SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji
632
Swamiji continues speaking on the Mahayajnas [five great sacrifices]
The next one is pitrayajna - worship of the ancestors. If you are not going to show respect to your departed ones do you think that your children will show respect to you? You should speak to your children about your mother, about your father, about your grandfather, your grandmother. You should talk about how great they were. Every one of us has some negative aspects in us but we do not speak about them in public, we even try not to think about them. Similarly you should pick out all the positive things from the lives of your father, mother and grandparents and present them to your child in such a way that your child will know that this in not mythology, it is history, the history of the child's own lineage.
Swami Vivekananda very emphatically says that seven generations should be remembered. The father should try to remember seven generations and, getting inspiration from them, pass it on to the child. These are no small matters.
Giving water to the pitras or ancestors indicates that life started in water. So your source, your life on Earth in this body, are your pitras. Thus they become happy and you become happy yourself.
The next one is attitiyajna: Giving to the guest and the poor. There is no such thing as a beggar in Hinduism. 'Guest is God.' They say that anybody that comes to your house is God. So just as you give respect to the pitra, this person who has come into your house is someone else's pitra; this person must be someone's father, someone's mother. So you give the same respect to that guest and feel that the merit gained by this action will be added to your children. Like this your heart will expand. In expansion there is life, in contraction and miserliness there is 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 Puri, Swami Shivapadananda Click Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna to read online... Reference websites (please mouse-over
the name to connect): Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Ramakrishna Centre of SA, Ramakrishna Centre of Southern Africa,
Ramakrishna Dham, Swami Shivapadananda 2
