Disc 138 Track 7. Swamiji says that getting close to God drives away fear.

To listen to Swamiji speaking, please fully open the post and then click HERE.

This is a clip comprising several excerpts. So Swamiji touches on a variety of topics. Perhaps the most important part of the discussion is a reading asking: ‘How to overcome fear?’ It’s worth listening to Swamiji explaining the nature of fear, how pervasive it is, and how we can get it under management. He tells of his personal experience with fear, and Swami Vivekananda’s. He quotes an Indian saying: ‘Fear is fearful to approach Him [God].’ He wraps up this discussion on fear with an exquisite tip: ‘Keep your mind in God’s sanctuary.’ Another line is, ‘A man becomes fearless when he has the love of God in his heart.’ 

Swamiji tells a story about using Lord Rama’s name to remove a little boy’s fear. There is so, so much to learn from this vital discussion. Please find a quiet place to listen to it.

Swamiji talks about the huge number of steps that God takes towards us when we display the effort of taking one tiny step in His direction. Swami says that ‘scares’ God. [In many discussions, Swamiji said that when a devotee sincerely and unconditionally loves God, God becomes ‘enslaved’ by that love, and must come running to the aid of that devotee. [The Almighty becomes a prisoner in the bhakta’s – devotee’s – heart.] 

Struggle is good, says Swamiji – if it is for God. 

Swamiji talks about how the Lord Jesus came and spoke to what was an unsophisticated audience of fishermen and other [please don’t misunderstand this word] people who were ‘uneducated’ in the traditional sense. As Swamiji says, ‘There were no students.’ Swamiji stresses how if Christ came right now, his teachings would essentially be the same, but people would claim that he didn’t teach those things back then. Yet he did. [But in parables and simple stories. It’s the receptivity, readiness and ability to absorb the teachings that would be very different today.] 

Swamiji says that whichever way we think of God, we get purified. He uses a soap and water analogy to explain the ‘cleansing’ by repetition of any of the many holy name/s of God. The name is purity itself. Repeating it [japa] is the easiest way to realise God.

The conversation [due to the digital compiling sequence] switches back again to Swamiji talking about God taking metaphoric ‘billions of steps’ towards us, when we take one towards Him. Infinite steps, says Swamiji. 

Our beloved Mother Radha [who made these recordings of Swamiji speaking] asks, ‘Why don’t we see it then, Swamiji?’ Swamiji uses the Sri Ramakrishna analogy of ‘The breeze of God’s grace blows all the time. All you need do is unfurl your sail.’ Says Swamiji, ‘You haven’t yet unfurled the sail. Unfurl it. Unfurl it! Seeing means feeling. 

Swamiji talks about people’s perceptions of luck on the spiritual path. Money that a man discovers lying on the ground, isn’t there purely by ‘luck’. It’s passive, but he was moving towards it or at least looking in the right direction, so he saw it. Why we say ‘luck’ is because we’re ignorant.

[Swamiji never uses the word ‘ignorant’ in a derogatory sense – but told us many times that ‘ignorance’ simply means not having the knowledge or sufficient information at that time, or stage of our development, to correctly contextualise, understand or perceive something.] 

Swamiji says don’t use the cop-out of saying that things are ‘God’s will.’ Just be frank and say, ‘I don’t know.’ What people don’t know about or understand, they too often ascribe to ‘luck’.

Swamiji talks about the essential undercurrent that is required for unity. Try to divide water, says Swamiji. You can’t. If bhakti and meditation are not there, division will happen. The divine undercurrent must always be there. And what is the undercurrent? It is love of Master [Sri Ramakrishna], along with bhakti, meditation, self-sacrifice. Just remember that. Because we are living in this.

He wraps up the discussion by telling a story about Sri Ramakrishna’s direct disciples [chelas] and the role that humour played in their lives, both with Sri Ramakrishna and after Master left the body. With a beautiful insight into the behaviour of Swami Shivananda Mahapurush – who was the 2nd President of the Ramakrishna Math. [Swami Brahmananda, too, the first President of the Math, was known for his love of practical jokes. Confirming that the holy do indeed have a great sense of humour.] A salutary lesson.

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.