With Swami Turiyananda
In the morning some members of the Ramakrishna Sangha gathered about Swami Turiyananda, and the talk drifted on to Swami Vivekananda and his message to the country. Swami Turiyananda observed: “As Swamiji would say, ‘Religion is the very life of India. Even now it is so. What has India been doing all this time if not producing saints? India will have to preach religion throughout the whole world.’ The words of Swamiji cannot but come true. India will surely rise again. Swamiji remarked once: ‘This time I have left nothing unsaid.’ Yes, he has said everything, and his ideas are now being worked out. The introduction of selfless service in the country made by Swamiji is a wonderful thing. I believe India will rise inevitably. If we have not the good fortune to see that in our life-time, it will come to pass later on. There has already been a good beginning. But for India’s revival, the advent of personalities like Sri Ramakrishna and Swamiji becomes meaningless. Swamiji prophesied many times the future glorious mission of India in unmistakable terms, and his prophecy cannot prove false.”
In the afternoon, a small audience gathered in Swami Turiyananda’s room, and there was the usual Bhagavata class. The class being over the Swami said: “There are three kinds of sins — sins of deed, word and thought.” He quoted Manu in support and continued : “As consequences of these sins, men get to the inanimate state, come to this earth as birds and beasts, and are born as wretched creatures in the lowest strata of human society f respectively.” He said again: “It is in the human body that the gates to emancipation open. So every man should be on his guard and make a good use of his life. Enjoyment that one is after is possible in other bodies also, but emancipation is not. Attachment to the body is the last and strongest bondage of a creature.”
The Swami cited the intense parental affection of monkeys and showed that even they, as all other animals, forget everything about their young ones when their own life is at stake. Then he narrated stories how some of the Mohammedan rulers would sometimes test the parental love of the monkeys by setting fire to the forests where they lived, and how he himself also used to tease the monkeys at Brindavan by taking hold of their young ones.
In connection with spiritual discipline, Swami Turiyananda observed: “By silent and continued prayer and meditation one should create in the mind a subconscious current, and it will go on working at all times — even in sleep. In that case, it is not that one will not have any dream, but that the current thus created will be supreme, working imperceptibly within. During this Sadhana one should not mix with too many persons and engage in useless talk.”
[From Conversations with Swami Turiyananda]