Talks Excerpt 660-672 combined. Swamiji elaborates on insightful readings from Prof. D. S. Sharma’s book, ‘A primer of Hinduism.’
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
Excerpt 660:
Father: Only those who live a moral life are fit for liberation, my child. Morality is not religion, any more than the gateway to a temple is the temple itself. Morality is only a gateway into the inner world – a gateway to the temple. No doubt Hinduism insists on a man acquiring moral purity and becoming a dharmātmā in his first ascent to God. The first thing a swami or a brahmachari in an ashram should do, is to look at his own character. He must try to build his character. Therefore when Swami Vivekananda
was asked in America, ‘Are you God-realised?’ He answered, ‘It’s difficult enough to be a gentleman, a moral man, and you are talking about God-realisation?’
[Swamiji comments]: We may think that God-realisation is something kept there; when I go to the swami and prostrate, he’ll put his hand on me and I’ll be God-realised. Forget it. That can never happen. Some people may say, ‘But Sri Ramakrishna gave Swami Vivekananda God-realisation, didn’t He?’ No. He never gave him God-realisation; he gave him the taste for God-realisation; and that is why Swamiji [which is how Swami Vivekananda is exclusively referred to within the Ramakrishna Math and Mission internationally – all other monks in the order are referred to as ‘Maharaj‘] worked hard and became established in the state called God-realisation. Master [as Sri Ramakrishna is referred to] only gave him a glimpse of God-realisation to inspire him and make him thirsty, to yearn for God. Master touched him, gave him God-consciousness, then said, ‘Now the door is closed, when you have finished my work then I shall open it.’ When people say: ‘If you follow this path you will get God-realisation in six months,’ please do not think that it is possible.
Excerpt 661:
It [Hinduism] teaches that he who has not made himself, by strenuous endeavour [self-effort] pure in thought, word and deed, and who has not acquired the necessary adhikari or competence, can never even know that there is a spiritual world. If you do not make yourself qualified, through these moral laws, you will not even know there is a spiritual world. But in morality there is no finality or completeness.
[Swamiji comments]: You can never say, ‘Now I am morally fit, I am perfect,’ because there is no end to morality. You have to be continuously striving to become a perfect man; there is no completeness in it. As long as you live, you have to practise morality. You cannot say, ‘Now I am a sadhu I can treat everybody as I like.’ Nay. Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda were very observant as far as rules go – they strictly observed yama and niyama. After every moral success we see a higher ideal which condemns once again our lives of littleness and sin. When we get to a level of good, we see that there is still a higher good. Then, when we get to that good, we find there is still an even higher good which absorbs the lower good. We can never say, ‘This is the highest or the best.’ We have to keep on striving. If you climb a high mountain in a range, when you get to the top of that mountain you find a higher mountain. By the time you get to the top of the next mountain you find there are still higher mountains. So it is with morality; there is never an end to it.
Excerpt 662:
Morality is like the horizon which ever recedes as we approach it. It always teaches us what we have not yet acquired, it keeps us at arm’s length and perpetually reminds us of our weaknesses. We are thus rendered helpless and in our helplessness, we crave for something which takes us out of ourselves, gives us the assurance of hope and makes us partake of a larger, purer and nobler life. This is religion.
Keep striving for the highest – that is religion itself. But religion’s first step is conduct or character; which is yama and niyama. Yama and niyama guide us on what we should do and what we should not. The scriptures guide us on good conduct.
[A conversation now ensues between a daughter and her father]:
Daughter: Should morality then always give place to religion?
Father: Morality always leads to true religion . . . You do not have to give way to it but if you become a man of character automatically that itself will take you to true religion. . . . and true religion always strengthens morality. Morality will take you to true religion; and that will automatically strengthen your moral life.
[Swamiji comments]: Sri Ramakrishna said: ‘The professional dancer never takes a wrong step.’ The behaviour of a paramahamsa is never immoral, it is always of the highest moral standard. Sri Rama never took a wrong step. And though he was God Himself [an Avatar] he always abided by the dharmic law. If a religion results in or countenances [tolerates] an immoral practice, there is something wrong with it. When a religious man behaves immorally, there is something wrong with that religion. Do not follow it.
