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An enthusiastic preacher belonging to the society for the protection of cows came for an interview with Swamiji. He was dressed almost like a Sannyasin, if not fully so — with a Geruâ turban on the head; he was evidently an up-country Indian. At the announcement of this preacher of cow-protection Swamiji came out to the parlour room. The preacher saluted Swamiji and presented him with a picture of the mother-cow. Swamiji took that in his hand and, making it over to one standing by, commenced the following conversation with the preacher:

Swamiji: What is the object of your society?

Preacher: We protect the mother-cows of our country from the hands of the butcher. Cow-infirmaries have been founded in some places where the diseased, decrepit mother-cows or those bought from the butchers are provided for.

Swamiji: That is very good indeed. What is the source of your income?

Preacher: The work of the society is carried on only by gifts kindly made by great men like you.

Swamiji: What amount of money have you now laid by?

Preacher: The Marwari traders’ community are the special supporters of this work. They have given a big amount for this good cause.

Swamiji: A terrible famine has now broken out in Central India. The Indian Government has published a death-roll of nine lakhs of starved people. Has your society done anything to render help in this time of famine?

Preacher: We do not help during famine or other distresses. This society has been established only for the protection of mother-cows.

Swamiji: During a famine when lakhs of people, your own brothers and sisters, have fallen into the jaws of death, you have not thought it your duty, though having the means, to help them in that terrible calamity with food!

Preacher: No. This famine broke out as a result of men’s Karma, their sins. It is a case of “like Karma, like fruit”.

Hearing the words of the preacher, sparks of fire, as it were, scintillated in Swamiji’s large eyes; his face became flushed. But he suppressed his feeling and said: “Those associations which do not feel sympathy for men and, even seeing their own brothers dying from starvation, do not give them a handful of rice to save their lives, while giving away piles of food to save birds and beasts, I have not the least sympathy for, and I do not believe that society derives any good from them. If you make a plea of Karma by saying that men die through their Karma, then it becomes a settled fact that it is useless to try or struggle for anything in this world; and your work for the protection of animals is no exception. With regard to your cause also, it can be said — the mother-cows through their own Karma fall into the hands of the butchers and die, and we need not do anything in the matter.”

The preacher was a little abashed and said: “Yes, what you say is true, but the Shâstras say that the cow is our mother.”

Swamiji smilingly said, “Yes, that the cow is our mother, I understand: who else could give birth to such accomplished children?”

The up-country preacher did not speak further on the subject; perhaps he could not understand the point of Swamiji’s poignant ridicule. He told Swamiji that he was begging something of him for the objects of the society.

Swamiji: I am a Sannyasin, a fakir. Where shall I find money enough to help you? But if ever I get money in my possession, I shall first spend that in the service of man. Man is first to be saved; he must be given food, education, and spirituality. If any money is left after doing all these, then only something would be given to your society.

At these words, the preacher went away after saluting Swamiji. Then Swamiji began to speak to us: “What words, these, forsooth! Says he that men are dying by reason of their Karma, so what avails doing any kindness to them! This is decisive proof that the country has gone to rack and ruin! Do you see how much abused the Karma theory of your Hinduism has been? Those who are men and yet have no feeling in the heart for man, well, are such to be counted as men at all?” While speaking these words, Swamiji’s whole body seemed to shiver in anguish and grief.

(Source: Conversations and Dialogues. C.W. Volume 6)

Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Gita. These are bold words; but I have to say them, for I love you. I know where the shoe pinches. I have gained a little experience. You will understand the Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little stronger. (III 242)

Men, men these are wanted: everything else will be ready, but strong, vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone, are wanted. A hundred such and the world becomes revolutionized. (III 223-224)

My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions. I have formulated the idea and have given my life to it. They will spread from centre to centre, until we cover the whole of India. (V.223)

My hope of the future lies in the youths of character – intelligent, renouncing all for the service of others, and obedient – who can sacrifice their lives in working out my ideas and thereby do good to themselves and to the country at large.

I want each one of my children to be a hundred times greater than I could ever be. Everyone of you must be a giant – must, that is my word. Obedience, readiness, and love for the cause – if you have these three, nothing can hold you back.

Where are men? That is the question. Young men, my hope is in you. Will you respond to the call of your nation? Each one of you has a glorious future if you dare believe me. Have a tremendous faith in yourselves, like the faith I had when I was a child, and which I am working out now. Have that faith, each one of you, in yourself – that eternal power is lodged in every soul – and you will revive the whole of India.

