Swami Vivekananda is generally known as a saint, a patriot, and a lover of humanity. But very few people know him as a poet. He also wrote some poems, songs, and hymns, which though few in number, may be classed with the creations of poetic art. This book is an exhaustive collection of those compositions by him, consisting of those written in English, and others translated into English from the original Bengali, Sanskrit, or Hindi.
That which is nearest is least observed. The Atman is the nearest of the near, therefore a careless and unsteady mind gets no clue to the Atman. But one who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discriminating, ignores the external world and, diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great.
-Swami Vivekananda