Talks Excerpt 291. Swamiji: Bhakti [devotion/love] and jnana [knowledge] must be balanced.
From Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.
You only have karma as long as you think you are a body. This body, mind and soul is a reflection of Brahman. Use your imagination, thought, feeling, to overcome it all. When you see the Self, all else drops away instantly, you see it is all illusion [Maya – or ‘partial truth’ as Swamiji reminded us].
Yes, we must be gentle with each other.
But if you tell someone: ‘You must be loving,’ or ‘You must be gentle,’ you are not loving and gentle. You are violent, you are not gentle.
Bhakti [devotion/love] and jnana [knowledge] must be balanced.
Do a mala [rosary] of 108 beads morning and evening. We need to keep the company of devotees and to keep the mind on God. Have no evil thoughts.
First offer your food to God, then it becomes prasad.
When you find a guru you must test him. Then you must live with him, so that he knows you and you know him.
When he gives you initiation, he takes your karma and this makes him ill. Or if you are good and follow dharma, it helps him. At initiation he gives you spiritual purification of the body too. This is needed.
Sometimes when the guru’s tide (spiritual mood) is very high, he tries to take you across, but you are unwilling to go.
The guru can remove all lust and other vices.
Name and form are the illusion. If you close your eyes and ears the illusion has gone. But the guru has neither name nor form.
Pray like this: ‘O Ma, give me Self-realisation and then the chance to play a little, to serve all the others.’
The free-to-read or download, 396 page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking 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.