Excerpt 663:
Very often shady things put on the cloak of religion and stand in the way of morality. In the Ramayana, Ravana put on the holy garb [gerua robes of a monk] and approached Mother Sita. He said, ‘Give me bhiksha,’ and she went against the moral law set by Lakshmana. He had told her not to come out of the line encircling and protecting the hut where she lived. Mother Sita was supposed to obey her brother-in-law but she became disobedient when she thought: ‘A holy man is asking me for something to eat, so I will give him.’
Whatever your moral law is, you must follow that. And whatever is in the scriptures, you must obey. Therefore when demands are made in the name of religion which outrage our moral sense and are inconsistent with the fundamental laws of humanity, as in the case of religious persecution, it is religion and not morality that must give way. A [true] religion will never tell you to go and kill anybody, because religion actually wants you to kill your ‘I’. You must kill your own ‘I, the ego’. Do not start killing people. That is not religion. Stand and say, ‘No I will not do it. Ahimsa paramo dharma. My religion says: Do not hurt anyone in thought, word and deed. We should carefully distinguish the truly religious man from the pseudo-religious man. The latter is far inferior to a moral man. But of course a truly religious man is superior to a merely moral man. We must discriminate. A man who is immoral is very inferior. A truly religious man is not only moral, he has love not to do wrong and he loves God in all. The moral man loves to do what is good for all.
Excerpt 664:
Daughter: How is a truly religious man different from a moral man?
Father: You may as well ask me how the whole is different from the part. The moral man is like an honest mercenary, while the religious man is like an ardent patriot. One is a [paid or rewarded] mercenary fighting for something; and the other is a patriot encouraging the whole country – someone like Swami Vivekananda. Both of them fight well but the former (the mercenary) fights for a small [monetary] gain for himself, while the latter fights for his country, forgetting himself.
A merely moral life cannot give us the feeling of love, joy and exultation and the spirit of courage and self-sacrifice which religious life gives. Mere morality cannot abolish our separateness and sin. A moral man is trying to perfect himself. A [truly] religious man is already perfect and he is trying to give perfect love to the whole world. This is the difference. Therefore when you try to boast about your guru you say, ‘My guru is this, and my guru is that . .’ I laugh, because that guru still belongs to somebody. But a guru does not belong to anybody in particular; he belongs to everybody. That is the kind of guru my Sri Ramakrishna is; that is the kind of guru my Swami Vivekananda is; that is the kind of guru my [Holy Mother] Sri Sarada Devi is. The guru does not belong to any caste, colour or country but the guru belongs to everyone.
Daughter: Does religious life abolish separateness and sin?
Father: It does not exactly abolish them, it renders them ineffectual. God is the perfection of purity, and by seeking and taking refuge in Him we leave our sinful selves behind. God is the perfection of purity. Christ himself said, ‘Blessed are the pure at heart for they shall see God.’ So God is perfection in purity. By going to God, what are you doing? You are leaving your sinful self behind. Before a person renounces the world, he works and struggles only for himself. After becoming a sannyasin (a renunciate), he realises that he takes refuge at God’s Lotus Feet. Since God is omnipresent, therefore he loves God in all. Imagine the Inder [Swamiji’s pre-monastic name] that always used to be working and fighting for himself. Now he does not do that. What does he do now? He realises that: ‘I take refuge at God’s Lotus Feet and because God is omnipresent, therefore my love will become omnipresent.
Excerpt 665:
Daughter: But how can we flee to Him [God]?
Father: That is the whole problem of the ‘second ascent’ we have to discuss today. The first ascent as we have seen, is in society. (Moral conduct is in society.) The complex relationship of man towards one another beats [revolves] all around it, but when the
summit is reached and the second ascent begins, the voice of humanity dies away. In that rare air you have to travel alone.
[Swamiji comments]: For the second ascent you have to go alone. In the beginning you have to be a moral man – you want to be moral towards others. But for the second ascent you have to travel alone. No one is there, my friend. Do not think someone will come and give you a hand. Never. You see just a little light in the darkness and it soon fades away and there is darkness again.
Swami Vivekananda was shown once; and then the door was closed. Sri Ramakrishna said that it would be opened to him when he had finished Mother’s work.
