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As the birthday of Swami Vivekananda advances upon us, I could not stop myself from writing an article about my favourite quote of his. It was perhaps this quote which drew me about learning more about Vivekananda and I can recall so many of my childhood memories, dreams and passions shaped around this.

Swami Vivekananda’s words for me were more than mere words – they still fill me with fire, passion and somehow feel like I am being kicked out of my bed to respect the inner self. The quote speaks to me in so many levels. In this particular instance, the article is about elevating ourselves to the higher standards. The perspective I would like to present is to grow beyond our limitations, limiting beliefs, thoughts and even shortcomings to become the person who is worthy of a goal.

Arise, Awake and Stop Not till the goal is reached!

The three words are quite simply their own power houses. It is about elevating ourselves to the next level. In his Karmayoga, Vivekananda talks about being the better self – the self which is about work and not results, it is about commitment and not the outcomes. I can go on, but can probably never make justice to the quality of words spoken by him.

For me, this section is just about elevating ourselves. We all talk highly of dreams, passions. My previous article was about building a dream and creating that motivation for ourselves. A point we touched upon in Ambani’s quote about creating a dream was about making ourselves worthy of it.

In this instance, I do like the representation that the dream is not just something for us to get, it is about becoming that person in the process.

Related: Vivekananda quotes

Inspiring vivekananda quotes

From his speech at the Parliament of Religions to his complete works, his words are filled with motivation. Here is a small collection of his quotes to motivate us.

1. “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.”
2. “In a day, when you don’t come across any problems – you can be sure that you are traveling in a wrong path.”
3. “You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.”
4. “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”
5. “The greatest sin is to think yourself weak.”
6. “Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at other; for all the faults you suffer from, you are the sole and only cause.”
7. “Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject it as poison.”
8. “Strength is life, weakness is death.”
9. “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, or others are weak.”
10. “All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. Stand up and express the divinity within you.”

What is your dream/Goal Anyway?

If I do ask this as an objective question, there are answers about money, financial abundance, generosity, kindness and being able to contribute to the world. The beauty of these goals is that they create a persona of ourselves which can achieve this.

Let me ask this question – when you see yourself having accomplished this goal – what do you look like? What is the image of yourself in the process of achieving this goal? Can you imagine a picture and feel how strong/passionate and full of life you feel.

This to me is the very essence of this chase of a goal or passion. It is a beautiful thing to have the ability to dream of something and making a difference. But even more beautiful is the person you and I can become in this process of achieving a dream.

Surely it is not just the results which can keep us thriving – that’s just such a materialistic perspective to push towards.

Perseverance at its very best!

One other quote, I would like to leave you with before I end this post today

“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.”

Swami Vivekananda

Yes, the goal and dream have a beautiful passion attached to them. All of these demand hard work. You and I becoming capable of the goal – takes work. It cannot magically happen while we sit aside twiddling our thumbs. It will take us to do something more than we’ve been doing. If not, you and I would have had this achieved by now and looking for the next big thing.

As a confession, I am slightly obsessed with talking about perseverance and hard work. Perhaps this is because most motivational sites often talk about magically becoming successful. But surely there’s a part of you which says – “Come on, this can’t be right”

And I am only speaking to that part of you which has that sneaky little doubt. That part of you which has a little more belief in yourself than something else said by a third party. It is a call for the inner side which says – arise awake and stop not.

With that, I leave you with this quote and lovely fiery words from Vivekanadanda with fondest memories of passion and the delight of being able to read his books.

“Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.”

– Swami Vivekananda.

Attributions and References:

Manjappabg, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons, image of Vivekananda, edited to fit in the quote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda