Talk Excerpt 616. Swamiji says that he used to force people to come to Yoga Camps or spiritual retreats, because of unrepeatable benefits.

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

I do not like using psychology because psychology is not my line, my line is spirituality. Psychology indicates those people who live in the mind. And they use mind language. I live in the spirit and I like to use spirit language.

The scriptures are precise and to the point. Swami Vivekananda said, ‘Work is worship,’ not, ‘Worship is work’. That is how a spiritual mind should contemplate about the scriptures.

Smile at all times. That is my mantra to you.

Make jokes about God and no one else. Swami Vivekananda used to mimic Sri Ramakrishna and what hearty laughter his brother disciples used to have. Jokes about God cannot be low; they are always very high and uplifting.

Swamiji [meaning himself] sometimes forces you to come to these spiritual Camps because what is gained here can never be gained at other times. In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna says: ‘Whatsoever man practises for my sake, no matter how little it is, it is never ever lost, O Arjuna.’ From this point of view I think all of you are blessed. Those of you who really treat it as a Camp to unite yourself with the Lord, which is seated in your heart, are blessed. And those people who come here thinking that they will get some inspiration also are blessed – for nothing will go in vain.

This yoga camp is not of my making. It is based on the words of Sri Ramakrishna. He said to his devotees that in Kali Yuga, if man cries intensely for God for three days, he will find God.

Some people at this Camp become miserable because you are attached; attached to comfort, attached to what is called ‘no pain’; and you do not want to give up these comforts.

[When encouraging us not to fuss about discomfort, Swamiji used to say in his inimitable and fun way: We must become ‘complainless‘.]

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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.