Change Yourself First

We have seen that it is the subjective worlds that rule the objective. Change the subject and the object is bound to change; purify yourself, and the world is bound to be purified. This one thing requires to be thought now more than ever before, we are becoming more and more busy about our neighbors, and less and less about ourselves. The world will change if we change; if we are pure , the world will become pure. The question is why I should see evil in others. I cannot see evil unless I be evil, I cannot be miserable unless I am week, things cannot be miserable when I was a child, do not do so now. The subject changed, so the object was bound to change; so says the VEDANTA.

Thus 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. We generally find men holding two opinions regarding the world. Some are pessimists and say “how horrible this world is, how wicked!” some others are optimists and say, “How beautiful this world is, how wonderful!” to those who have not controlled their own minds, the world is either full of evil or at best a mixture of good and evil. This very world will become to us an optimistic world when we become masters of our own minds. Nothing will then work upon us as good or evil: we shall find everything to be in its proper place, to be harmonious.

The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the microcosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe. We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.

Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticizing can ever do any good, it has been tries for thousands of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing.

Source:- “Personality Development” written by Swami Vivekanad Ji.

Control Your Negative Emotions

We must have these four sort of ideas. We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful towards those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy. So with all subjects that comes before us. If the subject is a good one, we shall feel friendly towards it; if the subject of thought is one that is miserable, we must be merciful towards it. If it is good, we must be glad; if it is evil, we must be indifferent. These attitudes of the mind towards the different subjects that come before it will make the mind peaceful. Most of our difficulties in our daily lives come from being unable to hold our minds in this way. For instance, if a man does evil to us, instantly we want to React evil, and every reaction of evil shows that we are not able to hold the CHITTA down; it comes out in waves towards the object, and we lose our power. Every reaction in the form of hatred or evil is so much loss to the mind; and every evil thought of reaction, if it is controlled, will be laid in our favor. It is no that we by thus restraining ourselves; we are gaining infinitely more than we suspect. Each time we suppress hatred, or a feeling of anger, it is so much good energy stored up in our favor; that piece of energy will be converted in to the higher power.

Every vicious thought will rebound, every thought of hatred which you may have thought, in a cave even, is stored up, and will one day come back to you with tremendous power in the form of some misery here. If you project hatred and jealousy, they will rebound on you with compound interest. No power can avert them; when once you have put them in motion, you will have to bear them. Remembering this will prevent you from doing wicked things.

I may remark that this idea explains the ethical theory that you must not hate, and must love. Because, just as in the case of electricity the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle back to the dynamo, so with hate and love; they must come back to the source. Therefore do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you, must in the long run, comes back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle. Its is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred that goes out of the heart of a man comes back to him in full force, nothing can stop it; similarly every impulse of love comes back to him.

The great secret is – absence of jealousy. Be always ready to concede to the opinions of your brethren, and try always to conciliate. That is the whole secret. Fight on bravely! Life is short! Give it up to a great cause.

Source:- “Personality Development” written by Swami Vivekananda Ji.

Influence of Thought

Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when persons do evil actions they become more evil, and when they begin do good, they become stronger and stronger and learn to do good at all times. This intensification of the influence of action cannot be explained on any other ground than that we can act and react upon each other. To take an illustration from physical science, when I am doing a certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of vibration; all minds which are in similar circumstances will have the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are different musical instruments tuned alike in one room, all of you may have noticed that when one is struck, the others have the tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. So all minds that have the same tension, so to say, will be equally affected by the same thought. Of course, this influence of thought on mind will vary according to distance and other causes, but the mind is always open to affection. Suppose I am doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain state of vibration, and all mind in the universe, which are in a similar state, have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my mind. So, when I am doing a good action, my mind is another state of vibration; and all minds similarly strung have the possibility of being affected by my mind; and this power of mind upon mind is more or less according as the force of the tension is greater or less.

Following this smile further, it is quite possible that, just as light waves may travel for millions of years before they reach any object, so thought waves may also travel hundreds of years before they meet an object with which they vibrate in unison, it is quite possible, therefore, that this atmosphere of ours is full of such thought pulsations, both and evil. Every thought projected from every brain goes on pulsating, as it were, until it meets a fit object that will receive it. Any mind which is open to receive some of this impulse will take them immediately. So when a man is doing evil actions, he has brought his mind to a certain state of tension and all the waves which correspond to that state of tension, and which may be said to be already in the atmosphere, will struggle to enter into his mind. That is why an evildoer generally goes on doing more and more evil. His actions become intensified. Such also will be the case with the doer of good; he will open himself to all the good waves that are in the atmosphere, and his good action also will become intensified. We run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing evil: first, we open ourselves to all the evil influences surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which affects others, may be hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we injure ourselves and others also. In doing good we do well to ourselves and to others as well; and, like all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside.

