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This clarion call of Vivekananda is essentially a mantra for the modern man. Vivekananda placed great emphasis on "awakening"; so what exactly does this awakening constitute? The fact that you are reading this article indicates that you are awake, right? Nay, that is being awake at the physical level. Real awakening is when one wakes up to the beauties of one's own inner self. It is the realization that one's body is a temporary "shell" and the real self, the "inner you," is Atman [soul].

The statement naturally presumes that we are not awake; indeed, we have busied ourselves with the outer world, forgetting our real nature. We may be awake to the external world, but to reality within, we are asleep in regard to our consciousness. We should awaken our consciousness within by spirituality. We should arise out of the present state of inertia; arise from our state of rest. Life might have given us repeated blows. We blame the world, but it is our slumber that has caused all this suffering. We must awaken to our true identity—become aware of its existence. This statement is important even in ordinary daily life. Wherever we might be, we should not stop progressing or working. We should continue our struggle. We should never be dejected or depressed when failures torment us. We should go ahead, and stop not till the goal is reached. It is man's incessant desire to run after worldly objects that has caused the burdens to increase in the first place.

When desires are controlled and work is done in a spirit to achieve something in life, burdens lighten automatically. When a man is blessed with a Volkswagen, he wants a Lexus. When he gets a Lexus, he wants a BMW. These desires are endless and with the progressive fulfilment of every desire, man unknowingly increases burdens. At first, man makes objects, such as cars, work for him, but when he has acquired them, these objects start making a man work (for their upkeep). We should vow to arise from our present states and awake to the beauties of our inner selves and toil tirelessly till we acieve the goal of self.