Talks Excerpt 594. Swamiji says: Even when you are dying you should smile; it makes others happy.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
Happiness is the most important thing. You must be happy. Even when you are dying you should smile; it makes others happy.
[A devotee asks Swamiji how to tackle a problem.]
Swamiji: Give it to God. Do not do it seriously. Do it lightly, throw it off. Otherwise in time you will think you solved the problem and not God.
You must have unflinching faith in the Guru; and steadfast devotion to the Ideal; then japa and meditation become easy.
You go to the Guru to learn how you must act in a given situation.
At these Yoga Camps (Spiritual Retreats) we hope and pray that our minds become pure, that our faith in God becomes stronger. And that out of this faith and purity our life in future may bless us to serve God through all names and forms.
The scriptures are actually the embodiment of certain ideas and energy, and if we do not put these scriptural thoughts into action, we are no better than animals. Every word that is uttered in the scriptures, every word that is told to us by the saints and sages – and especially by our gurus – is a word that reveals to us our path and our goal.
Sri Ramakrishna said that the goal of human life is to know who we are. It is God-realisation. When a saint was asked, ‘What is the highest duty in this world?’, the saint smiled and replied, ‘The highest duty of man is to worship God, to glorify God and God alone.’
NEW! For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.
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.