Swami Shivapadananda

Trances real and fake

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

687

   

The word trance means, 'in a state of consciousness'. That is all trance is. You may be in a state of consciousness of Kali. You may be in the state of consciousness of Hanuman. You may be in a state of consciousness of Durga. But the test of the real trance is that after it has left you, you will be transformed, you will be a saint. But people who are getting a trance today go and tell lies and rob others tomorrow. Their character is as hopeless as before the trance, and that is the state of mind they are in. I do not want to see this kind of trance.

The real trance, as Sri Ramakrishna experienced it, transcended human nature and established itself in Divine Nature. On coming down from there he was not able to speak a single lie, He was not able to do anything that was sensual and self-gratifying.

I will wash the feet of the trance that increases love for God's Lotus Feet.

The first time the trance comes it does give one a special vibration, but then other people spoil it. When the trance comes the person will produce ashes and tell long stories and people will fall at his feet. But the next time the person calls for the trance the trance does not come, so he has to jump about and pretend. Otherwise at whose feet are the people going to fall? So he just has to imitate the trance because of the people.

Devotee: What actually happens when someone in a trance says that it is one of the gods or goddesses speaking?

Swamiji: You will find that these are yoginis. These are not truly evolved divine spirits. The devotee imbibes the nature of that yogini or departed spirit and under the guise of Kali, Durga, Vande, he eats prasad and enjoys himself while you think it is one of the gods.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

   

 

Accepting God’s will entirely

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

686

   

Renounce your mind. The mind, the ego, has to be renounced. If you become ego-less you are a renunciate. A person may have the garb and be telling everybody, 'I am a great swami,' but then he is not a renunciate - he still has the 'I'. The garb [gerrua robes of the monk - see colour of Swami Vivekananda's cloth above] does not make a person a renunciate. Ravana [the demon king] wore the garb, and yet he was a bhogi [worldly man].

If you have faith in God, God will take care of it. Mirabai was exploited by people but nevertheless she enjoyed the bliss of God. When you have deep trust in God, God protects you, you will not even think about it. Self-surrender means you have no concern; God will take care. 'O God, if you kick me through others, good; if you exploit me through others, good; if you give me bliss and make me sit down on a throne, it's good.'

Gurudev [Sri Swami Nischalananda Puri – Swamiji's beloved Guru] gave Vishnupriya [Swamiji's brother disciple or gurubhai] and myself our garb at the same time. He told us, 'When everything is over you must take this garb, place it in front of the Master, and then wear it. With this garb I am giving you, you are a renunciate.' He burned some camphor and did all the mantras; then he gave the garb to us.

After Gurudev's passing away I told Vishnupriya, 'Bobby [his pre-brahmachari name], now you have to put on the garb because that's what Gurudev wanted.' He said, 'What? You are a fool.' I thought: 'He is bigger than my guru now.' [laughter] Vishnupriya said, 'We must first work, save money, then go and renounce. If you do that then the people cannot tell you anything.' Inside I thought: 'But what kind of a renunciation is it if my strength is in the bank?' So I said, 'But that's wrong.' He disagreed and so he went away. As it turned out he put some money in the bank, he went to India, came back with cancer and died after one week. His money was still in the bank. Now you can see what kind of renunciation it was.

When you surrender to God, God can kick you, God will kick you sometimes. Who cares? He does what He feels like with you. You are like a dried leaf - sometimes He blows you into deep water, sometimes onto the shore. You just sing Ram Ram. Sri Ramakrishna had cancer: He said, 'Jai Sri Kali, Jai Sri Kali.' When Gandhi was shot he said, 'Ram Ram.' He did not say, 'Why did you shoot me?' He was a renunciate.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

 

Renouncing the mind

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

685

   

Your mind can be pure wherever you are seated.

We live in an ashram [Hindu monastery] because here we have the help of other people and the environment is conducive to making our minds strong to renounce the world. If you can renounce the world at home, then do it. That is very good. But then you must not even say, 'at home'. You have no home. And the very fact you are saying 'at home' means you feel you have a home - you have not renounced yet.

If I take you from home and put you here you must be quiet; and if I take you from here and put you at home you must be quiet. Mother Sita said to Lakshmana, 'Sri Rama told me to come and live here in the forest. His happiness is my happiness. If he says I must live in the forest, I am happy so long as he is happy.'

