In this page we’ll make a collection of Swami Vivekananda‘s quotes, comments and opinions on Bondage. The related articles (e.g.. “Swami Vivekananda’s quotes on Freedom”) are listed at the bottom of this page.
- A golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one. Shri Ramakrishna used to say that, to pick out one thorn which has stuck into the foot, another thorn is requisitioned, and when the thorn is taken out, both are thrown away. So the bad tendencies are to be counteracted by the good ones, but after that, the good tendencies have also to be conquered.[Source]
- As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves.[Source]
- Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness and all care as to what becomes of you.[Source]
- Desire, ignorance, and inequality — this is the trinity of bondage.[Source]
- Do not desire, for what you desire you get, and with it comes terrible bondage. It is nothing but bringing “noses on us,” as in the case of the man who had three boons to ask. We never get freedom until we are self-contained. “Self is the Saviour of self, none else.”[Source]
- Every one is as much bound in thought, word, deed, and mind, as a piece of stone or this table. That I talk to you now is as rigorous in causation as that you listen to me. There is no freedom until you go beyond Maya. That is the real freedom of the soul.[Source]
- Give up bondage; become a son, be free, and then you can “see the Father”, as did Jesus.[Source]
- He who asserts he is free, shall be free. He who says he is bound, bound he shall remain.[Source]
- He who is alone is happy. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage, and bondage brings only misery. Live alone in your mind — that is happiness. To have nobody to care for and never minding who cares for one is the way to be free.[Source] (Editor’s note: A comment like “Do not love anyone” might be confusing. Here it means “Do not get attached to anything”. Please see Swami Vivekananda’s comments on “love” for clarification)
- I am perfectly aware that I am free by nature, and I will not admit that this bondage is true and my freedom a delusion.[Source]
- If you dare declare that you are free, free you are this moment. If you say you are bound, bound you will remain.[Source]
- Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?[Source]
- The moment you think creed and form and ceremony the “be-all” and “end-all”, then you are in bondage. Take part in them to help others, but take care they do not become a bondage.[Source]
- To injure another creates bondage and hides the truth. Negative virtues are not enough; we have to conquer Maya, and then she will follow us. We only deserve things when they cease to bind us. When the bondage ceases, really and truly, all things come to us. Only those who want nothing are masters of nature.[Source]
- To love anyone personally is bondage. Love all alike, then all desires fall off.[Source]
- To weep is a sign of weakness, of bondage.[Source]
- Vairagya is non – attachment to life, because it is the will to enjoy that brings all this bondage in its train; and Abhyasa is constant practice of any one of the Yogas.[Source]
- We are bound to earth by desire and also to God, heaven, and the angels. A slave is a slave whether to man, to God, or to angels.[Source]
- We must become free. We are free; the work is to know it. We must give up all slavery, all bondage of whatever kind. We must not only give up our bondage to earth and everything and everybody on earth, but also to all ideas of heaven and happiness.[Source]
- We think in time; our thoughts are bound by time; all that exists, exists in time and space. All is bound by the law of causation.[Source]
- When we free ourselves from name and form, especially from a body — when we need no body, good or bad — then only do we escape from bondage. Eternal progression is eternal bondage; annihilation of form is to be preferred. We must get free from any body, even a “god-body”. God is the only real existence, there cannot be two. There is but One Soul, and I am That.[Source]
- Work done for the Self gives no bondage. Neither desire pleasure nor fear pain from work. It is the mind and body that work, not I. Tell yourself this unceasingly and realise it. Try not to know that you work.[Source]
- You and I and everything in the universe are that Absolute, not parts, but the whole. You are the whole of that Absolute, and so are all others, because the idea of part cannot come into it. These divisions, these limitations, are only apparent, not in the thing itself. I am complete and perfect, and I was never bound. . .[Source]
Bondage and liberty
Bondage and liberty, light and shadow, good and evil must be there, but the very fact of the bondage shows also this freedom hidden there. If one is a fact, the other is equally a fact. There must be this idea of freedom. While now we cannot see that this idea of bondage, in uncultivated man, is his struggle for freedom, yet the idea of freedom is there. The bondage of sin and impurity in the uncultivated savage is to his consciousness very small, for his nature is only a little higher than the animal’s. What he struggles against is the bondage of physical nature, the lack of physical gratification, but out of this lower consciousness grows and broadens the higher conception of a mental or moral bondage and a longing for spiritual freedom. Here we see the divine dimly shining through the veil of ignorance. The veil is very dense at first and the light may be almost obscured, but it is there, ever pure and undimmed — the radiant fire of freedom and perfection. Man personifies this as the Ruler of the Universe, the One Free Being. He does not yet know that the universe is all one, that the difference is only in degree, in the concept.
From Swami Vivekananda’s lecture of 11 December 1895
What is the bondage? The bondage is of nature. Who is it that binds us? We, ourselves.
The whole universe is bound by the law of causation. There cannot be anything, any fact — either in the internal or in the external world — that is uncaused; and every cause must produce an effect.
Now this bondage in which we are is a fact. It need not be proved that we are in bondage. For instance: I would be very glad to get out of this room through this wall, but I cannot; I would be very glad if I never became sick, but I cannot prevent it; I would be very glad not to die, but I have to; I would be very glad to do millions of things that I cannot do. The will is there, but we do not succeed in accomplishing the desire. When we have any desire and not the means of fulfilling it, we get that peculiar reaction called misery. Who is the cause of desire? I, myself. Therefore, I myself am the cause of all the miseries I am in.
. . . . . .
Each one of us reaps what we ourselves have sown. These miseries under which we suffer, these bondages under which we struggle, have been caused by ourselves, and none else in the universe is to blame. God is the least to blame for it.
. . . . . .
A caterpillar spins a little cocoon around itself out of the substance of its own body and at last finds itself imprisoned. It may cry and weep and howl there; nobody will come to its rescue until it becomes wise and then comes out, a beautiful butterfly. So with these our bondages. We are going around and around ourselves through countless ages. And now we feel miserable and cry and lament over our bondage. But crying and weeping will be of no avail. We must set ourselves to cutting these bondages.
The main cause of all bondage is ignorance. Man is not wicked by his own nature — not at all. His nature is pure, perfectly holy. Each man is divine. Each man that you see is a God by his very nature. This nature is covered by ignorance, and it is ignorance that binds us down. Ignorance is the cause of all misery. Ignorance is the cause of all wickedness; and knowledge will make the world good. Knowledge will remove all misery. Knowledge will make us free. This is the idea of Jnana-Yoga: knowledge will make us free! What knowledge? Chemistry? Physics? Astronomy? Geology? They help us a little, just a little. But the chief knowledge is that of your own nature. “Know thyself.” You must know what you are, what your real nature is. You must become conscious of that infinite nature within. Then your bondages will burst.
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