Talks Excerpt 440. Swamiji says: it’s only after many a birth that we realise that there is a God.

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

[At an Easter Spiritual Retreat]: At these camps we come together by God’s grace to harmonise our hearts, minds and thoughts so that we may have intense inspiration and restless earnestness to know and realise God and our goal.

When people meet in the name of God, they are blessed for it’s only after many a birth that we realise that there is a God. After knowing this we must find out who God is. Thus we meet on this battlefield of spiritual discipline to wage the war of self-discipline.

M [Mahendranath Gupta aka ‘Master Mahashay’], the recorder of ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’, says that there are two kinds of discipline; one is forced upon you and the other you willingly take upon yourself. But he says, ‘Far better is the discipline that you willingly take upon yourself.’ So we must remember that we have gathered here through our own will, inspired by God’s grace.

The purpose of the Spiritual Retreat [back in the day we called them ‘Yoga Camps’] is to purify ourselves and to speak with one voice: the voice of love. When we do this, we do not have to ask God to reveal Himself to us, for He stands Self-revealed. We only have to remove the dust and dirt that has gathered over many a birth on the surface of our ‘world-pond,’ called the mind. When this is removed, we do not have to bring the sun to shine in it – it is already there and shines by itself.

We need a keen intellect [buddhi] and truth of purpose to dig out, to search out, that which is within us, hiding us from our own nature. Yes, you yourself will have to find your Self. You yourself will have to ask yourself how truthful you are, how sincere you are, how selfless [ego-free] you have become or are becoming.

Swami Vivekananda said that the whole of sadhana [spiritual practise] is only this: To realise who you are. Sincerely believe in That and become That.

The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, 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.