Reflections: Swami Vivekananda

Perfect. Nothing to fault. Except I would like a larger font if possible. My father very much enjoyed reading this many times over but only issue was font was bit small and he struggled to read it even with his glasses.

I have been following Swami ji since May 2005 and have almost all books by or on him but it's one of the most beautiful book I have ever come across. Not only this, it is first time that I am writing any review on any product. It's wonderful, astounding, & enthralling experience to have this book. I am not going by the quality of the pages. 5 Stars for The contents only.

Very good

Great book. But you should have an open mind and be ready for this banger

An amazing book, original quality and excited to read this✨

Forget about foreign author with fancy names, here is The Man , the intellectual, the seer, the revolutionary.. I am regretting why I read him so late, why couldn't I read him in my teenage, I'd have been a different person.. It's incredible. Please make your children, siblings read this book if you want their betterment as a human being. Everyone should know on this Earth who Swamij Vivekananda was and what were his thoughts. Please read... It's a request.

Masterpiece. You can start with this book if you want learn the teachings and life of swamiji.

One will never feel disappointed after purchasing this book. A storehouse of valuable knowledge is what this book is. Basically it's an assemblage of various speeches which Swami ji has delivered in his whole lifetime. All the speeches actually tell us how to live our life in a more productive as well as goal-oriented way.

The Kindle version of this book is utterly unreadable: it seems like someone painstakingly took fuzzy pictures of each page of the book and that became the Kindle book I paid good money to read but will never be able to read.

Something interesting happened even before I received this book! It shipped from outside of the U.S. NOT with Amazon, but with the U.S. Postal service. Loving everything coming from Swami Vivekananda, I excitedly awaited its arrival, so I kept tracking it. It first landed in Texas. I live in California. It then arrived in a city LITERALLY a 15 minute drive from my house. I figured that by the next day, it would have arrived in the Post Office in my city. NO! It was sent to New York! Way on the other side of the Country! It took about another two to three days to return to the neighboring city to the one 15 minutes away. Then, the next day, again to that city that is a 15 min drive! A FULL CIRCLE! And then, instead of being delivered to my local postal office, it goes to Los Angeles! About an hour drive from where I live! Then again to the city next to the one that is a 15 minute drive, then to that city (15 min drive) and FINALLY to my local post office! What the heck?! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BOOK! It is REPLETE with timeless wisdom! It is a MEATY book. 653 pages of Pure Wisdom! The font size is PERFECT for comfortable reading! I even love the scent that the paper emits! It is that fragrance that welcomes you when you step into a Barnes & Noble book store. In the first 39 pages are contributions by people who met or studied under Swami Vivekananda. They speak about the deep wisdom that he radiated, the impression that they received, etc. I deeply enjoyed this section and made me feel as if I had met him, myself. At first, I looked at the table of contents and jumped around to the titles that interested me. However, when realizing that every chapter is saturated with profound wisdom, I decided to go back to the first chapter and read in order, sequentially. Here are some excerpts that stood out to me: PG 71 - "for slowly and gradually the human soul rises up and up, step after step, from gross to fine, from the fine to the finer, until it reaches the Absolute, the goal." PG 89 - "The West says, 'Do! Show your power by doing.' India says, 'show your power by suffering.' The West has solved the problem of how MUCH [my emphasis] a man can have. India has solved the problem LITTLE [my emphasis] a man can have." PG 119 - "And enjoyment can never be the goal, because enjoyment can only be of nature." PG 127 - "To reach the eternal consciousness, that is the goal of man!" PG 129 - "Spirituality can never be attained unless all material ideas are given up...the senses are all delusion." PG 130 - "The man who has given up all desires, who desires nothing, not even this life, nor freedom, nor gods, nor work, nor anything. When he becomes perfectly satisfied, he has no more cravings." PG 131 - "A man is said to be illumined if his will has become firm, if his mind is not disturbed by misery, if he does not desire any happiness, if he is free of all attachments, of all fear, of all anger." PG 139 - "The sign is that the moment we are in the stream we will float. Then there is no more struggle." PG 143 - "Thou thyself art thy own friend, thou thyself thy own enemy. There is no other enemy but this self of mine, no other friend by myself." PG 156 - "How can you make the spirit pure? By renunciation." PG 156 - "Here is the ideal. When a man has no more self in him, no possessions, nothing to call 'me' or 'mine', has given himself up entirely, destroyed himself as it were -- in the man is God Himself, for in him self-will is gone, crushed out, annihilated." PG 157 - "To be unselfish, perfectly selfless, is salvation itself, for man within dies, and God alone remains." I HIGHLY recommend this vessel containing Pure Wisdom!

Many chapters are very deep and it has whole teachings of spirituality. You can find all the answers what is going in your head. A true book for spiritual.

Too many typo errors obstruct the reading flow. Use of language is very average, something they should have worked on when they are compiling works from greatest one like Swami Vivekanandha. It just doesn’t justify it. No preface or author’s note either. I see good effort in bringing this compilation but falls short of literary grandeur that it deserves. I hope they rework the errors and bring back a better improved version.

book for reading