My boy, when death is inevitable, is it not better to die like heroes than as stocks and stones? And what is the use of living a day or two more in this transitory world? It is better to wear out than to rust out specially for the sake of doing the least good to others.

A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord, and nerved to lion’s courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising-up — the gospel of equality.

Great things can be done by great sacrifices only. No selfishness, no name, no fame, yours or mine, nor my Master’s even! Work, work the idea, the plan, my boys, my brave, noble, good souls – to the wheel, to the wheel put your shoulders! Stop not to look back for name, or fame or any such nonsense. Throw self overboard and work.

Come, be men! Come out of your narrow holes and have a look abroad. See how nations are on the march! Do you love man? Do you love your country? Then come, let us struggle for higher and better things; look not back, no, not even if you see the dearest and nearest cry. Look not back, but forward!

Neither money pays, nor name, nor fame, nor learning; it is character that can cleave through the adamantine walls of difficulties.

Arise, awake for your country needs this tremendous sacrifice. It is the young men that will do it. ‘The young, the energetic, the strong, the well-built, the intellectual’ – for them is the task.

Work unto death – I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes – wealth, fame, enjoyments are only of a few days. It is better, far better to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance! (C.W.Volume 5)

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. (II.3)

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be; if you think yourselves impure, impure you will be; if you think yourselves pure, pure you will be. This teaches us not to think ourselves as weak, but as strong, omnipotent, omniscient. (III.130)

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. (II.201)

You may meditate on whatever you like, but I shall meditate on the heart of a lion. That gives strength.

My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made. Strength, manhood, Kshatra-Veerya combined with Brahma-Teja. (V.117)

The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death. There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding us, but they cannot harm us unless we become weak, until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them. There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened. 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.

Stand and die in your own strength; if there is any sin in the world, it is weakness ; avoid all weakness, for weakness is sin, weakness is death.

Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison.

If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. And of the Upanishads, it is only that one idea strength. The quintessence of the Vedas and Vedanta and all lies in that one word.

Strength,it is that we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery.

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak.

Know that all sins and all evils can be summed up in that one word, weakness. It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil-doing; it is weakness that is the source of all selfishness; it is weakness that makes them manifest what they are not in reality.

What is sin and what is misery, and what are all these, but the results of weakness? Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immorality, even those who are the weakest in manifestation. Let positive, strong, helpful thoughts enter into their brains from very childhood. Lay yourselves open to these thoughts, and not to weakening and paralysing ones.

My friend, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength and the Upanishads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them.

Can anything be done unless everybody exerts himself to his atmost? “It is the man of action, the lion-heart, the Goddess of Wealth resorts to.” No need of looking behind. Forward! We want infinite energy, infinite zeal, infinite courage, and infinite patience, then only will great things be achieved. (VI.383-384)

That is all I have to say to the world. Be strong! …… The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death! If it is strength, go down into hell and get hold of it!

The powers of the mind are like rays of light dissipated; when they are concentrated, they illumine. This is our only means of knowledge. (I.129)

The man that has practiced control over himself cannot be acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for him. His mind has become free. Such a man alone is fit to live well in the world.

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. (VI.30-32)

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live, they travel far. Each thought we think is tinged with our own character, so that for the pure and holy man, even his jests or abuse will have the twist of his own love and purity and do good. (VII.14)

Whatever you do, devote your whole mind, heart, and soul to it. I once met a great sannyasin, who cleansed his brass cooking utensils, making them shine like gold, with as much care and attention as he bestowed on his worship and meditation.

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 re-arranged 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. (I.28)

Good and evil thoughts are each a potent power, and they fill the universe. As vibration continues, so thought remains in the form of thought until translated into action. For example, force is latent in the man’s arm until he strikes a blow, when he translates it into activity. We are the heirs of good and evil thought. If we make ourselves pure and the instruments of good thoughts, these will enter us. The good soul will not be receptive to evil thoughts. (VI.134)

As a lamp kept in a windless place does not flicker, such is the state of the yogi whose mind is under control and who is engaged in concentration on the self.

Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God. If you know one soul (your own), you know all souls, past, present, and to come. The will concentrates the mind, certain things excite and control this will, such as reason, love, devotion, breathing. The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul. (VII.59-60)

It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after month. 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. (II.152)

The man who has control over his own mind assuredly will have control over every other mind. That is why purity and morality have been always the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself. He who knows and controls his own mind knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind. (II.17)

Ninety percent of thought-force is wasted by the ordinary human being, and therefore he is constantly committing blunders, the trained man or mind never makes a mistake. (VI.123-124)

To control the mind you must go deep down into the subconscious mind, classify and arrange in order all the different impressions, thoughts, etc. stored up there, and control them. This is the first step. By the control of subconscious mind you get control over the conscious.

If the mind is not under control, it is no use living in a cave because the same mind will bring all disturbances there. If the mind is under control, we can have the cave anywhere, where ever we are. (I.440-441)

Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. (II.225)

We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actionsí so we have to know how to act. (I.31)

If you can think that infinite power, infinite knowledge and indomitable energy lie within you, and if you can bring out that power, you also can become like me.

Unfortunately, in this life, the vast majority of persons are groping through this dark life without any ideal at all. If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal. (II.152)

The road to the Good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed, no wonder that so many fall. Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles. (VIII.382)

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all – love.

Make your own future. ‘Let the dead past bury its dead’. The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and forever. (II.225)

Stand up and fight! Not one step back, that is the idea. Fight it out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the sphere! Let the whole world stand against us! Death means only a change of garment. What of it? Thus fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards. Taking a step backward you do not avoid any misfortune. Has misery ceased? … The gods come to help you when you have succeeded. So what is the use? Die game. … You are inifinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are infinite spirit, it does not befit you to be a slave. Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! (I.461)

No need of looking behind. Forward! We want infinite energy, infinite zeal, infinite courage, and infinite patience, the only will great things be achieved.

You are the makers of your own fortunes. You make yourselves suffer, you make good and evil and it is you who put your hands before your eyes and say it is dark. Take your hands away and see the light.

Believe, therefore, in yourselves, and if you want material wealth, work it out; it will come to you. If you want to be intellectual, work it out on the intellectual plane, and intellectual giants you shall be. And if you want to attain to freedom, work it out on the spiritual plane, and free you shall be and shall enter into Nirvana, the eternal bliss.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind? (II.224)

The will is stronger than anything else. Everything must go down before the will, for, that comes from God and God Himself; the pure and a strong will is omnipotent.

Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come out. (I.115)

Life is ever expanding, Contraction is death. The self-seeking man who is looking after his personal comforts and leading a lazy life – there is no room for him even in hell. (VI.294)

This is the gist of all worship-to be pure and to do good to others. He who sees Shiva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased, really worships Shiva; and if he sees Shiva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary. (III.141-142)

After so much austerity, I have understood this as the real truth-God is present in every jiva; there is no other God besides that. ‘Who serves jiva, serves God indeed’. (VII.247)

He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Shiva in him, without thinking of his caste, or creed, or race, or anything, with him Shiva is more pleased than with the man who sees Him only in temples. (III.142)

You cannot help anyone, you can only serve; serve the children of the Lord; serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any one of His children, blessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship. (III.246)

This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. (IV.363)

My boy, if you have any respect for my words, the first thing I will advise you to do is to through open all the doors and windows of your room. In your quarter there are lots of poor people sunk in degradation and misery. You will have to go to them and serve them with your zeal and enthusiasm. Arrange to distribute medicines to those who are sick, and nurse them with all care, supply food to him who is starving, teach with as much as lies in you the ignorant; and if you begin to serve your brethren in this way, I tell you, my child, you will surely get peace and consolation.

The only definition that can be given of morality is this: That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral. (I.110)

I call him a traitor who, having been educated, nursed in luxury by the heartís blood of the downtrodden millions of toiling poor, never even takes a thought for them. (VIII.329-30)

Throughout the history of the world you find great men make great sacrifices and the mass of mankind enjoy the benefit. If you want to give up everything for your own salvation, it is nothing. Do you want to forgo even your own salvation for the good of the world? You are God. Think of that. (VI.280)

May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries, so that I may worship the only God that exists the only God I believe in the sum total of all souls – and above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship. (V.137)

Go from village to village, do good to humanity and to the world at large. Go to hell yourself to buy salvation for others. ‘When death is so certain, it is better to die for a good cause.’ (VI.265-267)

Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instills into the heart the strength of a lion. I love you all ever so much, but I wish you all to die working for others – I should rather be glad to see you do that! (V.382)

Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad – then pour the soul out at the feet of the Lord, and then will come power, help, and indomitable energy. (IV.367)

Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others. (III.83)