“All the flowers of all of the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.”
Chinese Proverb
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
“Arise, awake, stop not until your goal is achieved.”
Swami Vivekananda
“An average person with average talents and ambition and average education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.”
Mary Kay Ash
“Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.”
John Dewey
Swami Vivekananda (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902) was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion. Vivekananda became a popular figure after the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where he began his famous speech with the words, “Sisters and brothers of America…,” before introducing Hinduism to Americans. He was so impactful at the Parliament that an American newspaper described him as “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament”. After great success at the Parliament, in the subsequent years, Vivekananda delivered hundreds of lectures across the United States, England and Europe, disseminating the core tenets of Hindu philosophy, and founded the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco (now Vedanta Society of Northern California), both of which became the foundations for Vedanta Societies in the West.