Master [Sri Ramakrishna] showed renunciation when Mathur Babu [son in law of the Rani Rasmani, founder of the Kali Temple at Dakshineswar who took care of Sri Ramakrishna's physical needs] told him, 'Leave the place and go.' Master picked up his shawl, put it on and walked out. But as he went by the gate Mathur Babu fell at his feet and held him saying, 'Please come back, I am sorry.' Master came back, He did not say a word. He put the shawl down and started talking about God.

Mathur told him, 'Go', He went. He did not ask Mathur, 'Why did you tell me to go?' Mathur told him, 'Come back,' and he came back. That is how renunciation is. Wherever you are you will see God. You will not discriminate between ashram and home. But if you say, 'Home is God,' then there is nothing to renounce, it is God.

Ramana Maharishi [pictured above] put it very well. A man asked him, 'Must I renounce?' He said 'Look here, if you go to live in the forest you will still carry your mind. If you stay at home you are still carrying your mind; so renounce your mind. Don't worry about going to the forest or anywhere else.'

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

   

 

Gifts and realisation

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

684

   

There are very few people who can reach the state of God-realisation without a guru [spiritual preceptor/reacher]. In school you need a teacher to teach you arithmetic [maths]. So if you need a teacher in ordinary things, do you think in spiritual things you can reach God without a guru? Those people who think like that are foolish - ignorance is making them think like that. A man who can reach God without a guru will not be thinking, 'Can I reach God without a guru?' It will just happen.

In the beginning Girish [Chandra Ghosh, the famous Bengali playwright - pictured above] also wondered why he should have a physical guru, a human guru and why he should prostrate. Later on he found he too needed the guru, and that is how he took Sri Ramakrishna as a guru.

Ganesha [the Hindu god who removes obstacles] was born in many different yugas [epoch, age, era]. In certain yugas his wives were Siddhi and Buddhi. Siddhi means all the siddhis - the eight yoga siddhis [powers]. And buddhi means he had a clear intellect that discriminates right from wrong. We read that Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh's [Shiva's] shaktis become their consorts, their wives, in that sense.

Ganesha Bhagavan is the son of my Mother Parvati, [consort of Lord Shiva] and he gives siddhi and buddhi. He gives all kinds of power - he also gives wife power - so he is married.

One day I asked Gurudev [Sri Swami Nischalananda Puri, Swamiji's guru], 'Tell me Gurudev, truly, do you really love Sri Ramakrishna?' He looked at me and put his head down, he did not answer. Truth does not need any verbal answer. Others may have thought, 'Oh, he wasn't sure therefore he didn't answer.' But I knew exactly in my mind, through his grace, that the truth does not need any answer.

He could have told me 'Yes', but if I did not believe it, what could he do about it? If he had said 'No' and if he was not telling the truth, what could I do about it? So he kept quiet, he just put his head down.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

   

‘Dead’ to the right things

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

683

   

Swamiji continues speaking on the Katha Upanishad

This Upanishad is the story or the Katha of the Universal Soul.

Man dies first in the physical sense to be born in the spiritual sense. Nachiketa had had his physical death whilst he was still alive because he had his mind and senses under control, he was dead to that extent. Where the yogi is awake the worldly man is asleep; and where the worldly man is asleep the yogi is awake. From that point of view you will see that Nachiketa was awake to his spiritual nature, therefore he was dead to his physical nature.

If in meditation I meet Sri Rama, does it happen in the mental state? No. It happens in the spiritual state.

At first you can take the stories from the Upanishads as traditional history. When children hear these stories they become more faithful and seek God. Later on they become symbolised as the inner conscience. When you are doing wrong there will be a conscience telling you: 'That's not right. Don't do that.'

Nachiketa was that kind of a disciple who, after taking the fruit of Self-realisation, came back to the world with the power of serving. And that is why up to this day he is serving us in the form of this book - the Katha Upanishad.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

Beyond death

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

682

   

Swamiji continues speaking on the Katha Upanishad

If somebody asks me, 'Swamiji, what happens after death?' I say, 'This is what happens. I must have died somewhere else and I am here now.' There is nothing great about that kind of a question. No. Nachiketa is asking about the universal pralaya [dissolution] when the whole universe, with time and space, disappear. He is asking 'What happens, O Death, you are the only one that knows this because you are Time?'

