- Teaching mankind is very difficult. It is only when God manifests and gives a commission that it is possible. Narada, Sukadeva, and others received that command to teach. Sankaracharya also was commissioned by God.
- God actually appears before you and speaks to you. Only then do you receive the command. What a weight such words carry then! They can move a mountain.
- If you preach without receiving a direct command, people won’t listen. Such teaching carries no force.
- There’s nothing wrong in preaching and instructing mankind after seeing God and having received His command. The ‘I’ of such a person is not the ‘unripe I’ – it is the ‘ripe I’.
- When you light a lamp, swarms of moths come to it by themselves: they don’t have to be called. Similarly, one who has received a commission from God doesn’t have to invite people by announcing that a lecture will be delivered at a certain time.
- The knowledge of a person who has received a commission from God is inexhaustible. This knowledge flows from God and is never-ending.
- It’s the same thing with the person who has received a commission from God. The Divine Mother keeps on pushing heaps of knowledge toward him from behind.
- When you have the badge of authority, then alone will people listen to you. Unless you receive God’s commission, you can’t teach others. He who is going to preach must have sufficient spiritual power.
- It’s difficult to teach people. If someone receives His command after realizing God, only then can he instruct.
- You lecture for the benefit of people. That is good. But my dear, without receiving a command from God, instructions are useless. People will listen to your lectures for two days and then forget about them. There were people who used to ease themselves on the bank of Haldarpukur. Others berated them with foul language, but they continued. At last, when the government put up a notice, it stopped. In the same way teaching is useless if you haven’t received a command from God.
- Preaching! It comes from pride. Man is an imperfect creature. Only the one who has created the moon and the sun and is lighting up the world can preach. Is it an ordinary thing? Until He manifests Himself and commands you, preaching is not possible. Why? Unless there is God’s command, people go on talking nonsense. Some listen to you for a couple of days but forget – it’s only a short-lived fancy and nothing else.
- A person should add to his power by spiritual effort. Without it, preaching is not possible. ‘You have no place to sleep and you call out: O Shankara, come here and lie down and sleep with me!’
- Nobody can be made great by being written about in books and newspapers. If God makes someone great, even a person who lives in a dense forest becomes known. A flower opens out in a dense forest and a honeybee finds it, not flies. What can a man do?