Swamiji giving a talk on Guru Purnima. Disc 142 – 1.

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We must do the Veda Vyasa puja. And in addition to Veda Vyasa, all the deities we worship, but Veda Vyasa is the main one. The guru to be worshipped because all the scriptures were compiled by Veda Vyasa. And Narada today we also worship because he is the greatest exponent of bhakti. He brought love of God to each one.

So, we worship the saints and sages, trying to awaken the same attributes in ourselves. In addition to these, that we worship, each one of us worships our own gurus, according to our love, according to our own knowledge. Just like a son or daughter seeking the father or mother’s protection and guidance, and most probably also certain wealth. They give a little gift to the mother and father. Similarly, we do a little puja for our own guru and say to our guru that you are that portion of God that has come as saviour to save me, and lead me towards the lotus feet of God himself. So far it remains the Indian system of respecting and adoring the guru. This is very logical. But in school also, ordinary secular school, if you do not love your teacher, if you don’t respect your teacher, you find that you yourself will not make headway in your secular studies.

But here, because the teacher in religion deals with very subtle matters, subtlest really, and he takes you to those areas of the mind that you yourself cannot observe and understand. He makes you observe and understand, thus, taking you above the mind. We have found that nobody else can take you there but God himself. He who has done this and got realisation, he who is a jivanmukta, living in the body and yet above the body, like a lotus, in the water but above the water, we worship today. Our guru. Our guru.

Man cannot control his mind. It is God himself that helps the man to control his mind. It is only God that controls it. And when that thing [mind] is controlled, know that God controls it and not you. Because in the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna Bhagavan says to Arjuna, ‘O Arjuna, I am seated in the heart of all beings. Those people who constantly, with the yoga of remembrance remember me, serve me, worship me, I myself out of compassion, [Swamiji adds: which means out of love also], not only give him discrimination but also give him knowledge, wisdom. I give him.’

Not that he gets it through his own effort. But the Lord has very significantly pointed out to us that self-effort is the most vital part of this. The Lord says, I am already seated in the heart. But those who remember me constantly with this yoga of remembrance, that’s the effort with which you must try to remember him. Self-effort. Remember me. He has given you memory. He is present himself also in the form of memory. Elsewhere he says in the same Gita, ‘I am memory. From me comes memory. I am also forgetfulness. From me comes forgetfulness.’ So the very fact he’s given you remembrance he wants you to make use out of that to remember him. And when you do that [self-effort] he does it for you. He gives you discrimination, or he discriminates for you, he gives you wisdom or he becomes wisdom for you. Thus, you’ll be free.

By displaying a little effort of yours, but God’s tremendous grace descends upon you and me. They say man take one step and God takes ten steps. Ons step only you must take. But the self-effort must be there. How is that done? Take a globe [lightbulb] put an adapter [light fitting] there, connect it to a plug, just one plug, one shot you push it, and thousands of [milli] volts of current rushes in and lights the bulb. You took one step just to get it to the plug. The current came thousands of times [a thousandfold] meaning that if you take one step, God  takes 10 steps.

So we pray today that God will help us to take that one step. Because that one step is also necessary to be taken by you today. Here is a tradition that all our Gurus say that it’s only Ramakrishna who is the ‘sangha’ guru – the guru of the society is called ‘representative’, because what is representative you’ll understand later on. It’s the body. We only know the body, but beyond that is the atman who is Ramakrishna himself.

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.