Talks Excerpts 740 to 744 inclusive. Swamiji gives renunciate-specific instructions. Including reading from ‘Teachings of the Buddha’.

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

Excerpt 740:
[Swamiji giving advice to renunciates]. Don’t become so intimate with householders that you go and sit in their houses until three o’clock in the morning. Just go for business. Just finish your business and get out. Show them that time is important. Show them that there is some discipline on your side. If you go there, you sit, laugh, make jokes, that’s the time when everything comes down. Purposely they will put on the TV. Just refuse the TV occasionally and see how they respect you. And when they crack any jokes, stop it then and there.

When you go to a person’s house ask them if there is any little difficulty in the house. Start off from there. Another thing: don’t let them rely too much on you – like picking them up, bringing them and taking them [gome again]. You must not do all that. But if they are hard pressed, all right, do it.

About the [Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa organisation] Branches: you must make them that independent that their independence becomes your independence later on. That is a strength added to you. But if you make them too dependent on you, and a slave, then their part of the slavery will become your part of the slavery; because you will be relying on them.

The male sannyasis must not look at the female’s eyes too much and the female sannyasis mustn’t look at the male’s eyes too much. You know Buddha’s way of walking on the street? He watches his toes. There is a lot in what he is saying there. Male can see male. Female can see female. But if you want to watch the other person, watch their toes – God’s toes – while prostrating.

Go and read the Ramayana again. Find out what Lakshman saw of Mother Sita, it will tell you there. I tell you, great spirituality lies in the feet. Even when you go to God, God is so great you don’t have to worry about first seeing his face before you prostrate. There’s the spirituality.

If you go to houses on collection [fund raising] don’t think, ‘Why should I sit here and do meditation?’ That’s not it. The idea is to spread It, spread Master’s name. How? Go and find your own money. Out of goodwill the householders are giving money. So take the money out of goodwill and give it to the printing press. Take the same literature and spread the message. I think that is very beautiful.

If you don’t have means you must devise means. We are not stealing. We are doing this to get the money to spread the word. We are not saying, ‘We will get this money and put it in the bank.’ Putting it in the bank is selfish. Buying your own clothes is selfish. I want to drum this into your head.

What is this business of thinking that money is evil? Money is not evil. Money is good – as long as you don’t take it for yourself. Sannyasis must never take money and bank it for themselves. Brahmacharis also must not do this. Just remember this.

Excerpt 741:
When we read this book ‘The Teachings of Buddha’ we can ignore [substitute] the word Buddha and put the word, ‘Enlightened Being’ in its place. Call it Christ if you like. Call it Allah if you like. Call it Muhammad if you like. Call it Sri Ramakrishna if you like. Call it Guru if you like. Call it what you like.

When we read ‘homeless brothers’ we are those homeless brothers and sisters at the present moment. We have no home to call our own, we have no ashrams to call our own. By God’s grace God has provided us with an area of two feet by two feet just to sit in, that’s all. For the time being we will take that as ours. For the time being we will call it God’s privilege given to us to occupy this space.

This is very important what I am saying. Eighty percent of the time we don’t take seriously what we are told, with the result that we don’t put it into practise. And because we don’t put it into practise our troubles begin. From that point of view, we say our guru’s word is a mantra. A mantra is supposed to control the mind. You have to submit to it consciously, not unconsciously. Allow the mantra to sacrifice the lower part of yourself, the lower self, so that it can take on the image of the higher Self, or become the Higher Self.

A piece of wood sacrifices itself. It becomes a fire. Think about it. And the fire sacrifices itself to become ashes. All lessons you learn and put into practice are called japa yoga.

Japa is not only a means of repeating God’s name, it is the practical practising of yoga. The Bhagavad Gita says it is the greatest sacrifice. This sacrifice calls for nothing less than sacrificing your little whims and fancies, your little lower self, in the fire of the Higher Self. When doing a hawan you take ghee and put it in the fire, you put wood in it, and you put havan samagri in it. Similarly, when you do japa, you are actually sacrificing your breath, your individual breath, your individual lower self to the higher universal Self, Paramatman. That is the greatest sacrifice. There is no other sacrifice.

Excerpt 742:
We, the ‘homeless brothers’, the brotherhood, have taken no other step but the step of self-sacrifice. Therefore, because you have to sacrifice, sannyasa [monastic renunciation] is known as the greatest path. In other worships you sacrifice everything else. But in this sacrifice you sacrifice the self. The very self that sacrifices other things, is now sacrificed. To the extent you think of the Higher Self, to that extent you are ‘extinct’. That is why you grow in the image of your deity. You die – though gradually – you die for sure. You live and act as your deity lived and acted.

