Seven lectures delivered by the author at different occasions.

"Universality" is a book which is a subset of a much larger collection "Be One with God" compiled from the vast literature of Swami Vivekananda and is intended to lead mankind to their ultimate goal - the ideal of perfection, God. This book has 150 selected sayings of Swami Vivekananda on Universality. It deals with Religious brotherhood and Universal Selfhood. These thoughts of Swami Vivekananda broaden our horizon and look at the whole universe as One. Swami Vivekananda himself said that he will continue to inspire men everywhere until the whole world shall know that it is 'One with God.' The contents of this book are based on this very utterance.

Vol. I: View From the Center In the lectures contained in this volume Swami Vivekananda lays the logical foundation for a dynamic and inclusive universal religion. He argues the necessity of total freedom while providing a coherent metaphysics and psychology of the mind, upon which much of contemporary transpersonal psychology appears to have been built. The model provided in this first volume feeds into all the explanations contained in the remainder of the series. For Swami Vivekananda, the religions of the world are all prototypes of transcendental Reality, various doors through which our feelings and wills can open out into the Infinite, and the Infinite can in turn, express itself. This grand view of spirituality is what Swami Vivekananda has reawakened for our modern world.

Text from all nine volumes of Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda as well some unpublished material is available here. All proceeds are donated to Advaita Ashrama, India

There has always been an ongoing dispute between the realists and the idealists as to what is ultimate and fundamental. The realists see matter as absolute, whereas the idealists see mind as absolute. Swami Vivekananda sees both mind and matter as aspects of a larger reality. The human soul is not separate from other souls, but is an expression of one singular, spiritual Ocean out of which the whole of creation arises. Our problem is that we are clinging to the waves rather than opening out and resting in the Ocean or Source Itself. This is all explained in the ancient Sankhyan model of perception and evolution, which Swami Vivekananda empowers with the philosophy of non-dualism. Among other things, Vivekananda puts the traditional Sankhyan idea of the gunas into a familiar psychological context: tamas being attraction, rajas being aversion, and sattva being balance. Almost a century earlier, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the German philosopher framed this dynamic as thesis or status quo (tamas), antithesis or breaking free, (rajas), and synthesis or ongoing levels of integration (sattva). In light of Swami Vivekananda's message, the Vedic position gives this process a higher evolutionary direction, that direction being an experience of a spiritual Reality that is omnipresent and ever-free.

This volume contains the Sutras of Patanjali. But the theme is the same as Part I. For in arousing the power within, the challenge is to free up consciousness from the external world by collecting and focusing attention on an object, person, holy word, or concept. Eventually, attention or concentration matures into a state of meditation. Through deeper meditations on higher ideals, we arouse our inner spiritual power. The more centered and open our acts of concentration, and the larger our thoughts and feelings, the more our consciousness is able to intuit an ultimate Truth, within and without. Eventually, a state of uninterrupted absorption occurs in which we are able to discern higher Reality as our core Self.