Talks Excerpt 496. Swamiji says: Those people who eat flesh are harming others.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
[Continued from previous post 495. Click HERE to read that.]
When we practise dharma and pass away, we reincarnate and start off again with our strong will.
One of the questions Arjuna asked Sri Krishna [recorded in the Bhagavad Gita] was, ‘Lord, one whose mind wanders away from Yoga, what end does he meet, [having] fallen from both, (worldly success and Yoga)? Does he realise God or does he perish?’ The Lord said, ‘Neither in this world nor the next is there destruction for him; for the doer of good, O my son, never comes to grief. He is reborn in the home of the pure and prosperous.’
Swamiji: This means that he is born in a sattvic home where people remember God. There his latent or dormant impressions will awaken. Otherwise, higher than that, he will be born in the family of a yogi where he is directly in contact with the Divine Spark, the Light, the Fire.
Karma does not only imply physical action but also mental action. This goes to make up the sum total of actions and is also called character. This character either gives us a weak will or a strong will.
Why do we do all of this? To realise who we are.
[On Yama and Niyama – the dos and don’ts]: According to Patanjali, the first discipline or Yama is abstinence from harming others – non-violence [ahimsa]. ‘Others‘ in this sentence, refers to animals as well as humankind. Those people who eat flesh are harming others. I know that some people who have eaten flesh have realised God. That is all right. Do not worry about them. But do not think that you will be given a chance if you do the same.
Non-violence in thought, word and deed makes a man indeed – it makes a yogi indeed. You must bring your mind to such a high moral standing that you will not be able to think about anything which is injurious to others. Because when you injure others you injure yourself first.
Once my guru [Swami Nischalananda Puri – our revered ‘Gurudev’] asked me, ‘What happened when you knocked your hand with the hammer?’ I said, ‘I swore at the hammer.’ He said, ‘You fool, you swore at yourself.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said, ‘Didn’t you say it first in your mind?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘So you swore at yourself first and then you swore at the hammer.’
If you injure others then you injure yourself by bringing yourself low. Try to cultivate the kind of virtue that will not allow you to think about bad things. This must become a habit.
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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.