Swami Shivapadananda on breaking concepts
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji
Day 517
Swamiji reads from: The Teachings of Swami Vivekananda
No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through love and passion for truth and tremendous energy that all undertakings are accomplished. Tat kuru purusham: Therefore manifest your manhood.
Swamiji: 'Nothing great is achieved by humbug', he says. What are the three things he speaks of? First you must have love, then you must have a passion for truth and then you must exert tremendous energy – therefore manifest your manhood.
It is not the law [here he (Swami Vivekananda) is referring to our limited understanding of reality] that we want, but the ability to break laws.
Swamiji: This is very contradictory. If you have a weak arm and if you want to strengthen it, you have to use the little strength that is in it to carry weight every day, to break through that weakness. So you take the little laws, get a strong will and break through the laws of nature. It is not laws that we want but to break through the laws. We want to be out-laws.
Reads: If you are bound by laws you will be a lump of clay. Whether you are beyond the law or not is not the question. But the thought that we are beyond the law, upon that is based the whole history of humanity.
Swamiji: Now it does not matter whether you are in law or out of law, the most important thing is that you must always know that you are bound by no law. You must keep thinking, 'I am ever free.'
Reads: Each man is the Infinite already. Only the bars and bolts of different circumstances shut him in. As soon as they are removed he rushes out and expresses himself.
Swamiji: It is like this: One night I send you out to a neighbouring factory to get some books. After a few moments you rush back saying, 'Swamiji, there is a ghost, there is a ghost, I saw him.' Then I may say, 'But I told you, my friend, to go to the factory and get me some books.' 'But the ghost . . !' 'Where is the ghost? Come, let's take a torch.' Now if I point it at the ghost . . . Look. It is the trunk of a tree. It is not a ghost at all and yet it limits your movement, your freedom. If you think you are the body then that thought of name and form limits your movement. The 'ghost' does nothing. You limit yourself because you think it is a ghost.
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