Swamiji says we’ve forgotten our true nature. Disc 145 track 3.

To listen to Swamiji speaking, please fully open the post and click on the link below. 

Devotee says: ‘This means we are not natural.’ Swamiji: We are not natural – why? Because we don’t know our spirit. That we are spirit, we think we are the body. But the time you come to know you are the spirit, then you’re natural. Questioner: Because if we are training ourselves to be natural, this means that we are not natural. Swj: No, you’re not training yourselves to be natural, you’re training yourself to remember that you are natural. You only want to remember. Now you’ve forgotten. Now you think you are the body. You think you are the mind. You think ‘I am the body, I am fat.’ You’re not fat. Your body is fat. You think you are the mind, and you say, ‘Oh, I’m upset.’  You’re not upset. Your mind is upset. Go away from this, then you are THAT [Atman].

[Swami] Vivekananda tells a story you know. There was one time a lion – a lioness. And a hunter was trying to shoot her. And the lioness was pregnant. So whilst running [although shot], it gave birth. The cub was there, and the lioness went and died some place.

So the little cub grew up with the sheep. So it’s thinking it’s a sheep. Baa, Baa, Baa [devotees chuckle]. So one day a big lion came and all the sheep ran away. This one [the cub] too, is running away. The lion grabbed him and held him by force and showed him his face in the [water of] the well. Whaaat? He said. ‘You see, you’re like me. You see?’ It was natural all the time but it forgot what it was. Only when it remembered, ‘Hey, I’m something else, not a sheep’, then all the strength came. So you are natural but you don’t remember. In meditation, you’ll remember. That’s the truth. Not that the animal became a lion. It was a lion all the time.

Devotee: We have to change or become..: Swj: No, you don’t become. Vivekananda said, ‘At the present moment you are hypnotised that you are this body, this mind. Now de-hypnotise yourself.’ De-hypnotise. You are not this body, you are not this mind. I can never die, because I never take birth.

Someone says, ‘Swamiji, I just can’t make my mind blank.’ Swj: Don’t make it blank. Keep an ideal [Ishta Devata or some other image]. Devotee to Swamiji: Like you – I see you – is that OK? Swj: Good if you think of me, but I like you, after thinking a couple of times of me, let the [my] body disappear, let light be there. What?… Light. That’s all. Look at me, let me disappear and let light be there. OK? That will be Brahman. That will be?…Brahman.

Devotee: I’m still separating Swamiji from Master [Sri Ramakrishna]. No! Swamiji is a little drop. Master is a big ocean. The drop must get dissolved [absorbed] in the ocean. Just like I said to mother [the devotee] just now. See this [form], then it must get dissolved or rather disappear in the light, and the light must be there. You know, you just merge this one into the other. That’s all that will happen. Take a drop of water falling, ‘I am a drop of, what?’ Water. ‘I am a drop of water. I am a drop of water.’ And when it touches the ocean, what happens? ‘I am the ocean. I am the ocean.’ The same thing. So when you take the body out [remove it] and substitute the light, then it becomes spirit. Like I told somebody the other day, ‘Take your deity and superimpose your guru’s ‘livingness’ [living form] on the deity.’ You never see your deity [Swamiji breathes in and out quickly] breathe, so you think it’s a statue. But you saw your guru breathe. So feel that your guru’s breath has becomes your deity’s spirit, and your deity’s breath is your guru’s breath or ‘livingness’.

Devotee: Swamiji is it important to breathe in with the mantra? Swj: You just keep repeating, it will adjust itself. It will adjust itself. Some people like to do that, but I say don’t do that because you’ll be breath conscious, instead of mantra-conscious. Just repeat it. The breath will adjust itself accordingly [to the depth of concentration]. If you’re too excited you’ll see you start breathing rapidly [Swamiji mimics rapid breathing], but if you’re not excited? You’re thinking about the same thing, but you’re calm. So you’re not breathing fast. The same if you think of an apple. Apple, apple, apple, and keep on looking at the market, you’ll see bananas there too. But you want to think about the apple. Don’t worry about the bananas.

Most important thing is this: that you must repeat your mantra and know that the mantra and your deity are not two things. Only one thing. Understand? Hyena [name] and hyena are only one. Not two. Devotee. So you can’t have one without the other? Swj: Never, ever. And now you must know that [your] deity is merciful, compassionate, everything positive it is, not negative in any way. Don’t impose negative things there. Everything positive it is. And then you will start doing everything positive. Your deity doesn’t hurt anybody, so you won’t hurt anybody. Your deity is full of mercy, so you’ll be full of mercy. Your deity is full of compassion, so you’ll be full of compassion.

That’s why [Swami] Vivekananda said, ‘If anything that I have done, whatever I have told, to help even a dog, it is all his’ – he says of [Sri] Ramakrishna. ‘And anything that was opposite of that, is mine. All the negative is mine; all the positive is Master’s.’

But this is [requires] practise. You mustn’t just think and talk about it. You must practise. Then it will come. Once you practise one minute [tiny, tiny] part of virtue, you find all the other virtues will follow like dogs. Like your Ten Commandments. You don’t have to follow the [all] Ten Commandments. You just follow one of them, and all the others will follow you, like a [faithful] dog.

Devotee asks: But why Swamiji do we always have to separate good and bad? Swj: Because we are brought up like that. We can’t help it. We are brought up like this. And we know that if I eat chillies, it burns my tongue. If I eat sugar, it’s sweet. So good and bad comes like that. You have to separate it like that. In the beginning. When you go outside when you see a rose tree [shrub], what do you see? Devotee: A flower. Swj: Yes, but there’s thorns there too. You don’t only see one thing. There’s good, there’s bad, but leave out the bad, and start thinking about good. Once you start thinking good, then you won’t see bad. 

They say love is…? Blind. See, when you love somebody, you can’t see any fault in them. No matter how much fault he’ll have, you can’t see it. You’ll become good like that. You’ll see only good. But the best way to start is from you [yourself]. You people make a mistake starting there [externally]. See what bad you’ve got. Don’t do these things. Just do what is good. Always inside. You’re not there yet. But we’re very fond of seeing [faults] there [in others]. My guru [our Gurudev – Swami Nischalananda Puri] used to say, somebody will say, ‘You’re are a rogue!’ He’d [Gurudev] say, you see, one finger pointing, but three fingers [pointing backwards] saying, ‘You!’ This is God the witness.

God witnessed that you see. Don’t say anybody wrong [say anything bad about them]. You must always try to be good and do good. That’s all I like. That’s my greatest mantra. Buddha has given it. I’ll have it. When I met Swami Venkatesananda [then head of the Divine Life Ashram, Mauritius] for the first time, he wrote that in my book, too. He was autographing. He wrote , ‘Be good, do good.’ He signed it. I don’t know where that book is, but it must be [here] somewhere. At that time, I didn’t understand. Someone asked him, ‘Must I pray to God?’ He said, ‘Just be good and do good.’ Being good is prayer itself.

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.