See how little children sacrifice themselves in the mannerisms of the teachers. They will imitate the teacher. Automatically they will say, ‘Come on we will teach,’ or, ‘We will take the cane.’ They will act just like the teacher. Can you see them sacrifice the self in this example? So we sacrifice our lower self for the Higher Self.

Swamiji reads from: The Teachings of Buddha: The Duties of The Brotherhood.

A man who wishes to become my disciple must be willing to give up all direct relations with his family, the social life of the world, and all dependence upon wealth.

Buddha says you must give up three things if you want to become a disciple. First give up all ties with your families. The homeless ones [renunciates] now I am talking to.  Next, you must give up all social relationships – going to visit friends and all that, enjoying yourself and wasting your valuable time. The only relationship you should have is visiting Brahman. Why? Because you want to sacrifice the lower self to the Higher Self.

Third, you must give up all dependence upon wealth. Who’s wealth? Before the [South African currency] Rand was in your hand, it was in somebody else’s hand; and just as it is in your hand it will move on into someone else’s hand. So it is not yours. It is of this world. It will remain in this world when you leave. So you must not have relationship with your families or social relationships and, above all, give up reliance on wealth.

I always draw your notice to this: none of the sannyasis should have any kind of banking account. Banking is not the only form of wealth. Buying antiques and so on is another form. No reliance on all those [material] things either. This whole world is an antique. Imagine when it was created. It should be more valuable each day; but we find it is value-less each day. How much more valuable is it becoming? Nothing. If anything were really valuable it would be this world. But we find this world, this antique world, not valuable. How can you value a part thereof?

After cremation only a little ash will be left. That too is valueless because they will put it in the water to satisfy their own minds and say, ‘Well, I have done shanti paath, shanti.’ If the same body was dead and the lions devoured it, it would be in the stomach and turn into excreta. Who did the shanti then? [Swamiji laughs.] The lions stomach or hunger became the shanti. So all this is the play of the mind. All these things are unreal.

Excerpt 743:
A man who has given up all such relations for the sake of the dharma . . .

When we read the word dharma we must think, not only of the institution, but of dharma for one’s real nature.

. . . and has no abiding place for either his body or his mind, he has become my disciple and is to be called a homeless brother.

The homeless brother says he has no relationship with the body. He knows this will perish one day. What’s the use of putting on lipstick and powder or exercising it? It will die. But you exercise it only for it to serve your own purpose; for the sake of the mind, which is projected in the form of the body. What is this body if not mind? This body is nothing else but mind. Each minute cell, if you divide it, has a mind of its own.

If his mind is disturbed by greed, he is far from me. Though he dresses like a monk but does not accept the teaching, he does not see me.

The [gerua, monastic] garb is not all. If you practise the teaching then, even if you don’t have the garb, you are still his disciple. Disciple means spiritual authority of owning a master. The word disciple to me means the spiritual authority to own a master. You own the master, nothing less. Just as a son who is born from a particular father owns the father.

But if he has removed all greed and his mind is pure and peaceful he is very close to me though he be thousands of miles away. If he receives the dharma he sees Me in it.

Dharma – the laws, the instructions – he sees Me in it. First we see the body and make out a man. The body is not the man. We say the soul is in this man. Similarly when we find a man practising spiritual laws and regulations we say he is a monk. So the visible expression of a monk is his obedience to the principles of the dharma.

Excerpt 744:
[Swamiji reads from the “Teachings of Buddha” to the renunciates].

My disciples, the homeless brothers, must observe the four rules, and about them build their lives. First: they wear old and cast-off garments. Second: they get their food through alms or begging. Third: their home is where night finds them; under a tree or on a rock. Fourth: they use only a special medicine made from urine as laid down by the brotherhood.

In the Vedas there are wonderful things written about urine therapy. But with this therapy are associated certain mantras. You say certain mantras and then take the urine. ‘As laid down by the brotherhood,’ means there are rules to taking it. You don’t just take it anytime. [Swamiji laughs.] If a man is suffering from bilharzia it won’t do him very much good. It will multiply the germs.

To carry a bowl in hand and go from house to house is a beggar’s life. But a brother is not compelled to do so by others, he is not forced into it by circumstances or by temptation. He does it of his own free will because he knows that a life of faith will keep him away from the delusions of life, will help him to avoid suffering and will lead him towards enlightenment. The life of a homeless brother is not an easy one. He ought not to undertake it if he cannot keep his mind free from greed and anger, if he cannot control his mind or his five senses.

