Talks Excerpt 601. Swamiji gives guidelines for spiritual behaviour.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
Once somebody asked Swami Vivekananda: ‘Have you realised God?’ His reply was typical of him. He said, ‘It is difficult enough to be a gentleman.’ Gentlemanliness involves so many things: to be united with your brothers and sisters; to utter words which are sweet and pleasing to people and yet not bring harm to them; your sitting and your standing should not agitate anybody; your walking should not agitate anybody. So it is difficult enough to be a gentleman; yet we foolish people think we have become God-realised.
Simplicity, purity, holiness. You must base your life on these things. Read the scriptures and see how you can be simple, not complicated.
Swami Vivekananda said to Sister Nivedita that he only wanted a few disciples who had the highest and best in life to renounce. Swami Vivekananda did not want a lazy person who could not make it at school or at work to come and take shelter at his feet.
Once one of Swami Vivekananda’s friends came to him and said, ‘Maharaj, I am so inspired with your life that I want to become a monk, I want to renounce.’ Swami Vivekananda encouraged him to be ‘good in the world’ first. Have something to renounce, then you can live for God alone.
Sannyasa means nothing else but ‘death’. If a man has thoughts like: ‘What will others think of me if I say certain things?’, then he can never practise truthfulness, he can never be a renunciate. That is why Swami Vivekananda said that his friend must first live in the world. He thus implied that only the fearless, those sticking by truth, can realise God and no one else.
Those of you who are too afraid to tell your husbands the truth, you cannot realise God. Those of you who are too afraid to tell your wives the truth cannot realise God. Tell each other the truth. There must be the understanding that your partner is always trying to help you, not run you down.
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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.