Talks Excerpt 497. Swamiji says theft can even be mental. It doesn’t have to be a physical deed.

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

[Yama and Niyama continued.]

According to Patanjali, the first discipline or yama is abstinence from harming others – non-violence [ahimsa].

Two: Abstain from falsehood – falsehood of any kind – in thought, word or deed.

Lawyers must watch this point, doctors must watch this too. If you know that a person is suffering from cancer and is going to die tomorrow, do not tell him he is going to live forever. The lawyers too must not turn a story, twist it and make it look true.

What you think and what you say must come from truth; and action from that thought must be from the best of intentions.

One evening the Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi, was praying while looking at the moon. She prayed: ‘O Lord, the moon has got a stain, may I not have a stain.’ Sri Ramakrishna used to say, ‘You are praying, but the prayer will not be answered until your thoughts, your words and your deeds become one.’ If he said that to Holy Mother, can you imagine our state? We are still children.

Three: Refrain from theft. This does not only mean not taking things from people without their permission (whether he is your friend or your enemy), it also means that if a rich man buys twenty coats, while ten poor people are waiting to buy them, then he is a thief. He will only wear one, the other coats will be kept in his wardrobe. He is a thief of nature. Has he never thought that the poor people need those coats?

You must refrain from theft in thought, word and deed. If you even think about it, you are a thief. After all, what makes you a thief? It is what you think, isn’t it? When you think that you may steal something, the root is already there. Even if you do not actually do it you have already stolen because you thought about it. So get into a state where you do not think of stealing. Think rather of giving. This is very important.

[To which we can add ‘intellectual theft’ – stealing people’s ideas or not giving credit where credit is due.]

We have treated these things so lightly that we have made a mockery of religion.

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.