Swami Vivekananda says a true disciple should follow these four conditions

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Discipleship (Delivered in San Francisco, on March 29, 1900)

Volume 8, Lectures And Discourses

 

The first condition is that the student who wants to know the truth must give

up all desires for gain in this world or in the life to come.

 

The second condition is that the disciple must be able to control the

internal and the external senses and must be established in several other

spiritual virtues.

 

The next qualification is that the disciple must have faith in the Guru

(teacher). In the West the teacher simply gives intellectual knowledge; that

is all. The relationship with the teacher is the greatest in life. My

dearest and nearest relative in life is my Guru; next, my mother; then my

father. My first reverence is to the Guru. If my father says, " Do this " , and

my Guru says, " Do not do this " , I do not do it. The Guru frees my soul. The

father and mother give me this body; but the Guru gives me rebirth in the

soul.

 

Some years ago one of your Christian teachers, a friend of mine, said, " You

believe in Christ? " " Yes, " I answered, " but perhaps with a little more

reverence. " " Then why don't you be baptised? " How could I be baptised? By

whom? Where is the man who can give true baptism? What is baptism? Is it

sprinkling some water over you, or dipping you in water, while muttering

formulas?

 

Baptism is the direct introduction into the life of the spirit. If you

receive the real baptism, you know you are not the body but the spirit. Give

me that baptism if you can. If not, you are not Christians. Even after the

so - called baptism which you received, you have remained the same. What is

the sense of merely saying you have been baptised in the name of the Christ?

Mere talk, talk -- ever disturbing the world with your foolishness! " Ever

steeped in the darkness of ignorance, yet considering themselves wise and

learned, the fools go round and round, staggering to and fro like the blind

led by the blind. " Therefore do not say you are Christians, do not brag

about baptism and things of that sort.

 

We are like moths plunging into the flaming fire, knowing that it will burn

us, knowing that the senses only burn us, that they only enhance

desire. " Desire

is never satiated by enjoyment; enjoyment only increases desire as butter

fed into fire increases the fire. " Desire is increased by desire. Knowing

all this, people still plunge into it all the time. Life after life they

have been going after the objects of desire, suffering extremely in

consequence, yet they cannot give up desire. Even religion, which should

rescue them from this terrible bondage of desire, they have made a means of

satisfying desire. Rarely do they ask God to free them from bondage to the

body and senses, from slavery to desires. Instead, they pray to Him for

health and prosperity, for long life: " O God, cure my headache, give me some

money or something! "

 

The fourth and last condition of discipleship is the discrimination of the

real from the unreal. There is only one thing that is real -- god. All the

time the mind must be drawn to Him, dedicated to Him. God exists, nothing

else exists, everything else comes and goes. Any desire for the world is

illusion, because the world is unreal. More and more the mind must become

conscious of God alone, until everything else appears as it really is --

unreal.

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram