Advaita Vedanta · 1863–1902
Vivekananda on self-imposed limitation
We cover our own eyes and complain of the dark
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.
What this verse points to
The image is almost comic, and deliberately so. Nothing has been taken away and nothing external is at fault — the obstruction is being actively maintained by the one complaining about it.
Vivekananda used this kind of statement to attack what he saw as the real problem: not that people lacked capacity, but that they had been persuaded they lacked it.
Sit with it
Name one thing you have decided you cannot do. Ask honestly whether that is a finding or a habit.
About the Swami Vivekananda
The foremost disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and founder of the Ramakrishna Mission. His address to the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago introduced Vedanta to a large Western audience, and his lectures on the four yogas remain widely read.