment... Therefore, Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached."
--Ibid., Vol. III, pp. 318-321

"This is the one question I put to every man, woman, or child, when they are in physical, mental, or spiritual training. Are you strong? Do you feel strength? - for I know it is truth alone that gives strength. I know truth alone gives life, and nothing but going towards reality will make us strong, and none will reach truth until he is strong. Every system, therefore, which weakens the mind, makes one superstitious, makes one mope, makes one desire all sorts of wild impossibilities, mysteries, and superstitions, I do not like, because its effect is dangerous. Such systems never bring any good; such things create morbidity in the mind, make it weak, so weak that in course of time it will be impossible to receive truth or live up to it. Strength, therefore, is the only thing needful. Strength is the medicine for the world's disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must have when tyrannised over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that sinners must have when tyrannised over by other sinners; and nothing gives such strength as the idea of monism." --Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 201

..."It is the coward and the fool who says, 'This is fate' " - so says the Sanskrit proverb. But it is the strong man who stands up and says, "I will make my fate"...... You will find that astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food and rest.... They may have a little influence; but it is our duty to ignore them rather hearken to them and make ourselves nervous.... anything that brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it not with the toes of your feet.... A spring of infinite power is coiled up and is inside the little body, and that spring is spreading itself. And as it goes on spreading, body after body is found insufficient; it throws them off and takes higher bodies.... The highest things are under your feet, because you are Divine Stars; all these things are under your feet. You can swallow the stars by the handful if you want; such is your real nature. Be strong, get beyond all superstitions, and be free." --Ibid., Vol. VIII , pp. 184-187

"This is to be heard of, then to be thought upon, and then to be meditated upon." When the hands work, the mind should repeat, "I am It. I am It." Think of it, dream of it, until it becomes bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh, until all the hideous dreams of littleness, of weakness, of misery, and of evil, have entirely vanished, and no more then can the Truth be hidden from you even for a moment." --Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 405

"Many times I have been in the jaws of death, starving, footsore, and weary; for days and days I had had no food, and often could not walk no farther; I would sink down under a tree, and life would seem ebbing away. I could not speak, I could scarcely think , but at last the mind reverted to the idea: "I have no fear nor death; I never have hunger nor thirst. I am It! I am It! The whole of nature cannot crush me; it is my servant. Assert thy strength, Thou Lord of lords and God of gods! Regain thy lost empire! Arise and walk and stop not!" And I would rise up, reinvigorated, and here I am, living today. Thus whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish. For, after all, it is but a dream. Mountain - high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Maya. Fear not---it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies. Be not afraid. Think not how many times you fail. Never mind. Time is infinite. Go forward: assert yourself again and again, and light must come.... Help thy self out by thyself. None else can help thee friend. For thou alone art thy greatest enemy, thou alone art thy greatest friend." --Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 403

"First comes manliness, then comes saintliness or godliness. Erect your saintliness on your manliness; that will be a powerful saintliness. So work hard; build up your individuality; and personality; and then when you are strong and spiritually mature as a man, you look up and see a greater courage and a greater strength beckoning you, which makes you experience and say: 'Not I, but Thou; Thy will be done!' "
--Eternal Values for a Changing Society, by Swami Ranganathananda, Vol. I, p. 382