If you ask a person, 'Where is God?' He will say, 'God is in heaven.' 'But where was God before heaven?' That is the question Nachiketa is asking.

Yamaraja [the Hindu god of death] replied, 'Ask me all other questions. You can take wife, children, money, all the pleasures of the world and the heavenly world, but do not ask me this. Even the gods find it difficult.' Then Nachiketa said, 'Well, if the gods find it difficult, and you know they find it difficult, that means you know the answer. I will never find another guru [teacher, spiritual preceptor] who knows - you are the right one to teach me.'

The scriptures cannot tell you what God-realisation is, they can only hint at it. So the Katha Upanishad goes on to explain how to get the senses under control and how to meditate upon God in the form of a light in your heart - that is the kind of meditation given there.

When the heart was not there, where was the Lord? You will find out after [God or Self] realisation. When heaven was not there, where was God? Where were you? After realisation you can answer that. On that part all the scriptures are silent. We can only go as far as heaven but beyond that my mantra is 'angasi' [meaning, in isiZulu – an African language - 'I do not know']. 'It' Itself knows who exists everywhere and in everything.

Remember that Nachiketa does not speak about ordinary death, he is speaking about universal dissolution. What happens when there is nothing? He is talking about when there was nothing - not even ignorance or knowledge. Only [God or 'Self'] realisation can give the answer to us.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

 

Exploring death

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

681

   

Swamiji continues speaking on the Katha Upanishad

Now Nachiketa was that one who chose consciously and intelligently to know what is beyond death. He was not talking about ordinary death (ordinary death is the corn) [see previous posting Day 680 for context]. We must consider here what kind of death he is talking about.

The vishwajit yajna [universal sacrifice] also means that you must give away your ego. If the ego is given away you have won the vishwajit. Who is the enjoyer? Who is going to enjoy what? Even in a dream you have to have the ego to enjoy the dream. But in vishwajit you have to give everything away, including your ego. And that is nothing else but renunciation. You renounce everything. Man possesses the ego, so he gives it up. Nachiketa was not only the son of his father but he was the projection of his father's pure consciousness.

When Nachiketa went to Yamaraja [the Hindu lord god of death], Yamaraja said to him, 'Ask me for three things.' So Nachiketa said: 'Firstly, when I go back home my people must welcome me and my father must recognise me, not as a son but as a holy man, and let everyone be friendly to me. Secondly, tell me the yajnas [sacrifices], the karmakanda [spiritual injunctions], needed to get heaven.'

Everybody knows how to go to hell; very few people know how to go to heaven. So Yamaraja gives him the three fire sacrifices. Firstly he wins the physical world when he asks that everybody must recognise and be friendly to him; then he wins the psychic world, the mind world, whereby he can get heaven. We know that it is not the Atman [soul] that takes birth but the mind, so it is in the mind world that he can get heaven and everything else.

Then Nachiketa said, 'Thirdly, please tell me what happens to people after death?' This is a very serious question. He is not talking about human death.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

Meaning beyond death

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

680

   

Swamiji continues speaking on the Katha Upanishad

For three days Death was absent and for three days Nachiketa went through hell. They call it spiritual darkness. (You will also find it in the Christian scriptures - also 'Dark night of the soul'. Described by Jesus, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Theresa of Lisieux in her biography) They call it spiritual night or spiritual darkness. For three days he went through intense tapasya [austerity/suffering]. Yamaraja [lord of death], who was absent, took no notice of his prayers but he was advised that a Brahmin was there waiting for him.

A guest [according to Hindu tradition] should be treated like God, so now Nachiketa was treated like a god - he was offered water and food. Then his host asked him, 'What do you want?' Now Nachiketa was not to be satisfied with the hospitality given to him. He did not just take all the gifts and leave. He said, 'I've come to learn from you.'

There is a very important verse one comes across in the Katha Upanishad. It describes how we are born like corn, we grow like corn, we ripen like corn and we dry out like corn, and then again that corn grows and we are born again. They are speaking about reincarnation, they are speaking about ordinary souls who are controlled by nature and destiny. Corn stands for you and me who do not want to take the spiritual life. We are born like that. We take it for granted that we must eat, drink, make merry and die. And when that happens we are born and reincarnation follows reincarnation.

