Talks Excerpt 405. Swamiji says: Everything is perfect. What makes it imperfect? *Ignorance.

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

[During an Upanishad class Swamiji said]: Brahman does not create, He projects. Only a perfect Being projects a perfect Universe. Everything is perfect. What makes it imperfect? *Ignorance. Ignorance of what? Of Brahman. But ignorance is also part of the whole lila (divine play of God). When you realise that, you begin to enjoy the Universe.

[*The term ‘ignorance‘ (avidya) can, without context, seem a bit harsh. But Swamiji explained to us that ignorance simply means a lack of sufficient knowledge, insight or understanding at a particular point.]

Sri Ramakrishna said the same thing in a different way: The world is a mansion of mirth. To whom? To It – to him [the enlightened being] who knows what the Universe is.

Ego prompts action, so there is always a defect in it. Thus from human being you degrade yourself. If you meditate and perform pure actions you begin to be gods, and you go on to identify with Hiranyagarbha. But right now you are dependent – and not independent.

Desire leads you to think you want something, and this leads to action to get it. In the Self there is no action whatsoever, the action is a superimposition.

Through meditation for son, wife etc., you can get results. Any prayer – that your wife must be beside you etc. – is desire. This is because your prayer is not for God-realisation.

You think the world experience is a form of the Self – the Self as name, the Self as form. But the [real] Self has no name, no form.

Because we say ‘Neti, neti,’ the Self is nameless. Anything that comes into form falls into the category of name, form, action.

It’s not that the Self gets freed. Its natural state is to be free.

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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.