Talks Excerpt 517 & 518. Swamiji continues reading from ‘The Teachings of Swami Vivekananda.’

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

[Reading from: Teachings of Swami Vivekananda Chapter 30 on ‘Man’.]

12. No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through Love, a passion for Truth, and tremendous energy, that all undertakings are accomplished. Tat kuru purusham [most likely a slight variation of tathā kuru, a famous declaration from the Bhagavad Gītā (Chapter 18, Verse 63), which means ‘As you like, you may act’]. Therefore, manifest your manhood.

Swamiji comments: Nothing great is achieved by humbug, he says. What are the three things he speaks of? First you must have love, then you must have a passion for truth and then you must exert tremendous energy – therefore manifest your manhood.

13. It is not law [Swamiji: here he is referring to our limited understanding of reality] that we want, but the ability to break law. We want to be out-laws.

Swamiji comments: This is [seemingly] very contradictory. If you have a weak arm and if you want to strengthen it, you have to use the little strength that is in it to carry weight every day – to break through that weakness. So you take the little laws, develop a strong will, and break through the laws of nature. ‘It is not laws that we want, but to break through the laws.’

13. If you are bound by laws, you will be a lump of clay. Whether you are beyond the law or not is not the question; but the thought that we are beyond law – upon that is based the whole history of humanity.

Swamiji comments: Now it does not matter whether you are in law or out of law, the most important thing is that you must always know that you are bound by no law. You must keep thinking, ‘I am ever free.’ [This of course refers to the spiritual realm. It would be unwise to apply it to road or tax laws].

14. Each man is the Infinite already. Only these bars and bolts and different circumstances shut him in, but as soon as they are removed, he rushes out and expresses himself.

Swamiji comments: It is like this: One night I send you out to a neighbouring factory to get some books. After a few moments you rush back saying, ‘Swamiji, there is a ghost, there is a ghost, I saw him.’ Then I may say, ‘But I told you, my friend, to go to the factory and get me some books.’ ‘But the ghost . . !’ ‘Where is the ghost? Come, let’s take a torch.’ Now if I point it at the ghost . . . Look. It is the trunk of a tree. It is not a ghost at all and yet it limits your movement, your freedom. If you think you are the body then that thought of name and form limits your movement. The ‘ghost’ does nothing. You limit yourself because you think it is a ghost.

 Transcription from recording 518.

15. Every man is a slave except the yogi.

Swamiji: Swami Vivekananda is talking about the yogis who are God-realised.

[Reading continued]: He is a slave to food, to air, to his wife, to his children, to a dollar, slave to a nation, slave to name and fame and to a thousand things in the world. The man who is not controlled by any one of these bondages is alone a real man, a real Yogi.

Swamiji: That is why the yogi ultimately has to live on prana. Where is the prana? It is inside him, it is not outside, and therefore he stops breathing.

16. Every one has an opportunity within the limits of his present development of making himself better. We cannot unmake ourselves; we cannot destroy or impair the vital force within us, but we have the freedom to give it different directions.

Swamiji: Instead of thinking ‘I am the body’, you can now start thinking: ‘I am Brahman.’ You cannot do anything else, you already have the body. Just start thinking the other way.

17. Men should be taught to be practical and physically strong.

Swamiji: You may tell a man to fast for forty days, but then you may have to carry a corpse at the end of it. Mankind should be practical. Let him begin by fasting for one day – on ekadashi for instance. At first let him fast for one day and then let him increase it to two days. He must become strong physically.

17. A dozen of such lions will conquer the world, and not millions of sheep can do so. Secondly, men should not be taught to imitate a personal ideal, however great.

Swamiji: Do not try to do exactly what Sri Ramakrishna did. Rather follow his exercises [recommendations] and let the power, already in you, manifest Itself. When you plant the seed of an apple, when it grows, it manifests its own nature – it does not turn into something else. This world is the ground in which we must plant ourselves, but we must grow in our own uniqueness. Ultimately we are all Brahman – but all cannot go in a straight line.

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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.