Disc 133 track 8. Swamiji says: If you have faith, you don’t need multiple scriptures.

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Swamiji says we read the scriptures so that we’ll better understand what we’re looking for. In your own mind that is – not for others. If we have faith, just one scripture will suffice because we’ll know that what it says is the Truth. But as human beings we’re not sure of our own selves. So instead of having faith in just one scripture, we read all the different scriptures. And from that we try to reach a particular point or goal on which we base our belief and we proceed from there.

Certain scriptures – especially in the Hindu religion, refer you to other scriptures. They try to give you the widest secular knowledge as it were. ‘Secular’ [i.e non-spiritual] as I’m calling it here, is apara vidya. Only [God] realisation will give you para vidya. The scriptures are also apara.

Swamiji explains how we try by various means to gather information to help us better understand what it is that we’re looking for. 

Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna said to all of his disciples, ‘Say ‘Gita’ ten times and it turns into ‘Tyagi’ [which means a renunciate] and you’ll know what you should do.’ Master didn’t say read the scripture called ‘Gita’ [Bhagavad Gita] – he was saying, renounce! Swamiji again emphasises our misconception of the term ‘renounce’. Renounce what? he asks. [A reminder that Swamiji has said many times throughout these talks, that renouncing means renouncing the power of our senses.] 

Swamiji goes back to the point that if we don’t have faith in the words of the scriptures, we’ll continue reading many of them. And as long as we don’t have faith, we can’t start the process of spiritual advancement. Once you have the faith, then nothing else matters. 

Swamiji uses Sri Hanumanji as the exemplar of one who was exposed to thousands of different deities but was only interested in his beloved Lord Rama. Love means, I have faith. Because of his own faith, how many people have faith in Hanuman today?

Swamiji goes back to ‘renounce what?’ Not the ego. Nobody can renounce the ego. Not even God [in human form]. As long as He’s got name and form, he can’t. Swamiji stresses that it’s not his view being expressed here, but it’s what Sri Ramakrishna had to say about ego. 

Swamiji shares anecdotes about how Sri Ramakrishna was very careful not to feed the ego by responding to pomp and ceremony directed at him. Sri Ramakrishna stressed that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings by not sitting on their fancy, specially-decorated chairs and the like, but that the ego must at all times, be controlled. When they said, ‘But you’re a Paramahamsa!’ his answer was, ‘Haven’t you seen that even the slaughtered goat kicks?’

Everyone has and needs ego says Swamiji. Even Hanumanji needed praise to wake up. Even the churches say, ‘Praise the Lord.’ The ego cannot be renounced. But our identification with the ego can be renounced. We identify the ego with body, mind and the things of this world. Take that same thing and identify it with Satchidananda [Existence, Consciousness, Bliss].

Someone asked Swami Abhedananda [a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and brother disciple to Swami Vivekananda], ‘Do you lose your individuality in God-realisation?’ He replied, ‘No, you find your individuality.’ Now you’re saying, I am a person, a finite being’, which is not your real individuality. Then, when you find it, you’ll know, ‘I am Satchidananda’, the real individuality. You can never divide that. 

Individuality means that it can never be divided. When a drop of water is falling, it may say, ‘I am a drop of water, I am a drop of water’, but then it touches the ocean, what will it say? ‘I am the ocean, I am the ocean’. But the identification of that ego – didn’t the scriptures say you’re identifying yourself with the body? Identify yourself with the intellect, you’ll think you’re the intellect. So the idea is to identify yourself with THAT – aham brahma asmi. [I am Brahman.] Identify yourself with Brahman. But what Brahman is, must be understood.

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

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 an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.