Evolution of love

Swami Vivekananda

Once, in the course of his (Swami Vivekananda's) weary marches on foot,

he became dizzy from exhaustion and could walk no farther.

The sun was intolerably hot. Summoning his strength he reached a tree near by

and sat down beneath its spreading branches. A sense of unutterable fatigue

came over his limbs. Then, as a great light shines suddenly in the darkness,

the thought came to him: "Is it not true that within the Soul resides all power?

How can it be dominated by the senses and the body? How can I be weak?"

Therewith a sudden energy flowed through his body. His mind became luminous.

His senses recovered themselves, and he arose and journeyed on, determined that

he would never yield to weakness. Many times he was in such a state;

but he asserted his higher nature again and again, and strength flowed back to him.

Says the Swami in one of his lectures in California: "Many times I have been in the jaws

of death, starving, footsore, and weary; for days and days I had had no food, and

often could walk no farther; I would sink down under a tree, and life would seem

ebbing away. I could not speak, I could scarcely think, but at last the mind reverted to

the idea: "I have no fear nor death; I never hunger nor thirst.

I am It! I am It! The whole of nature cannot crush me; it is my servant.

Assert thy strength, thou Lord of lords and God of gods! Regain thy lost empire!

Arise and walk and stop not!"

And I would rise up, reinvigorated, and here am I, living, today.

Thus, whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish.

For, after all, it is but a dream. Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible

and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ. Fear not — it is banished.

Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies"...