Daily Reading 107. Swamiji speaks frankly about spiritual aspirants controlling sexual behaviour.

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

Go and do more japa [repetition of a mantra or one of the many names attributed to God], more meditation, more tapasya [austerity or self-denial]. Do not only repeat the mantra, but meditate on it. The mantra is to give Eternal Life – Immortality.

Reading from Meditation and Spiritual Life, by Swami Yatiswarananda.

When you are aware of your gender, you are aware of your body – but we are trying to transcend [rise above] body consciousness. All temptation is mental. It is mostly what you think that affects you. Analyse what you feel in the company of others. If the feeling is of attraction or repulsion – beware. If there is no attraction, it is harmless. First cultivate good thoughts – transcending this comes much later. Control of the mind comes step by step.

Swamiji: This is very important.

Reading: Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Think of yourself as a soul inhabiting a body’.

Swamiji: Seeing the divine in all is the only practical solution in the world today – hatred is a very negative attraction.

Reading: Give up the idea that you are a man or woman and lust will disappear. Then you are spirit and you will think others are spirit. Think you are the Self and you will think that others are the Self. Always fill your mind with atman [soul]. If you look on yourself as a star of light, you will see all others as stars of light in the firmament. As long as sex is active, kundalini is dormant. The higher centres [chakras] must be opened – by meditation, reading the scriptures etc. The unconscious mind must slowly be changed. The soul is sexless.

Swamiji: It is very important to note that you may get mystic visions without strict brahmacharya. Lots of people have seen visions – but they could not stay in that vision for long. Mathur Babu [son in law of the Rani Roshmani – and a householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna] had visions all the time. He asked Sri Ramakrishna, ‘Please take them away, I cannot do my work.’

Reading: Brahmacharya must be observed at all times.

Swamiji: A householder [grihastha] who practises mind and sense control – once a week, and on fasts and festivals – that is brahmacharya for him.

Reading: Conscious suppression of sex, with a spiritual aim, is absolutely necessary. Through love of God and meditation, a true spiritual aspirant overcomes all natural difficulties. In the West they stress Vedanta but not brahmacharya.

Swamiji: Brahmacharya must be in thought word and deed. In thought you cannot help it, but turn it higher [sublimate it] – it is beautiful. In word, turn the thoughts to higher things. In deed, do not do any of those things. You must totally control the sex instinct. We follow the rules of yama and niyama – [Don’t do and Do] but if that leaves out chastity it will be truth, but not perfect Truth.

Reading: Keep the senses pure, immaculate, for God alone. Without chastity you cannot stay on higher levels of spirituality. Householders must do their duty as worship, live controlled, moderate lives, do not live like animals.

Swamiji: Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘So long I live I learn.’ Can you imagine about us?

Reading: God is everywhere, God is everything.

Swamiji: God, is above, below, before, behind [omnipresent]. Think about it. Including you; where you are standing and what you are. Everything.

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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.