Daily Reading 103. Swamiji speaks on health and faith, and gives frank advice on managing lust.

Taken from Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

Reading from Meditation and Spiritual Life, by Swami Yatiswarananda: Strength is physical and mental. For physical strength the body must be healthy and have strong emotions to withstand the strain and the struggle. To fight your mind is very difficult. What you at first think is going to help you, turns out not to help you, though it does help you later. Keep the body pure and trim. Take regular exercise. A spiritual aspirant [sadhaka] often neglects the body when he wants to concentrate for a long time.

Swamiji: Look after the body – do not neglect it or be attached to it, because it is the temple [dwelling place] of God.

Reading: Food should be light and nourishing – avoid all indulgences. Be continent [practice brahmacharya], or the brain may get heated up, but later becomes cool. Without continence the brain cannot withstand long meditation. Strengthen the mind and strengthen the will.

Swamiji: You will know on fasting days [i.e. when not eating or drinking] that the mind says, ‘Do this, do that, have a little food etc.’ But if we give in today, it weakens the mind. Adopt the attitude of non-cooperation with the mind.

Some people who go to temples still have no faith in the Deity they worship. Swami Vivekananda [Sri Ramakrishna’s principal monastic disciple] insisted on tenacity of purpose. Never stop struggling. Every one of us, at some time, has had an experience of faith in God – then we forget and lose faith.

Be decisive in small things – do the smallest thing in life consciously. You must do everything perfectly – and to do that, you must become conscious.

The peace that passes all understanding – as long as there are any thoughts, it is not ‘that’ peace. Sensuality has caught us in maya [‘partial truth’ as Swamiji regularly described it to us]. If it is beyond sensuality, it is God. To get the mind to naturally want to sit in meditation, you must purify the mind. If God is already there, serve Him, ask for bhakti [devotion/love] and jnana [knowledge/wisdom]. You will get samadhi [superconsciousness].

Do not surrender [the principle of] truth to God. It is easy to meditate. Use a cross or a candle, or a picture of Christ to focus your attention. Use the Deity’s attributes, this leads to the attribute-less.

Lust, anger and greed are the three open gates to hell. Greed is accumulation – so lead an austere life. Greed is like a puppy and milk, it wants more and more and more all the time. You want more than you need, you want to accumulate. Lust is when you want companionship all the time. If you do not get what you want, it leads to anger. Man did not learn these three – lust anger and greed. You can verify these by scriptural quotations.

How to overcome lust, anger and greed? Love God. Get angry with God for not revealing Himself to you. Lust to get God. Be greedy to get God. If the eye wants to look – look within. If the eye wants to look at somebody, look at the Deity within. ‘To reach Brahman‘ [the one indivisible Consciousness] means: Think of God all the time. It must be like pouring oil without any break [in the flow] whatsoever – then wherever your mind is, you will see Brahman continuously without a break. If you don’t do this when you meditate there are breaks.

Swamiji: Repeated practise influences your thoughts and actions. Try to be with the Ishta Devata [personal or chosen Ideal] at the highest centre. The moment anything happens, run to the Ishta Devata. If it is something bad that happens pray: ‘Save me, I am at your feet, protect me.’

Reading: Connect all the thoughts to the Ishta Devata. If you love the Ishta Devata intensely, you are not troubled by lust. Through japa [repetition of a mantra or one of the many names attributed to God], the repetition of holy passages and prayers, one-pointed visualisation of a holy person, rhythmic breathing, the company of holy people, you can counter these thoughts. Use these as the occasion demands.

A change of consciousness is the ultimate solution. Spiritual awakening forces the mind to do what is holy and right. Then it changes to super-sensory [above the senses] awareness. The heart centre [or chakra] must be awakened. See the super-sensory light of the Self – and all sense cravings disappear. Then the problem of sex, and any other problem, dwindles away.

Swamiji: Some people have reached old age and have not realised God. Why is that? Because they are clinging to anger. They are very crabby [irritable] – and lust and greed get there fast. Lust may leave you but the other traps will not. So start loving. If the heart beats faster, do not get cross – or [rather] be cross with yourself. For greed, practise charity. If you take more than you need, it is greed, it is theft.

Practise slowly. Early in the morning, at midday and before going to bed, imagine the Ishta Devata. At first it is only imagination [but later, as Swamiji said, ‘It becomes reality’]. But that is how I reached, others reached and you will reach.

Reading: Tackle sex at a mental level – imagination plays a dominant role in our life. There is a connection between sex and the imaginative faculty in man. Tackle imagination in a systematic way.

Swamiji: The mind must never be allowed to see the wrong pictures. Use counter-thoughts. For example: for hate you think love. For passion you think repulsion. Mentally you must like the right thing (God and Guru) so much that you want to do the right things. A diary will show that you think of bad things the whole day, not good things. Think the whole time of good things. With lust, tackle the problem straight away as it arises. The thoughts must be changed. Realise that thinking of God makes you happy. Bring in the positive factor. Think of a holy person and fill your mind with it. Do not let the mind stray. Do not go near lust, physically or mentally.

If someone attracts us on the thought plane, do not communicate with that person, dissociate yourself from them. Raise barriers of feelings of disgust for them. Give all thoughts and feelings to the Divine alone. If you fail examinations, you must blame yourself and not others – just so with lust. When you forget God or the higher Self, temptation comes with great frequency. Love your Chosen Ideal intensely. Merge all in the Self shining in you, your real nature.

Deprive the destructive images, deprive them of life, bring in good images. How to minimise the images, must be learned one day or the other. You must practise [positive, alternative] suggestion, for sex control. Do not let the mind come down. Concentrate on the heart and head. And if the mind goes down? Make it come up. Treat the mind as a friend. We must look on ourselves as the Atman – not as man, woman, body. Think: ‘I am the limitless self.’

Underlined words are hypertext links to clarification, explanation or other sources. Just tap on them.

The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography, ‘A Life Lived For Others‘, is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.

For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ booklet of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.

There’s also a Facebook site for Swamiji’s posts now. They feature newer readings published more recently. Click HERE to view.

These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to those with him at the time.