[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 820
You bring in (to here) your own blessing. And when you put all the blessings together, you will go from here with more blessings than you came with. What you brought in here you will go with - multiplied. We can't give you anything new. If you came here with God, you will take God multiplied by thousands. So make sure that you put in (bring/introduce) God – consciously. The whole day we think and do mostly things which are duty. But not godly duty. You must make up your mind that the little time we allot to God, let us do it perfectly.
Close your eyes. Feel that you are the descendent of those great ones. Feel that you have great power, holiness in you. You are all perfect.
Man, from time immemorial, displays restlessness. No matter where he or she is. He's always restless. And because of this restless mind he seeks activity. He wants to do 'something'. Out of that activity, you find the manifestation, the variety of different activities in this whole universe. This activity manifests because all of us are ignorant. We are trying to reach that which, having found it, will give us peace of mind.
How does it happen? It happens like this: I do not know that you and I are one. I am ignorant of that. I do not know what you are made of and I don't know what I am made of. Because of that ignorance I want to reach you. I want to possess you. I want to possess the things of this world. Because of this one thing which is a desire – I reach out. Activity. Because I reach out, I adopt various means to get hold of it. If somebody stops us [frustrates our efforts] from getting hold of it, we manifest anger. And anger, as if a type of volcano, hidden in man's mind, erupts in many different forms. Jealousy, hatred and so on. And thus activity multiplies by activity.
The saints and sages tell us just the opposite of that. They say you have to activate something. But do not activate it outwards, but rather go inwards [introspect]. Now what happens when you go inward you discover that which is the basis of everything. The foundation of everything - and 'That' which every religion calls by different names. The Vedantists call it Brahman. The Samkhyas call It most probably 'Atman', Christians call It Father in Heaven, Muslims - Allah – all give It some sort of term.
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:
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