Fill yourselves with the idea; whatever you do, think well on it. All your actions will be magnified, transformed, deified, by the very power of the thought. If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill yourselves with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty, and your glory. Would to god no superstitious have been put into your head! Would to god we had not been surrounded from our birth by all these superstitious influences and paralyzing ideas of our weakness and vileness! Would to god that mankind had an easier path thought which to attain to the pass through all this; do not make the path more difficult for those who are coming after you.

Source:- “Personality Development” written by Swami Vivekanad Ji.

A Bad and a Good Man

Every moment of the body, every thought that we think, leaves such an impression on the mind-stuff, and even when such impressions are not obvious on the surface, they are sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface, subconsciously. What we are every moment is determines by the sum total of these impressions on the mind. What I am just at this moment is the effect of the sum total of all the impressions of my past life. This is really what is meant by character, each man’s character is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If good impressions prevail, the character becomes good; if bad becomes bad. If a man continuously hears bad words, think bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full of bad impressions; and the will influence his thought and work without his being conscious of the fact.

In fact, these bad impressions are always working, and their resultant must be evil, and that man will be a bad man; he cannot help it. The sum total of these impressions in him will create the strong motive power for doing bad actions. He will be like a machine in the hands of impressions, and they will force him to do evil. Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these impressions will be good; and they, in a similar manner, will force him to do well even in spite of himself. When a man has done so much good work and thought so many good thoughts that there is an irresistible tendency in him to do good, in spite of himself and even if he wishes to do evil, his mind, as the sum total of his tendencies, will not allow him to do so: the tendencies will turn him back: he is completely under the influence of the good tendencies. Whensuch is the case, a man’s good character is said to be established.

If you really want to judge of the character of a man, look not at this great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man. Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.

Source:- "Personality Development" written by Swami Vivekanad Ji.

Laws of Personality Development

The Science of yoga claims that it has discovered the laws which develop this personality, and by proper attention to those laws and methods, each one can grow and strengthen his personality. This is one of the great practical things. And this is the secret of all education. This has a universal application. In life of a householder, in the life of the poor, the rich, the man of business, the spiritual man, in every one's life, it is a great thing, the strengthening of this personality. There are laws, very fine which are behind the physical laws, as we know. The is to say, there are no such realities as a physical world, a mental world, a spiritual world .Whatever is, is one. Let us say, it is a sort of tapering existence: the thickest part of is here, it tapers and becomes finer and finer. The finest is what we call spirit; the grossest, the body. And just as it is here in the microcosm, the universe of ours is exactly like that; it is the gross external thickness, and it tapers in to something finer and finer until it becomes God.

We also know that the greatest power is lodged in the fine, not the coarse. We see a man take up a huge weight, we see his muscles swell, and all over his body we see signs of exertion, and we think the muscles are powerful things. But it is thin thread like things, the moment one of these threads is cut  off from reaching the muscles, they are not able to work at all. These tiny nerves bring the power from something still finer, and that again in its turn brings it from something finer still- Thought, and so on. So, it is the fine that is really the seat of power.

Of course we can see the movements in the gross; but when fine movements take a place,we can’t see them.When a gross thing moves, we catch it. And thus,we naturally identify movement with things which are gross but all the power is really in the fine. We do not see any movement in the fine, perhaps, because the movements so intense that we cannot perceive it.But if by any Science,any investigation,we are helped to get hold of these finer forces which are the cause of the expression; the expression itself will be under control.There is a little bubble coming from the bottom of a lake: we do not see it coming all the time,we see it only when it bursts on the surface; so,we can perceive thoughts only after they develop a great deal,or after they become action. We constantly complain that we have no control over our action, over our thoughts. But how can we have it? If we can get control over the fine movements,if we can get hold of thought at the root,before it has become thought, before it has become action, then it would be possible for us to control the whole. Now, if there is a method by which we can analyze, investigate, understand, and finally grapple with those finer powers, the finer causes, then alone is it possible to have control over ourselves, and the man who has control over his own mind assuredly will have control over every other mind. That is why purity and morality has been always the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself. And 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.

Now, a good deal of our physical evil we can get rid of, if we have control over the fine parts; a good many worries we can throw off, if we have control over the fine movements; a good many failures can be averted, if we have control over these fine POWERS.

Source:- "Personality Development" written by Swami Vivekanad Ji.