Swami Omkarananda’s life in his own words
"Purity is the soul of my Strength. Truth is the source of my Power. God is my Life, and I have no existence apart from Him. His Consciousness is my Light. His all-sustaining and all-creative Beauty constitutes my Joy. Prayer is my Breath and meditation forms the Bread of my life.
All Humanity is my family. The Forces of Nature are my Friends. The Godhead in all of you is the object of my adoration. It is very difficult, almost impossible, for me to differentiate or distinguish between saints and sinners, or artificially divide mankind into two groups called the good and the evil, – I find there are only gracious children of God on earth, some close to, and some a little away from, God’s all-purifying and all-empowering Presence.
Human life on earth has always presented itself to me as a school in which some occupy higher standards and some lower classes, but all are to be loved equally, honored equally, and the hand of service is to be denied to none. The people in the lower standards will one day occupy higher classes.
I perceive real and great Beauty wherever Goodness is self-expressive and wherever Love enriches, ennobles and exalts life. I find the essential form of Beauty wherever Virtue invests human life with dignity, grants a mastery over instinctive nature and contributes to harmony and efficiency in social relations.
I find the Face of the valuable Beauty wherever human Intelligence is active in the use of skills and in the discovery of ways and means of conquering ignorance, poverty, suffering, disease, Nature, as a measure in the progress of the soul of Humanity.
I have no desires, but only a few wishes, and they are the wishes for the Health, Peace, Happiness, Prosperity and spiritual Progress of all people of all lands.
I preach to nobody, but I speak to myself. I write not to teach, but to state facts. I reason not to convince others, but to eliminate the discordant elements in thinking and in living that characterize the normal nature of a growing mankind that progresses more by the method of trial and error than by ordered reason and illumination.
I work not for any personal objective in view, but for the Glory of God and the welfare, happiness and illumination of mankind. I labor for God’s blessed children under the sun, moved by a Will that is not my own but His, and with resources that belong not to me but to the all-creative divine Consciousness that is His.
The human individual serves mankind best, also when he thinks good thoughts, entertains noble feelings, hates none and nothing, engages himself in useful works, wishes universal welfare, prays, meditates and communes in divine Love, with the living omnipresence of the all-perfect God.
Nothing in me has ever responded to any form of appreciation bestowed upon any of the works that proceed from me; for, all such appreciation belongs to the invisible yet discernible owner and ruler of my energies. Since all my work, way and style of life is my silent and all-inclusive worship of the living moving talking Godhead, I never wished, and will never wish, to be known, even to the very next person living with me.
I need nothing: for, the all-responding, all-wonderful, all-knowing Godhead is the Bank of my inexhaustible Fortune, my defense army of unfailing Protection and my time-defying and all-productive Factories of Life, Love and Light.
Pleasures of life, of society, of civilization have no attraction, no value for me; for, I live in the perpetual and self-sustaining ecstasies of the Consciousness of the Divine in dynamic action and self-expression. Yet I heartily recommend the pleasures of life, of society, of civilization to those who have not yet found the pleasures I live in; and, also I feel drawn to draw the attention of some of them to the fact that their pleasures are rendered secure, and endure, by a background awareness of God’s Presence.
I dwell in the delights of a Mind wedded to the wisdom of God, and the joys of a Heart that is lodged in the all-absorbing Love for the supreme Beloved. Pleasures are afforded me also by aesthetic sensibilities, artistic appreciation, philosophic perceptions, spiritual intuitions.
The idea of being a Leader is entirely foreign to my Nature. I know myself to be a ready servant of a Humanity that seeks for the peace, the strength and the joy that come from self-control and growing moral purity, the knowledge and the illumination that are gained from culture, intellectual development, perfection and the all-blessing divine powers that result from spiritual evolution and experience."
- Swami Omkarananda