Swami Shivapadananda

Love and dispassion reveal God

 
 
 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 969

What is needed in spiritual life is understanding, faith [shraddha] and love [bhakti]. You first understand carefully. After understanding, then have tremendous faith. But that faith will not work until you make it flow in the ocean of love. That ocean of love is your heart.

How to cultivate that love? That song of yours… [Swamiji asks a devotee]... what does it say? What does it think about this world? Sing it for me - what it thinks about this world?

Devotee instead speaks the words of the song to Swamiji.

Swamiji translates: You know what he [the composer] says? In Gujarati [an Indian language] it says, 'Oh Lord, I call you morning and evening with bhava [deep spiritual feeling] or bhakti [divine love, devotion], come, come, day time and night time I'm calling you, continuously - come.'

How do I think or look at this world as it is appearing to me now? You sing it every time but do you feel it like that? So if we don't feel it then how can it come, that bhava? How do you see this world? He says, 'To me this world appears like a dark well. I mean it. Dark. Beside you O Lord, who else can save me from it? In thought, word and deed, karam and bhacchan, I am now calling you – come and save me.'

But do you think that this world is a dark place? In other words, what's very openly being asked is the question, 'Is there any distaste [vairagya, dispassion] for you? Have you given up this world? Do you feel that this world is not the most important thing in your life? Do you feel that this world is not giving you that happiness that you want?' If you don't feel it then how can the Lord come? Where is he going to come from? Because it's you, yourself with your own darkness -your love of material things, covering him up - he's there already. He's not there or there – he's here already but you're covering him up.

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

 

Dispassion

 
 

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 846

   

There are different types of renunciation [giving up the worldly life to follow an exclusively spiritual path]: [1] The Spiritual Truth which leads to God-realisation; [2] the grace of great saints leads to God's grace (a saint has the best dispassion - vairagya); [3] the true renunciation of a man of realisation. All conflicts and tensions are [then] set at rest for ever. Renunciation alone leads to fearlessness.

Do self-analysis and see the old memories [samskaras, vasanas, mental impressions] arise again and again. Dwell on the name and form of the holy Deity [Ishta Deva]. This will drive away bad thoughts. When there is a good thought the bad thought is gone. If you cannot avoid the bad thought, be a witness to it [exercise vairagya or dispassion], then you do not identify yourself with it. The witness and thought are two different things. Do not think: 'I am angry.' Think: 'The mind is angry.'

Of the three nerve currents [nadis] the Ida is the right nostril - sun and warm. Pingala is the left nostril - moon and cool. In the centre is the Sushumna [Swamiji points to his third eye, central forehead area] It is here.

Devotee: Why is Guru Purnima [the annual day on which the Guru [spiritual preceptor] is especially remembered, revered and worshipped] and on the full moon of Leo [the western sign of the zodiac]?

Swamiji: Because Vedvyasa [the father and 'author' of the Vedas - representation pictured above] wrote it on that day - and he is an incarnation [avatar]. Vedvyasa was the lion of all the gurus.

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

 

 

On dispassion

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

650

   

When at home with the family try to treat every morning and evening as a yoga camp. Pray and worship God in that particular way. At home feel the love that you have for Him here and surely your house can become a heaven. You will feel that freedom. The only difference is that here you are not troubled by your husband, your wife or the children, and you see many smiling faces who are motiveless. At home no matter how much you smile at your mother, you still have a motive - that she will iron your clothes, she will cook the food.

The husband will always say, 'This is my wife.' And that is what binds us. Try to be free, feel that you belong to nobody, you belong to God, you are only a servant of God, serving these people who have come here in the forms which you see. Or, know that they are God who has come here to demand your service.

When we say It is inside our hearts, we call it Atman; the same thing, when It is behind the whole universe, we call it Brahman.

Gurudev [Swamiji's Guru, Swami Nischalananda Puri] always used to ask me, 'Maharaj, are you happy?' I would say, 'Yes,' and he would say, 'Be happy, be happy.' He would ask me three or four times, 'Are you happy? Be happy.' One day I became a little suspicious about this 'Be happy'. I said, 'Swamiji, tell me why you keep asking me this all the time?' He said, 'I ask you if you are happy, then you say "yes," then I say "be happy." By rights you should be not happy and not sad; [i.e. dispassionate - experiencing vairagya] you should be beyond that too. So if you are happy where Swamiji is, be happy.'

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