Talk Excerpt 691. Swamiji speaks about the need to ask questions and read the scriptures for guidance.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
You should start thinking deeply now. Stop being superficial.
You must ask the guru questions out of your own necessity. Then the answer will make an impression, then it will go in deep. That is why God does not give us God-realisation; it will not make any impression; it will not have the same bliss if we do not yearn for it.
The idea of reading the scriptures is to influence your present will. If you do not read them and understand them properly, you go on confusing your past impressions – which are influencing the present will.
Determination comes in once you know the nature of man, and what he should do. And though your past impressions influence you to do something, by sheer will, sheer determination, you will only do what the scriptures permit you to do. Have this type of attitude.
Determination comes in when you know that the scriptures guide us correctly. Then, even if you suffer, even if your life goes away, you will only do that which the scriptures ask you to do.
Ninety nine percent of our people are confused because they think that all they are doing is good. And their ‘good’ is only coloured by their past karmic actions. But to know the real meaning of good we must study the scriptures. If we follow what the great saints and sages laid down in the scriptures, then that will be determination. Learn to discriminate and go forward.
I have a lot of regard for the Muslims because from the time their children are young, they start learning the scriptures. Thus they become familiar with what their scriptures say. Even if they do not follow it, at least they know what they should do, and what they should refrain from. Then their future behaviour is of their own making.
We too should become familiar with the teachings of our scriptures.
The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography, ‘A Life Lived For Others‘, is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.
For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.
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.