Vivekanada on Self-Response-Ability

That which I created I can demolish; that which is created by someone else I shall never be able to destroy. Therefore ...Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore make your own future. "Let the dead past bury its dead."  The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever. 

Vivekananda 2.5.11B Chapter 11B: The Cosmos, Complete Works

What is meant by the above quote?

Vivekanada is speaking to the notion that we are responsible for the mess we have inside and therefore our experience of Life.  If it is less than pleasant because of our tendency to store the bad and the negative and the challenging energy that is derived from certain situations in the form of samskaras...blaming others and Life for our unhappiness does nothing but create more suffering.  When we realize we are responsible (response-able= able to respond) we respond in a strong, bold, and empowered way. We take accountability for our Life experience. 

Responsibility also means recognizing we have the power to change our lives for the better. We do not need to be consumed by negativity...focusing on all the "bad" thoughts and deeds we have stored in the form of samskaras from our past, or those bad thoughts and deeds coming at us from the external world in the present. We can demolish" our tendencies to store negativity, cling to the past, collect grievances, prefer, expect too much from others and life. 

When we become responsible for our own lives...we honour the laws of Karma: aware that every word we speak, every thought we have; every deed we or others choose will have a karmic effect rippling out into our expereince of life. We do not have to store what we experience as "negative" or "bad" when these experiences unfold in front of us either.  We can learn to have faith and trust that we are being surrounded by postive,  "good" and healing  'energy'. (what he refers to as "a hundred thousand angels".) We can choose "good" over "bad". (He is reverting to dualistic terminology to make his point here, I beleive). Good is much more powerful and life enhancing.

So many of us are buried in the past. It doesn't have to bury us.  We can let go of it and the samskaras that cloud the way we see the future. He tells us to "Let the dead past bury itself". ...and to have faith in the "infinite" future before us.  Look forward, move forward in this Life and all the lives to come,  that will take us to the end of samsara. 

We are responsible for what we stuff and store within. We must start choosing to focus on the light and the goodness surrounding us rather than the darkness. 

All is well.