Sri Ramakrishna’s life is a perfect life. From the tiniest ant to the highest angel, all can find in Master how to travel towards God. He showed Swami Vivekananda the light, then he took it away. There is a glimmer of light, then the light is gone. Now
what?
Daughter: Is He then at first like a fitful light?
Father: He is a constant Light . . .
[Swamiji comments]:
He is not going on and off. He is the constant Light. The jewel in the box that Sri Ramakrishna spoke about, is always there. It is not absent. But the door, called maya [what Swamiji always described to us as only ‘partial truth’], is closing it off. So the Light is always there. Children say, ‘There is no sun today,’ but beyond the clouds the sun is always there. The clouds hide the sun from us.
He [God] is a constant Light. The eye of the flesh cannot perceive; and the eye of the spirit has to open itself and acquire a steadiness of gaze. ‘O Arjuna you cannot see Me with these [human] eyes of yours,’ says Sri Krishna in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, ‘I give you divine sight’ – meaning, the eye of knowledge. Then Arjuna sees Sri Krishna with a spiritual eye, in the Universal Form, Vishwaroopa.
Excerpt 666:
Daughter: But how is this done?
Father: It is done by means of prayer, contemplation and love. In a word: by bhakti.
Daughter: What exactly is bhakti?
Father: A great Hindu devotee, the author of the Narada Sutra, defined bhakti as ‘an intense love of God’.
[Swamiji comments]: You may think that you know this, but it is worthwhile memorising it. That is why Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘He who yearns intensely for God will find God.’ A man who loves God has no wants and no sorrows. He neither hates nor rejoices.
A man who loves God will not hate anybody; nor will he rejoice at someone’s downfall; his only concern is God.
. . . nor strives with zeal for any ends of his own . . . He does not care about anything for himself, he always does everything for God and God alone. . . . for through bhakti is he moved to rapture and through bhakti does he attain peace and is ever happy in spirit.
[Swamiji comments]: A holy man is never sad. He is ever happy in Spirit. Why? Because he loves God, who
is the embodiment of bliss – ananda. God is happy. When you join the Happy One you become happy yourself. So a pawpaw [gloomy, miserable] faced person will become happy by thinking about God. Once I made that mistake. I said to Swami Nishreyasananda, ‘I am tired of all these things, Maharaj.’ He said, ‘If you write a sign board that says ALL SECOND-HAND
FURNITURE WANTED and put it outside, what kind of furniture will you find in your yard?’ I said, ‘Second-hand furniture.’ He said, ‘That’s what you are doing. You have written FED UP and everyone is putting fed up on you. Write BLISS and everyone
will put bliss.’ It is true. Be happy and you will make everyone happy. God is happy, why should you be sad? What you think, that you will be. So think happy thoughts and always remember to do your sadhana regularly.
Excerpt 667:
The author goes on to describe bhakti as: ‘an experience pure and selfless, subtle, unbroken and ever expanding.’
[Swamiji comments]: Similarly, your heart can only give and give – just as Lord Shiva did. When the poison came out of the ocean, his heart went out to the beings and he swallowed the poison. He did not care if he was going to die – not like the other gods and goddesses. They were getting burned and were running away. Lord Shiva’s heart just expanded and he drank the poison. That is the kind of Lord I am talking about. Lord Shiva had an unbroken and ever-expanding heart.
In India there was a great yogi who for fourteen years did not speak. He was in mauna. One day someone stabbed him and the people caught the man and brought him back. But when they asked the sadhu, ‘Did this man stab you?’ Do you know
what the sadhu said? ‘Ah, he is a messenger from my Lord.’ What a great thing. You see how his heart expanded? If the sadhu had said, ‘Kill him,’ they would have killed him. Instead he said, ‘He is a messenger of my Lord.’ Hanumanji said to Ravana that he was the emissary of his Lord. Do you see the expansion of the heart? A Christ would say, ‘Father, Father forgive them for they
know not what they do’ (Christian Bible Gospel of Luke 23:34). A Gandhi did not say, ‘Catch hold of the man who shot me.’
He said, ‘Raam, Raam, Raam.’ The heart expands.