Swamiji: It is not an easy thing.

To believe himself to be a homeless brother and to be able to answer when he is asked about it, he must be able to say firstly, I am willing to undertake whatever is necessary to be a homeless brother.

Or a homeless sister. But Buddha didn’t initiate women. Because he initiated his mother it had led to her downfall, that is what is written.

And secondly, I will be sincere about it and will try to accomplish the purpose of becoming One. I will be grateful to those who help me by donations and will try to make them happy by my eagerness and good life.

A sannyasi is not unmindful of the givers. He appreciates the givers – those who help him through donations – and will try to make them happy. How? By earnestness and living a good, dharmic life. You must be sincere to the backbone in whatever you are doing, so you become worthy of the salt of the householders. You are not going to be a rough and tumble kind of a person, you have to live a good life.

Very important: No stealing in thought, word or deed.

Excerpt 744: To be a homeless brother he must train himself in many ways. He must be sensitive to blame and dishonour when he fails.

You can’t say, ‘Nobody saw what I did, so I am quite happy.’ No! No sooner you fail in thought too you must be shameful. It must make you shameful. You must be sensitive, you must not be a paralysed mind. You must be an active, sensitive mind.

He must keep his body, speech and mind pure, if his life is to be pure. He must guard the gates of his five senses. He must not lose control of his mind for the sake of some passing pleasure.

Narada lost his senses when he saw a beautiful girl for a few seconds. What for?

He must not praise himself or rebuke others . . .

Don’t run others down and try to boost yourself. Don’t use yourself as an example so that others will be belittled. If you find that certain actions of yours will run others down, then those actions too are also not right.

. . . and he must not be idle or given to lengthy sleep.

What time does a man, who knows he is going to make thousands of [South African currency] Rands every minute, open his business? If possible he will open for business at three o’clock in the morning to catch the first busload of passengers. Similarly, a monk should not waste his time in sleeping. He must wake up early and do his meditation and all his obligatory duties. On the other hand if you have sincerely worked hard and you are tired then it doesn’t matter, because you know you are not taking advantage of the body and at the same time you are not making it lazy by oversleeping.

Moderation is the word. The Bhagavad Gita says, ‘Moderation’. Buddha himself was a perfect embodiment of moderation. Not too much of anything. He says here you must not be idle. If people come to visit don’t sit for two hours. That’s not needed. Fifteen or twenty minutes is enough. Don’t cater too much for them. You can say, ‘Right, we have work to do; help me in the [printing] press; come, let’s do something. Clean the shrine. Come on, have joy in serving.’ Don’t take the pose of a great guru and sit down for a long time. That’s idleness. Never mind that you are hearing and speaking of God. Don’t sit for long, or idle away your valuable time when you could be doing constructive things for your own life and for others.

In the evening you should have a time for quiet sitting and meditation and a short walk before retiring.

This book is talking to the sannyasis. You must have a time set, not with people or public, a quiet time for meditating. Then before retiring you must take a short walk, he says.

For peaceful sleep he should rest on the right side with his feet together, his last thought should be of the time when he wishes to rise in the early morning.

He is setting the ‘mental clock’, deciding what time to rise. Gurudev [Swamiji’s beloved Guru, and our ‘Gurudev’, Swami Nischalananda Puri] used to teach us this too. Look at the clock, watch it, and think, ‘I’ll get up at four o’clock.’ Say it a couple of times, repeat God’s name, and go to sleep. For a few days it will be this way and that way; but just as hunger comes at twelve o’clock, when your stomach starts bleeping in the form of the beating of the blood, so automatically the mind will wake you.

Early in the morning you should have another time for quiet sitting and meditation and a short walk afterwards.

Morning and evening you should do that. It doesn’t mean go to somebody’s house and sit down. No. Go and admire nature. Don’t have friends to walk with. That is the worst thing you can do.

I take walks [on the ashram premises] in the morning and evening. In the mornings I take a walk in my pyjamas. In the evening I take a walk with my dhoti. But when walking I don’t like anybody with me. Nowadays Chakra [the ashram dog] is with me. That’s all right. But while walking I take pride in repeating God’s name. Every step I take I want to repeat It. Then I say to myself, ‘Well if I don’t say japa the whole day at least I know I’ve done japa with my feet instead of with the mala. I’ve walked and repeated God’s name, so the day is not wasted.’

I used to walk three times round the ashram. I would call it pradakshina; making pradakshina to Master [Sri Ramakrishna]. Beautiful.

