Talks Excerpt 546. Swamiji urges us to acknowledge that absolutely everything we have is God’s grace.

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

All the different things that you see are nothing other than a manifestation of Maya, which is God’s power. Maya dishes out your food for you to eat, according to your past samskaras.

He is the best who, in humility, asks God to extend His hand, and tries to extend his own hand towards God. He is the best because God can then take him up from where he is and make use of him in the best possible way. That is why Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘O Mother, may Thy will be done.’ Whilst other Rishis and Munis said that this world is maya, this world is an illusion, Sri Ramakrishna was able to love everything in this world. He said, ‘Here I eat, drink and make merry.’ He could say this because he was the instrument of the Divine Mother.

Even a great sage like Adi Shankaracharya wrote such defiling [negative] words about the body, to bring about dispassion. But Sri Ramakrishna did not do this at all. He wanted to bring that same dispassion by positive means. He said that this world is full of mirth, this world is full of happiness.

Was it not lust that brought Tulsidas to God? It was. And yet it was lust that destroyed other sadhakas. Even theft can be turned into a positive thing; the example is Ratnakar who became Valmiki. Yet we think theft is only negative. This is why Sri Ramakrishna was so against the word ‘sin’. He said, ‘You must not call a man a sinner because if he took birth from that Birthless One, he too must be birthless – and therefore divine.’

You are born in the new school of thought; the Ramakrishna way; the Vivekananda way. This way is now being preached by different institutions around the world – although they do not mention that it is the Ramakrishna way.

Let us not be that kind of a thief too. Let us fully acknowledge: ‘Lord, it is because of You that I have got this grace, it is because of You that these Yoga Camps (spiritual retreats) have been arranged; it is because of You that I have a little love for Your lotus feet and for our fellow brothers and sisters.’

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.