But Nachiketa is separated from that kind of plant existence, a life controlled by nature. He is an intelligent being. He is using his intelligence to find out what is beyond dying - beyond being controlled by nature and destiny. Now that verse, at first sight looks like a misfit but it is not. Later on you read about shreyas and preyas. Preyas is that plant life. Shreyas is Nachiketa's life where he chooses what to do. He does not just go blindly through life controlled by sensual pleasures. When you take that verse then the whole thing fits in very well.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

 

Katha Upanishad and faith

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

679

   

Swamiji speaks on the Katha Upanishad [a Hindu philosophical treatise]

We also hear about Nachiketa, the young son, who was full of faith and devotion to the scriptures, to the mother and father, and lastly to the guru.

At this time his father was performing the vishwajit yajna but Nachiketa had so much faith in the scriptures that he thought his father was doing the wrong thing. He thought that his father was giving everything away. Vishwa means universe, jit means wins. So his father was performing a yajna or sacrifice that would win the whole universe. But, in that universal sacrifice you need to give away everything and as his son belonged to him he also had to give him away to somebody else.

Now Nachiketa thought that his father somehow must be making a mistake (not necessarily consciously, it could be unconsciously even) and he felt it was the duty of the son to try to help the father. So he said, 'Father you are going to give everything away - these cows you are giving away, money you are giving away, are you giving me away too?' He asked the question three times and finally the father said, 'Yes, I'll give you to Yamaraja [the King of Death].' Nachiketa had so much faith in his father's word that he said, 'I want to go to Yamaraja.'

If he had had no faith in his father's words Nachiketa would have ignored the instruction given by his father. If my father said, 'I'll give you to Death,' what is the easiest thing to do? To hang yourself. [laughter] But he did not commit suicide. He said, 'Wait a minute, I don't know how to take a birth and I also don't know the method of death.' So he said, 'Please send me to Death.' In other words: teach me how to die. We can infer from this that his father taught him all the yogas. And so, after having the faith in his earthly father, he goes now to the spiritual guru through practising discipline - the brahmacharya ashrama [stage of life, in this case]. He goes to the spiritual guru who is Death himself. He did not die, he went to Death and he asked Death (death as time that devours the past, present and future) these questions.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham

 

Katha Upanishad

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

678

   

Swamiji Comments on the Katha Upanishad

It is because of the guru's power of personal devotion, personal faith and personal experience of the truth of the Upanishads, that truth in turn is passed to the disciples.

The Katha Upanishad is a story but not a fairy tale. It is not a story that we read to entertain our minds; it is a story just like the Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad means God, Gita means song. Here Bhagavad also means the Universal Soul. Therefore it means: 'The Song of the Universal Soul, God'. It is not the song of the jivatma [individual soul].

Similarly the Katha Upanishad is a story, not of any particular individual, but it is a story of the immortal, universal Atman [one divine consciousness]. And this has to be understood. And if it is a story of the immortal, universal Atman it lends strength and light to everything that we see and see not in all the lokas [realms of consciousness]. Rightfully the Atman is known as immortal, otherwise it is relative.

Om saha navavatu sahanau bhunaktu saha viryam karavavahai

Tejasvi navadhitamastu ma vidhvishavahai

Om shantih. shantih. shantih.

This means: May the disabled one and the able one - the chela [disciple] and the guru [teacher or preceptor] - have the knowledge. May these two not get caught in intellectual gymnastics. Do not let us get caught in that because this is Katha Upanishad; it is not Buddhi [intellect] Upanishad. It is the Upanishad of the soul and not the Upanishad of the intellect.

'May we help each other.' That is the idea. Not to supersede anybody but to help each other. The crux of the whole Upanishad is that we are trying to understand that Universal Soul.

We also hear about Nachiketa, the young son, who was full of faith and devotion to the scriptures, to the mother and father, and lastly to the guru.

1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time. 2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.

There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna    Sri Sarada Devi     Swami Vivekananda  

Swami Nischalananda  Swami Shivapadananda 

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online

Reference websites - please mouse over the name and click to connect:

Ramakrishna Math and Mission    Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa    Ramakrishna Dham