Sri Ramakrishna, when the priest kicked him, did not complain to Mathur Babu about it. He kept quiet until the priest left the place [the Dakshineswar Kali Temple prescinct] and only then did he tell Mathur what had happened. Mathur Babu said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I would have killed him.’ Master said, ‘That is why I didn’t tell you.’ [laughter].
A man who has once experienced It [the Divine] will see That alone, hear That alone and speak That alone, for he ever thinks of That alone. Nay, he is mad, mad with God love. After Sri Ramakrishna had seen Mother Kali he would call on her day and night, ‘Ma, Ma, you came to Nilakantha, you came to Ramprasad, why don’t you come to me?’ Master saw It as a young boy when he had samadhi. [onseeing a flock of white cranes – birds – against a dark sky]. He also saw It when he took the part of Lord Shiva in a play. But then God hid himself. Thereafter he was mad for God. He did not care for the world and when the world tried to tempt him he only saw God Himself. He said the bad woman sent to tempt him was a goddess. He said the good woman was a goddess. Can you imagine this kind of madness? Mad like the moth is mad after the light – but this is the supremely divine and supremely high Light; the Light of the Atman. One can never die in It, but one becomes immortal.
Excerpt 668:
Daughter: Does God respond to this intense feeling?
Father: Yes. The prasad or grace of God is God’s response to man’s bhakti. All great Hindu saints teach us that as surely as day follows night, grace follows the yearning of faith. If you faithfully, truthfully and sincerely yearn for God, God’s grace must come. God responds.
[Swamiji comments]: The author I have quoted also says, ‘Worship God at all times with all your heart and with all your mind. Glorify Him in your heart and He will soon reveal Himself to you and you will feel His presence.’ Now the crux of the matter is ‘at all times’. But sometimes you only do half your sadhana in the morning, and one sixteenth of your sadhana in the evening and you expect God to come to you. Every morning and evening we must pray to the Master sincerely, for His grace. Never miss this important practice, then God will surely be happy and bless us.
Sri Krishna Bhagavan says in Chapter 10 of the Gita, ‘I am the Self seated in the hearts of all beings . . .’ The Lord also says, ‘To those who are ever devout and worship Me with love, I give yoga of understanding by which they come to Me.’ What gives you a steady mind? Not your sadhana nor breath control. ‘Purely out of compassion for them, I dwell in their hearts, destroy the darkness born of ignorance by the luminous lamp of wisdom.’ The compassionate Lord will give you the wisdom to know what to select and what to reject. In other words, He will give you discrimination, and out of that discrimination He will dispel the darkness of ignorance. Even after God-realisation you cannot boast that you have realised God through your own efforts. In the
Upanishads it is said, ‘The Self reveals Itself to whomever It chooses.’ You cannot choose God, God chooses you.
Even if you know that someone is playfully hiding in a big forest, where will you start looking for that person? You will not see that person until he or she feels compassion for you and comes out and gets caught. Therefore, only when God
allows you, can you ‘catch’ God. But remember, the effort has to be made. Never slacken the effort.
Excerpt 669:
Daughter: You say that God reveals Himself to the worshipper. May I know how exactly He reveals Himself?
Father: It takes on the form you have cho
If you worship Him as Narayana He will come to you as Narayana. If you worship Him as Shiva He will come to you as Shiva. If you worship Him as Devi He will come to you as Devi and so on. As you worship Him so He will come. Or if you choose to worship any of the Avatar [Incarnation] forms He will reveal Himself as such to the eye of your mind. Your mind has eyes too. God is going to reveal It to the eye of the mind. To Tulsidas He appeared as Sri Rama; to Chaitanya [Mahaprabhu] He appeared as Sri Krishna and to Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa He appeared as Mother Kali. The Gita says, ‘Whatever be the form, which a devotee seeks to worship with faith, I make his faith steadfast in that form alone.’ How wonderful is that God? He approaches you according to your own understanding. He is not like us. Because we are a little bit learned we think that others are ignorant. The compassionate Lord comes to our own understanding. He comes in any form, to make us understand.
Excerpt 670:
Daughter: Is not Narayana separate from Shiva? Are not Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva subordinate to the great God Narayana?
