“Have you realized that you are the spirit? When you say, “I do,” what is meant by that – this lump of flesh called the body or the spirit, the infinite, ever blessed, effulgent, immortal? You may be the greatest philosopher, but as long as you have the idea that you are the body, you are no better than the little worm crawling under your foot! No excuse for you! So much worse for you that you know all the philosophies and at the same time think you are the body! Body – gods, that is what you are! Is that religion? Religion is the realization of the spirit as spirit. What are we doing now? Just the opposite, realizing spirit as matter.”
(p.468-9, V-1, Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Swamiji’s lecture on ‘The Gita III’, delivered in San Francisco, on May 29, 1900)