Talks Excerpt 651. Swamiji describes steps to proper meditation.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
You contemplate on a thought or an idea; then you concentrate on it; and when your thoughts become a continuous flow on the same subject, like oil from one container to another, when it is unbroken, it is called meditation.
There are lots of ways to do meditation. If you want to concentrate on a particular symbol, keep it in front of you. Look at it. Close your eyes. Look at it again, close your eyes. Try to see it inside you. Do this over and over again. When you get a good vision, close your eyes; see it within and repeat the mantra.
Another method is to look at the tip of your nose and repeat Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya; this is according to the Bhagavad Gita. Or you can look at the flame of a candle without blinking, and without staring. Looking and staring are two different things. You can get concentration in this way. Or sit down in a quiet place, close your eyes and ears, and try to hear what sound is heard in the right-hand ear. This also will give you concentration.
If you have worshipped a particular Deity from a young age, and if your husband does not allow you to worship that Deity in his house when you get married, that is not acceptable. There must be some understanding between husband and wife.
This is my set belief. Your partner should allow you to worship your own Deity, the one whom you worship, provided that you do not disregard the deities that he and his family worship. You can respect those deities, you can love those deities, even worship those deities with flowers, but you have the right to worship the Deity that you love (just as you chose the husband you wanted to choose). And no one should obstruct you. There is no compromise whatsoever.
Of course you must not force your Deity down other people’s throats. Do not belittle or insult other deities. Never do that.
Swami Vivekananda was very clear about it. He said, ‘Following the Ishta Devata system, it is possible that in a Hindu family one could worship Shiva; another Hanumanji and so on. However, one is not supposed to tell others who or what one is worshipping.’
Gauri was the Goddess that Mother Sita worshipped when she met Sri Rama. After getting married, naturally she will not throw away the one who gave her Sri Rama. She would never disregard goddess Gauri. Never.
Where did Sri Rama meet Mother Sita? At Mother Gauri’s temple. You can read about it in the Ramayana, it is there.
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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.