Talk Excerpt 558. Swamiji explains the difference between an ordinary word and a sacred word for Japa.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
If you touch Hanumanji, you will be a Raam bhakta (a devotee of Lord Rama).
Just do your sadhana. Even without devotion, just keep repeating His name [japa]. The name itself will give you devotion [bhakti]. That is my experience of the name of God. So long as you keep recalling Him again and again, He will clear the path Himself.
Anahata [chakra] is the same as Om. The sound that the yogis hear in the heart is Om.
You must concentrate on your Ishta Devata for two years; after that you will be established. Otherwise you will change from this to that.
Devotee: What is the difference between repeating one, one, one, and Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna? [i.e. using some arbitrary word on which to concentrate.]
Swamiji: When we say ‘Ramakrishna’ we have a concept, a mental picture of Sri Ramakrishna. If you count one and see one, the concentrated mind will become quite calm. But we want to think of Sri Ramakrishna and to become Sri Ramakrishna, which means that we imbibe Master’s qualities. By repeating ‘one, one’ we don’t pick up any positive vibrations – like we would by repeating Master’s name. Sri Ramakrishna is awakened consciousness, while a number is inert.
Just watch your thoughts. You are not the thoughts; you are separate from the thoughts.
Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Weep, pray secretly in solitude. Thinking on me alone will do. Verily, verily I say unto you, those who meditate on me will inherit my treasures.’ These are: discrimination, renunciation, knowledge, devotion, unselfish love and samadhi.
Meditate, O my mind, on the Lord, who is Consciousness, unique and spotlessly pure.
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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.