Talk Excerpt 254. Swamiji gives advice on alcohol and smoking.

From Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

Smoking creates a physical craving of the cells. Take chewing gum or a sweet when you feel that craving. Drinking and smoking should be given up altogether. They do not do good to you. They affect the body. Drinking and smoking are two evils that a man must give up.

Your sweat turns into money and you burn it. You do it because your parents do it, especially the mother when she was pregnant. She takes a cigarette and the cells of the child come to crave for it. If a child dribbles, it is due to the cravings of the mother.

That is why pregnant women should repeat the name of God and read the scriptures. But they do not do so, and thus we have so many rogues and thieves in society.

I am either suffering for my own doings [karmas] or for other’s doings. They say God is cruel. No. It is nothing else than my own fault.

My father used to say that TIME is a great teacher.

You must be God-conscious or good conscious. Do not hurt others.

To offer a flower to Master [Sri Ramakrishna] is such a great thing. Give this idea to children and they will do it later. See the Lord in the poor and give some fruit to the Lord in the form of some poor people.

You do not need to send your child to Sunday School. You should take half an hour a day and read the Upanishads, the scriptures or the Ramayana to them.

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These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 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.