At night you get a good rest. During the day, when you are tired, you can have a little rest and then carry on with your daily work. This is for monks.

During the whole day you should always maintain an alert mind keeping both body and mind under control, resisting all tendencies toward greed, anger, ignorance, sleepiness, inattention, regret, suspicion, and all worldly desires.

You must not become suspicious of others and they shouldn’t do actions that will make others suspicious. During the day you must keep your mind alert, not sleepy.

Thus with his mind concentrated he should cultivate excellent wisdom and aim only at perfect enlightenment.

That’s the only aim the homeless brother has in life. Not enlightenment but perfect enlightenment. Nothing else but sacrificing the whole lower self into the Higher Self.

If a homeless brother, forgetting himself, lapses into greed, gives way to anger and cherishes resentment, jealousy, conceit, self-praise or insincerity, he is like one carrying a keen two-edged sword covered only by a thin cloth. He is not a homeless brother simply because he wears a monk’s rags and carries a begging bowl. He is not a homeless brother just because he recites scriptures. He is a man of straw and nothing more.

He is even lower [status] than the householders. He is supposed to be higher in a way. He is nothing better than straw which the householders trample under their feet. You find a lot of grass mats at home. He is lower than that.

Even if his outward appearance is that of a monk, if he cannot remove his worldly desires he is not a homeless brother. He is no more than an infant clothed in a monk’s robe.

The monks are supposed to be the highest rung of society but if he lapses he is nothing less than a little child who hasn’t entered any of the stages [ashrams] of society. From brahmacharya you enter other stages. But if, like a little child, he hasn’t entered into them, he is ignorant.

Those who are able to concentrate and control the mind, who contain wisdom, who have removed all worldly desires and whose only purpose is to attain enlightenment, only these can be called the true homeless brothers. A true homeless brother determines to reach his goal of enlightenment even though he loses his last drop of blood and his bones crumble into powder. Such a man, trying his best, will finally attain the goal and give evidence of it by his ability to do the meritorious deeds of a homeless brother. The mission of a homeless brother is to carry forward the light of the Buddha’s teaching. He must preach to everyone. He must wake up [spiritually] sleeping people. He must correct false ideas. He must help people to have a right view point. He must go everywhere to spread the teaching widely even at the risk of his own life.

Don’t live a sheltered life, a protected life. Live a ‘full of praise’ life.

The mission of a homeless brother is not an easy one for he who aspires to it should wear Buddha’s clothes, sit on Buddha’s seat and enter into Buddha’s room.

To wear Buddha’s clothes means to be humble and to practise endurance. How humble Buddha was and how much endurance he practised. To sit on Buddha’s seat means to see everything as non-essential and to have no attachments. All these things may be necessary but it is not necessary that they are essential. If you can do without it, it is non-essential. Have no attachment. To enter into Buddha’s room means to share his all-embracing great compassion and to have sympathy for everyone. ‘Everyone’ means the saint and the sinner alike.

Those who wish to teach the Buddha’s teachings acceptably must be concerned about four things. First, they must be concerned about their own behaviour.

How can you teach if your own behaviour is bad?

Second, they must be concerned about their choice of words when they approach and teach people.

Swami Vivekananda used to receive wonderful literature from his brother disciples. But he wrote back scolding them saying, ‘You must watch what kind of words you write about Sri Ramakrishna. Though he [Master] must have used those words they are not acceptable to the western world.’ So you must watch the words when you approach and teach people.

Third, they must be concerned about their motive for teaching and the end they wish to accomplish.

What is the motive of your teaching? Is it for name, fame, position, gaining money? Or is your motive for them to gain love to God’s lotus feet and thus reach Godhood? What is your motive?

And fourth, they must be concerned about the great compassion.

They must have compassion for all.

To be a good teacher of the dharma (here dharma means religion) then a brother must first of all have his feet well set on the ground of endurance.

You must be prepared to endure anything – insults, even death. He must be modest. He must not be eccentric or desire publicity. True modesty, not false modesty. What is the meaning of eccentric? Out of the ordinary. If you sit like this, go and stand like that, talk like so, people will say, ‘Look, he is out of the ordinary. See, he is sitting under a tree, he is not sitting on a chair. What a good swami he is.’

He must constantly think of the emptiness of things …

When you look at a thing don’t get attached to it. It is nothing. It has to perish – the tape recorder for instance. Don’t think, ‘It looks so nice, so I must buy it.’ Be it a musical instrument, or a book, or a conch it has to go. Names and forms are all maya or the handiwork of maya. Going beyond maya will be going beyond name and form and attributes too.

