15 laws of living from the revered Swami Vivekananda

15 laws of living from the revered Swami Vivekananda: 

Swami Vivekananda, who lived from Jan. 12, 1863 until July 4, 1902, was a disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna and helped introduce Indian philosophies to the West. He was key in making the world aware of Hinduism as a major world religion. 

Here are 15 laws of living from the revered Swami Vivekananda: 

1.       Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves, lives;  he who is selfish, is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.

2.       It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude that makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful; our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3.     Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world--that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, interpret it to mean that you do not yet understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4.      It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feelingthat is the life, the strength, the vitality--without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5.     Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him--that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6.      Don't Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers and let them go their own way.

7.     Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8.      Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest ideal, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9.     Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10.     Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11.     Nothing Is Impossible: 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.

12.     You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13.     Learn Every Day: The goal of mankind is knowledge. . . now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows,' should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils;' what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14.     Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15.      Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.