[Swamiki comments]: She is asking if these are small gods, minor gods, demigods.
Father: No my child. There is only ONE God. The Vedas describe Him by the neuter noun Brahman, for in Godhead there is no distinction of gender. Sometimes He is simply called ‘That’ – Tat. For no human description can ever do justice to his infinitude.
Brahman in relation to the Universe is called Ishwara and Ishwara is termed Brahma when He creates. Brahman the nameless, the formless, the attributeless – in terms of the world – is known as Ishwara. That Ishwara now becomes Brahma when He creates, Vishnu when He protects and Rudra when He destroys. They are not three separate things. I may like to destroy, so I pray to Lord Shiva. You like to preserve a little love and you pray to Lord Vishnu. And if you like to create you become an industrial man.
[laughter].
You do not find any Brahma temples because every inch of space is Brahma’s temple; creation is taking place. All the schools are Mother Saraswati’s temples. All the industrial places are Mother Saraswati’s temples. That is where creation is taking place.
These names only denote the different aspects of one God. That is why He is called
Trimurti – the one with three forms.
Excerpt 671:
. . . . the Vishnu Purana says, ‘The one and only God, Ishwara, gets the designation of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva accordingly as He creates, preserves or destroys.’ Of course in popular religion these become separate gods with appropriate symbols, dwelling places, vehicles and followers. The abstract ideals regarding the three different aspects of God were thus rendered concrete to the masses. At one time it was all a living symbolism.
Daughter: Father, what is the symbolism of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva having
consorts or wives of their own?
Father: A little thinking will make that clear to you. We have already seen that the supreme Ishwara has the power of creating, preserving and destroying the world; this power is inseparable from Him. As the sunlight is inseparable from the sun, as
the power to burn is inseparable from fire, so is Shakti or the creative, protective and destructive power inseparable from God. Therefore in popular religion it is personified and represented as the consort of Ishwara. His power or shakti is known
as his wife. An important and widespread school of Hinduism in northern India worships Shakti as the Mother of the Universe.
God has kinetic and dynamic power. The active power is called Shakti, the Universal Mother. Did not Sri Ramakrishna say to Keshab [Chandra Sen], ‘When God is active I call Him Mother. When God is static I call Him Father.’ That is what the author is saying here. As Saraswati she is the wisdom and the art of God. Look what a wonderful architect God is. Look how He created the world without any plans. He did it so beautifully. As Lakshmi she is the grace of God that brings prosperity and happiness to some and salvation to others. And as Uma (that’s my Mother) she is the virginal purity of mountains and forests, untouched. The Devi Bhagavata Purana describes Her as sporting at the time of the dissolution of the world, hiding within Herself the types of all things. Why is Mother dark blue or black? Because black or dark blue absorbs all other
colours. She hides everything in Herself at the time of dissolution.
Excerpt 672:
Daughter: Is it not very confusing to have the powers and functions of the one God thus divided and subdivided and mystified?
Father: Well I don’t know. Do you think it very confusing to call the ocean that surrounds our country by various names, such as the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian sea and the Indian Ocean not to speak of the Gulf of Cambay etc. You should remember
that Hinduism was developed under very complex conditions. Even in a small homogeneous community it is difficult to find a uniform religious formula that would satisfy the needs of all minds. What satisfies the young may not satisfy the old. What
satisfies the labourer may not satisfy the white collar [office ]worker. God is called by many names but in reality, He is One. Similarly a man may be a postman but he is an uncle to his sister’s son. The same man is the father to his children. He fulfils different functions under different titles. There is only One, but we call It by different names.
If I am a Hanuman worshipper, I do not have to leave Him and go to Mother Kali because I need something done. No. Hanumanji [or any Deity] can do everything for me. Mother Kali, like Hanumanji, can also help me keep brahmacharya, keep pure and sattvic.
Your Deity is Almighty. Thus you will worship your Deity by the right method. Otherwise you are thinking that your deity is not Almighty, or it is separate from the Almighty Lord. The same thing has happened with mankind. When we think we are separate from Satchidananda, we become human beings. The day you realise that you are Satchidananda, everything, all power, comes in and everything is possible through you.
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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.