Swamiji gives concentration tips. Talks excerpt 184.
From Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.
When we talk about The peace that passes all understanding – as long as there are any thoughts, it is not that peace.
Sensuality has caught us in maya. 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) and jnana (knowledge). You will get samadhi [superconsciousness](absorption in God-thought).
Do not surrender truth to God.
[To a Christian devotee] 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 attributeless.
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. Greed means that 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 about these three – lust, anger and greed. You can verify these by scriptural quotations.
[Hindu scriptures, particularly the Bhagavad Gita, consider lust, anger, and greed (part of the Shad Ripus or six enemies) to be acquired traits that bind the soul to the material world. While the inherent nature of the soul is divine love, it is transformed into lust (kāma) when associated with the material body and the mode of passion (rajo-guṇa). Frustrated lust becomes anger (krodha), and satisfied lust leads to greed (lobha). They are viewed as enemies that arise from ignorance and are not the soul’s true nature.]
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 [Ishta Devata] within [you or them].
‘To reach Brahman,’ means: Thinking of God all the time. It must be like the steady pouring of oil from one vessel to another, without any break whatsoever – then wherever your mind is, you will see Brahman continuously without a break.
If you don’t do this when you meditate, then there will be breaks in your meditation.
The free-to-read, 396 page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking HERE.
These recordings were made from the 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.
The image in today’s post is borrowed with gratitude from HERE.