Who Will Give the World Light?

My ideal can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far. Every thought is tinged with our own character.

One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the Law; it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth’s bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of the many, for the welfare of all. Buddhas by the hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.

What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.

Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want.  Awake, awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the god within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work? The details come to me as I go. I never make plans. Plans grow and work themselves. I only say, awake, awake!

– Swami Vivekananda