. . . and he must not become attached to anything, anything but the Self. If he is thus concerned he will be capable of right conduct. Secondly he must exercise caution in approaching people and situations.

Ah! How many times have I told people this? You must be cautious. Each person is the unique handiwork of Mother Maya so each one has to be approached in a different way. It’s like each one has a different chord and each chord is adjusted differently for different tunes, in different situations.

He must avoid people who are living evil lives, or people of authority.

Because you will get caught in their authority. You’ll start bribing them through the back door. Avoid them. Don’t think, ‘He’s the principal so I am going to join him.’ One day, who knows, that person may do something terrible. Watch it. Avoid authority, lovingly. Yes, I was always afraid of people with authority – always in my life. Not afraid in the sense that I can’t eat them up. No. I wanted to be far from them.

He must avoid women.

He is talking to the brothers, the sannyasis, you must remember that. He will tell the women, the sannyasinis, to avoid men. Just like Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings, isn’t it? He is not saying something for you to laugh at. Avoid them – don’t hate them. One way to avoid them is to call them ‘Divine Mother’. See your Mother, whom you worship, in them. For a long time I avoided them myself by seeing my own earthly mother in every woman. I used to see their face, their flesh, as my own mother that walks on Earth. In that way it could be avoided.

Then he must approach people in a friendly way. He must always remember that things rise from a combination of causes and conditions and, standing at that point, he must not blame or abuse them or speak of their mistakes or hold them in light esteem.

Don’t blame them. Don’t abuse them. And don’t think lightly of them; because you are supposed to see the Self in everyone, nothing else.

Thirdly he must keep his mind peaceful, considering Buddha as his spiritual father, considering other homeless brothers who are training for enlightenment as his teachers.

Beautiful. Think of Swami Vivekananda and Swami Brahmananda meeting when Swami Vivekananda returned from America. See the relationship: One called the other ‘father’ because he saw the guru’s eldest son as the guru. The other said, ‘The eldest brother is the guru.’ Both appreciated the father in the other.

‘And looking upon everyone with great compassion’ means your brothers who are marching, your sisters who are marching, should be your gurus. Even if they do something wrong you can learn something from that, you should not do it. And if they do something good, imbibe it. They are your teachers.

Then he must teach all men equally.

Don’t have one favourite, all must be taught equally. You can only teach equally when you have compassion, when your behaviour is good and if you are only preaching one thing. Otherwise if you preach many things then you’ll have to give somebody a little extra of this or that. That is why you are only preaching God; and you can only preach equally about God. Of what can I speak to you, if not God? I cannot speak to you of football or cricket.

Fourthly, he must let his spirit of compassion display itself, even as Buddha did, to the utmost degree.

Here display doesn’t mean a bad display. When you find someone needing compassion, go to him, reach out, give it. Don’t just sit there and look at it in a negative way.

On a pilgrimage, Master’s train went through a village where the people were suffering terribly from starvation. So Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Mathur Babu, I am stopping here unless you give everybody a piece of cloth and some food. Do something.’ A lot of rich people had passed through the same train station on their travels and had thought, ‘What a poor place this is. They don’t have even a piece of bread to eat. Look at them, no clothes.’ Now the greatest thing while on pilgrimage is that you shouldn’t stop. But Sri Ramakrishna considered pilgrimage dust, mere dirt compared with suffering. That’s why He said, ‘Unless you give these poor people a piece of cloth and some food, I am not going to move from here, I am going to sit with them.’ Mathur was forced to do it. Display your compassion. [Swamiji always stressed that compassion needed to translate into action.]

Especially, he should let his spirit of compassion flow out to those who do not know enough to seek enlightenment.

Don’t look down upon the sinner, where your compassion should be greatest. In class who must the teacher pay more attention to? The student who is strong or the student who is weak?

He should wish that they might seek enlightenment; and then he should follow those wishes with unselfish effort to awaken their interest.

Not only to wish that they should get enlightened, but he should ‘follow those wishes’. You must do something about it. Push on.

I’ve read to you from page 194 to page 200. You can go and read it and follow that advice of Lord Buddha. This is for the sannyasis, those who are called the homeless brothers.

The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography, ‘A Life Lived For Others‘, is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.

For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ booklet of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.

There’s also a Facebook site for Swamiji’s posts now. They’re for newer readings published much more recently. Click HERE to view.

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 those with him at the time.as saying may have been specific to an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.