The Atma Jyoti Blog

A conversation of Swami Brahmananda with the young disciples at the Varanasi Ashram of the Ramakrishna Mission during the 1920’s.

SWAMI BRAHMANANDA: Do you know why I ask you seriously, all of you, to devote yourselves heart and soul to the Lord ? When we were of your age, Thakur (Sri Ramakrishna) used to push us and make us do our spiritual practices. In boyhood the mind remains plastic like clay. It receives an indelible impression from whatever it comes in contact with. So long as clay remains soft, you can give it any shape you like. But when the clay is burned, this cannot be done. Your mind now is like unburnt clay. It can be moulded in any way you want. It is still pure and untainted, so it can be directed very easily toward God. If the mind is kept wholly occupied with thoughts of the Lord from this time on, no foreign thought can disturb it. If the mind be now firmly fixed on the Divine,you need have no anxiety about your spiritual progress.

The mind is like a packet of mustard seeds. If the seeds are once scattered, it is very difficult to gather them up. So I ask you to mould your mind before its energy becomes scattered. When you grow old and the energy of your mind has been frittered away, you will have to make very strenuous efforts to concentrate it; you will experience tremendous difficulty when you try to focus it on a particular object. Do you not see how impressionable is the mind of a little boy? You are now like him.

Sixteen to Thirty

If you want to mould yourselves, strive for it earnestly from your sixteenth to your thirtieth year. After that there is less chance of achieving illumination. Up to the thirtieth year the body and the mind remain fresh. That is the time when the mind can be given a definite shape. But you must labour hard and devote yourselves heart and soul to your ideal of life. Whatever impression the mind may receive during youth will last throughout life. If therefore you have determined to lead a holy life in order to realize God, strive your utmost from today. Your health is all right now. The mind also is plastic. This is the time for spiritual practices. Mould your mind through constant struggle. If this period of your life goes by, it will be more difficult to do anything afterwards.

If you can leave a strong stamp on the mind during this period, if you can make God the be-all and end-all of your existence, if you can devote yourselves sincerely to realize Him, you will be free from all sorrow and pain. No misery, no unhappiness will be able to throw you off your balance. You will become the inheritor of everlasting bliss and joy divine.

Seeking happiness from the world

What does man want? He wants happiness. How he runs after it! What plans he makes! What strenuous efforts he puts forth! But does he get it? After many attempts, after many a plan, he is baffled. He plans again and again, but to no purpose. In this way his whole life ebbs away. He has not the good fortune to enjoy peace and happiness at all. He toils hard like an ordinary labourer and in return reaps sorrow and pain. Then he departs from this world. Thus he lives and dies in vain. Nothing better can be expected by one who runs after empty pleasures, forgetting the goal of life.

If you wish to attain real happiness, you must sacrifice all worldly pleasures, all attachment of? fleeting joys, and direct the whole energy of your mind toward God. The more you advance toward Him, the greater the bliss you will realize. The more your mind becomes attached to the world and to sense-enjoyments, the more will you suffer.

Man as camel

Do you know the nature of the ordinary man? He seeks only pleasure, joy and diversion. And he makes this mistake from the very beginning. Ninety-nine per cent of those who seek happiness do not know what it really is. They grasp at whatever they find near at hand and believe they have got the thing they seek. Then when they are disappointed, they take up something else; and when again they fail, they bemoan their lot. But see the folly of it; they are disappointed again and again; still they will not change their course, they will not take up the right path. They pass their lives receiving blow after blow and bewailing their destiny. Thakur (Sri Ramakrishna) used to compare them to a camel. The camel will not take good grass even when close by. It knows well that thorny grass makes the mouth bleed, but still it insists on eating it. In the same way man suffers because of wrong thoughts and wrong desires.

You are boys very young boys. Your mind has not yet received any evil impression from the outside world. If you can struggle hard from now on, you will be able to escape life’s sorrows and miseries.

Whatever the riches you may possess, whatever your chances of living a happy and prosperous life, however wide your circle of friends and well-wishers, you will not have real happiness. All these things last for a few moments, or at the last an hour; they do not last longer. Then comes a reaction of misery. Thus reaction follows action. If one is to attain true and eternal happiness, one must aspire after that joy which brings no reaction in its train. Wherein lies that true and eternal happiness? It lies in realizing God. This divine enjoyment alone brings no reaction; all other kinds of enjoyments you can name are followed by reaction. And you must know that wherever there is reaction, there is sorrow and suffering.

Never forget the ideal of human life. This life is not given us to while away in eating, drinking and sleeping like an animal, in idle gossip and such things. When you have been born as a human being, spurn all worldly enjoyments. Firmly resolve to realize God and attain infinite bliss. Flinch not, even if you die in the attempt.

Why have you come away from your hearth and home in the name of our Thakur (Sri Ramakrishna)? Is it not to realize Him, to get rid of the sorrows and sufferings of the world and attain everlasting peace and happiness ?

Be up and doing

Sincerely struggle then toward the ideal of life, so long as you have strength of body and mind. By no means relax your efforts, saying that you will realize the ideal later or that it will be possible only through the Lord’s grace. It is idlers alone that talk in this way. I do not want you to idle away your time. If you are not in earnest, speak out clearly. Say, “I have a desire to enjoy worldly pleasures. I have not a sincere longing to realize Truth–to attain God.” Let your speech and your thought be one.

When are you going to do spiritual practices? The best part of life, as I told you, is from the sixteenth to the thirtieth year. Do you hope that after wasting these valuable years in useless pursuits, you will be able to take up spiritual practices in old age? Know that is cheating, deceiving oneself. Do not cheat yourselves.

Related posts:

• Swami Brahmananda on Meditation and Realization
• Four Ways to Be Happy
• Important Conditions for Happiness–by Paramhansa Yogananda