The mind cannot be easily conquered. Minds that rise into
waves at the approach of every little thing at the slightest provocation or
danger, in what a state they must be! What to talk of greatness or
spirituality, when these changes come over the mind? This unstable condition of
the mind must be changed.
We must ask ourselves how far we can be acted upon by the
external world, and how far we can stand on our own feet, in spite of all the
forces outside us. When we have succeeded in preventing all the forces in the
world from throwing us off our balance, then alone we have attained to freedom,
and not before. That is salvation. It is here and nowhere else; it is this moment.
Analyze yourselves and you will find that every blow you have
received, came to you because you prepared yourselves for it. You did half, and
the external world did the other half: that is how the blow came. That will
sober us down. At the same time, from this very analysis will come a note of
hope, and the note of hope is: ‘I have no control of the external world, but
that which is in me and nearer unto me, my own world, is in my control. If the
two together are required to make a failure, if the two together are necessary
to give me a blow, I will not contribute the one which is in my keeping; and
how then can the blows come? If I get real control of myself, the blow will
never come.
Swami Vivekananda