[Pictured: A rope that could be mistaken for a snake]
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
[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 972
Vashishtha Muni [one of the seven - Sapta Rishis - Sage-Seer-saints] says to [Lord] Rama, 'O Rama listen to those words which are conducive to the highest good'. To the highest good. The words are…[Swamiji reads in Hindi]…listen to those words that are conducive to the highest good. What is that? [Swamiji reads in Hindi again]…all this that you have spread out, know this not to be the permanent. This is not the permanent.
That is why your mind is now oscillating. Because everything you do is like a sandcastle, it comes down. Wives come down, husbands come down, money comes down. Nothing is permanent. It is the equivalent to lies. How is it? What is this impermanence? How do these lies appear to be? It's just like in a desert you see water – a mirage. You yourself admitted that this world seems like a dream. That comes through great grace [kripa] - but it can be lost again because you'll keep indulging the other [worldly or sensual] side. But nevertheless you got a taste. One time the taste is distasteful [vairagya, dispassion] – it'll grow. How is it? It's like a mirage in a desert.
Swamiji translating: Without the knowledge that this is all a mirage, that this is all impermanent, great difficulties come. What kind of great difficulties? Worries are the greatest difficulty. Great difficulties come because you base your work on wrong values. When the value is wrong then you always go wrong. If the value is right then you will always work towards the right thing. So the value from the beginning is wrong. You try to capture your own shadow, thinking your shadow is everything. The value is wrong. When the sun goes down, darkness will merge in darkness. You'll look for your shadow in the darkness and you won't find it because you'll be bumping into tables and chairs [obstacles].
Swamiji reads in Hindi again and translates: How is it? In a dream you are alone but you see the whole universe and its masses in there. It is just like that. This is the same.
Swamiji translating: Know that mind which is identified with the soul is creating all this. Remove the soul, the mind cannot create. You haven't seen a dead fellow get up and say, 'I dreamt'. He's dead. So just as it is created in dream, here too it is. This is the knowledge.
Parabrahman, the supreme Being - ponder over that word, 'Being' - that Being has somehow, with Its own Maya [the divine power of delusion/illusion], 'apparently' divided Itself into names and forms. Names and forms.
Imagine someone made a beautiful vase. Look at it nicely. Now, what do you call what you put on the floor? Tiles….beautiful tiles. You are separating that vase from the tiles and the tiles from other things. But in reality all these are clay, no so? It is the clay that has taken all these forms. It is Brahman [the one universal consciousness] that has taken all these names and forms. And because of the difference in names and forms, inside here Itself, it is enjoying Itself from one to the other.
Don't ask the question, 'How did it happen?' It happened. But, if you just know how to look upon the names and forms by looking at the soul in them from the beginning. Like you look at your child - from the beginning if you don't think your child is the body, then when the child leaves that body, you won't be that sad. Because you'll know that which was the child never died. From the beginning you identify and say that the body is your child. But the body is not your child. It's a piece of clay.
Catch hold of that. You like the man. But you don't like the man. You like that which is in that body. If someone brought me a box with a diamond I'll hold that box and sit day and night. And then someone takes the diamond [out of the box] and runs away. I'm holding the box and one day I open it and what happened to the diamond? But all the time I was loving the diamond - not the box. So you're loving the body of the child. It's not right. Love that diamond inside – the soul. Same with our wife and husband and children and brothers and sisters and relatives – they must go. The box has to go.
Then again he says, Brahman takes these names and forms. It is still Brahman. The [Christian] Bible also says that. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and it became flesh. Flesh – but it's still God. It became flesh but it's still God. The clay became a pot but it is still clay. Know that. This whole world is still Brahman. But what's making you not see Brahman is because you are attached to that particular name and a particular form. Think about it. This is knowledge, not bhakti [devotion, love] now, it needs some sort of intelligence, intellect [buddhi], to discriminate. All these names and forms the Lord has taken but what happened…[Swamiji translates again]…looking at it like you're seeing a snake. Superimposing it onto a rope.[See picture at top of blog] But if you look at it with knowledge - you shine a torch on it – you find there's no snake, it's always rope.
In reality there's no world. It's only one thing. Gee-Oh-Dee. GOD. It has always been and it will always be. But you in the meantime have forgotten that. Don't ask me how you forgot it. You forgot. Think about it. That's why I'm waiting for you to think.
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, 150 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order.
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