Reading room

The Real and the Apparent Man

Swami Vivekananda

An 1896 lecture contrasting the empirical self —the body, the mind, the changing personality— with the Atman, the real, infinite and unchanging self of Vedanta. Vivekananda holds that religion consists in discovering that identity, from which freedom, strength and ethics arise. It was published as a standalone pamphlet and later included in Jnana Yoga.