Talks Excerpt 297. Swamiji: Habits change when we have detachment.

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

All speak of the guru, but no one knows who or what he really is.

With every action think: ‘This is for God,’ or, ‘This is for the guru.’

If you forget, then try again and again. If it works for one, it must work for all.

You cannot know God [on your own], so use the help of the guru.

Devotee: If I do all the things you say I will be wrecked.

Swamiji: Wonderful. That is what I want: for the ‘I’ [ego] to be wrecked.

Instead of attachment and detachment and renunciation, seek God.

Jnana [knowledge] plus bhakti [devotion] equals balance.

Use worldly devotion to broaden the heart. Today many hearts are shrunken. So first open the mind and heart. This leads to calmness and progress. Determination is the only way to achieve this.

We will automatically change our habits once we have detachment. This will happen quickly – though to get detachment may take us a long time. Keep trying.

Sincerity is childlike faith. If the child burns itself it does not rush round saying, ‘It is your fault,’ or giving a thousand excuses. It just cries and says, ‘Burnt, burnt.’

We say a child has no discrimination, but it has. Out of a hundred people she can pick out her own mother. This is how we must be. Have discrimination and serve God.

Make everyone your own.

As we offer the hawan we pray: ‘O [Divine] Mother, awaken the knowledge of the Self in me, as you awaken the fire in wood.’

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.