[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]
[now a Centre of the international Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission]
DAILY READINGS
Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.
Day 933
As long as your life is pure, who cares if it is short? No great saints lived for five thousand years. Swami Vivekananda's life was short. He was twenty nine. [Sri Adi] Shankaracharya, the greatest, was thirty two when he gave it up. Pure gold always goes like that. It's only ornaments that get mixed with other things that last longer.
At [yoga retreat] camp one year a person wanted to beat me at dancing around the [camp] fire. So I looked at him and said, 'All right, come on.' But while I was doing one round he was doing half a dozen rounds. I was going one round and he was going half a dozen rounds. So he got tired long before me and fell down [exhausted]. And whilst puffing to catch his breath I was still dancing slowly round. Mine was a slow gear his was a fast one - he got worn down quickly. This I learned from my childhood. Huff-and-a-puff won't pay [i.e you can't force progress or development. Consistency will win the race - as with Aesop's tortoise and hare story].
The mind of a sadhaka [spiritual aspirant, practitioner or devotee] must evaporate. Evaporate on one side into nothingness; the other side into the Atman [universal soul]. They said to Swami Vivekananda, 'Don't work so hard.' He laughed and said, 'What else to do. Why must I not work? My work is not your kind of work. My work is a different kind. Mine is to do work for my Master [Sri Ramakrishna, to whom he was spiritual heir] and go quickly - evaporate.'
But he didn't do work that made him fall so ill, that for fifteen months someone had to look after him. No. When I say you must work I'm not talking about working till you are ill.
Live in such a way that the body is kept right [fit and healthy] and at the same time the maximum work is put out. The rock, Swami Vivekananda, had burned out.
In any field you can do that. You don't have to be a sannyasin [Hindu Swami, renunciate, monk, holy person].
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.
For more about the Holy Trinity, and also the founding Swamis of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, please mouse over their names below:
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
