Swamiji talks on whether you find the guru or the guru finds you. Disc 143 track 6.

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Swami Shivapadananda talks: Disc 143 track 6.

It is asked: is it necessary for the Guru to consciously accept a disciple?

So, there is an effort, I feel, on the Guru’s side. Whilst on the other hand there are cases, many cases also, where spontaneously it comes. I know of certain people who went with me, and suddenly a Swami just called him one side and said, ‘I want to give you initiation’. This person came and told me, ‘That Swami wants to give me initiation, but I don’t want it.’ I said, ‘No, you go and take it, and he took it.’ It is good. It just happens also. And on the other hand it is not deliberate, too.

[What follows is indistinct. So please draw from it what you can or will. It sounds like Swamiji is saying that there may be doubt. And someone may ask, ‘Are you my Guru? Now maybe I’ve got this doubt and say: I am not your Guru. But he says, ‘I accepted you as my Guru’, so if he accepted me as his Guru, then do you have to accept all those people that come to you? Including…down there [unsuitable, not ready?]

Mother Radha asks Swamiji: Do so many people come to a Guru and ask for initiation? Swamiji answers: It is not right that the chela [disciple] should ask for initiation, and the Guru should see which one of the herbs is now quite ready [spiritually ready], you know, to be ‘plucked and cooked’. There are cases where the chela asks too. God works both ways. But the other way [of Guru selecting chela] is the right way.  But sometimes even the other way doesn’t work. The Guru puts the taste into the other man to ask, if he sees there is going to be doubt on the other side [from the potential initiate]. If supposing a Guru comes around saying: look here, you can take initiation from me. But the Guru knows, if that happens, the other man will think this fellow is, what do you call it? – canvassing for disciples.

Take the Guru, listen to the Guru, but don’t become fanatic and pour that Guru down [into] everyone’s ears, it may be [like] hot oil or something. That’s for you and you alone, and not for others. And that is a mistake, I think most of our Hindu people do, they actually canvas for gurubhais [brothers of the same guru] and guru bens [our sisters of the same guru].

Swamiji reading: They sacrifice what little they’ve got, but their fire is not the physical fire, it’s the fire of love. Vivekananda, didn’t he display that love?  Now please Jay [a devotee], when I keep saying, Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, it’s not because I don’t recognise all the other saints, but I am so familiar with these two. And even you find, very seldom do I speak about my mother [Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi].

Swamiji keeps on reading: But yet, when they breathe, their breath is not like yours. They breathe fire, and the bondage of ages, of thousands, of billions of births – at once it’s burnt. Karma is left behind and burnt. One word, one glance of theirs, imagine that?

Reading: If you think the guru is only confined to the body, rather cremate it. You must never have that concept of him. He must be omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent.

Offer one flower to the Guru, dedicating that every day, you should do it, every Thursday. Thursday is Guruvar. [The term is a combination of two Sanskrit words: Guru – teacher, spiritual guide, or the planet Jupiter – and var, which means day.] Even that planet, is it Jupiter?  All the guru consciousness is in that planet. The vibration will come.

Sadhakas [spiritual aspirants or practitioners] must do some sort of exercise. Must do! You mustn’t think it’s unimportant. You must at least keep the body fit. Why do you keep the body fit? Only to keep you comfortable [during] meditation and then God realisation. But don’t let the body become a burden, so that meditation time, it will pulling you down. That’s not a good kind of body. That kind of a body is not good. That kind of a body is a cursed body.

So, with Hatha Yoga, you keep [hold] postures, in different ways.  Even your ordinary physical breathing exercises are a good thing. Do that. And you must do pranayama, because pranayama purifies the blood and supplies oxygen to all the cells. Clearing the mind and giving a feeling of lightness, so your mind can actually float higher and higher. Otherwise, you will suffer from two things, either you become restless while you’re sitting for meditation, or you become like Vinod Singh [our gurubhai golfer brother, who must have been dozing off] [audience chuckles], the tamasic feeling will come. And both of them [restlessness and sloth] are a curse again. It is not supposed to be like that; you’re supposed to be meditating.

Somebody asked one of the Swamis: ‘In meditation, must I become still?’ He didn’t answer the question that way but said: ‘I know that meditation is a struggle, that’s meditation.’

Very beautiful illustrations of meditation are given in the Gospel [of Sri Ramakrishna], but if you take everything in the Gospel for granted…. If one takes Gospel meditations and takes and adapts [just] one of them, what Master said, what he did, you’ll realise God, I can promise you that.

That’s why you have a Guru, to say: This part here is a very good one, you must take this. Because you have faith in that Guru, and if the Guru says it, you take it. And yet, if you’re reading over it a hundred times on your own, you say, no man, ‘Maybe this is not the right one, why are they putting this in the book?’

My Guru [Swami Nischalananda Puri] asked me: You have cold water bath? I say: Yes Maharaj. So I found out a couple of months later: Hey Inder [Swamiji’s premonastic name]. Yes Mahara. Having cold water bath? I say, yes, Maharaj, but he says: the hot water was running, I say: Yes, I use the hot water to take the grease out, and when that’s finished, I quickly put the cold water, and have a cold water bath [Swamiji and congregation laugh]. So I didn’t disobey, I did them both, but I first had the hot water bath. [more laughter].

Swamiji asks: why are you laughing, Tim? Our gurubhai Tim says from the congregation: ‘Did you get away with it?’ Swamiji: Oh yes! No, I didn’t talk lies! Gurudev didn’t tell me: don’t have the hot water bath, he told me, have a cold water bath! If he told me don’t have a hot water bath, then I understand. He told me: have cold water bath, so I first opened the hot shower nicely, and I warm myself so hot, so even a few drops of cold water won’t make me too cold. Then, sit down for meditation and later on I found it [cold water bath] was a very good thing, because it accelerates your blood [circulation] and closes your pores. So, if you feel like it, you can try it. Very easy.

Those of you who are not married, it’s easier for them, just to get up quickly [in the morning] and sit on the same bed [to do japa]. The same bed – do it. When I said: those of you who are not married, [if you do this] at that time, your partner might think, ‘What is this person doing now?’ [Laughter].

There’s an indistinct audio patch now. It sounds like, ‘May be trouble that way you see? So they find after years, they go mad? [laughter]. This is what I am saying, is the result? Instead of resting the nerves, it becomes the opposite.

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.