[Picured: Sri Ramakrishna in samadhi]
[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]
[now a Centre of the international Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission]
DAILY READINGS
Transcribed from the recordings made by Mother Radha
Day 1035
Swamiji reading [source unidentified] and commenting
If you are attached to God, then everything will become equal. As long as you're seeing darkness, that means you are not seeing light. That's partiality. So, even Swami Vivekananda, he had the partiality that one [deity] is superior [to another]. Who was superior for him? Shiva. Because that other fellow [Lord Rama] was stuck in lust - he had two children. 'That other fellow'....I'm using the word is a very bad sense – I do this purposely for that thing to stick in your mind. I'm talking about Lord Rama. About [perceptions by Swami Vivekananda of] him as a human being.
When Sri Ramakrishna went to the Brahmo Samaj [co-]founder, Devendranath Tagore – everyone praised Devendranath and they had very high respect for him. Ramakrishna said, 'Devendranath is the founder of the organisation, yes, a great man,' – yet Sri Ramakrishna saw two or three children. He asked, 'Married?' Tagore said, 'Yes.' This was Ramakrishna now. [Swamiji and devotes chuckling] 'Tagore's speaking very well, never mind that he's married now.' Ramakrishna was just like him, also married. He then said to Tagore, 'You've got children?' He replied, 'Yes. Three children.' Ramakrishna thought, 'Oh, what is this, God?' [Swamiji chuckling heartily] You see I want you to calculate as adults what I'm trying to tell you. If you're sipping the nectar of the flower, where have you got time to buzz around? And Master still found buzzing in these people.
Don't take it on a gross sense level. If you are in love with a girl or a boy, where have you got a chance to admire other people? Who will you be thinking of all the time? The one who you?...love. Now here he took it for granted that these people were in love with God. So he wondered, 'where did these children come from now?' Where did they have the time to think about this low level? Low level doesn't mean bad, it means like Master said, that even to hear the 'AUM' you have to come down several steps [from samadhi, superconsciousness]. From that point of view, even with Vivekananda, it gives us a wonderful picture – that he had partiality – he loved Shiva and discarded Rama. And then Ramakrishna says to him, 'You have to worship Rama.' And there was another disciple like that – I think it was Swami Saradananda. Master looked at Saradananda and after asking him, 'Who do you worship?' he said, 'no you must think that you are Shiva and that I am [Maha] Kali.' You see how it works? 'Take me as Shakti [female power of the Divine]'. So Shiva's mind will be where? Who does he love?...on Kali.
Reads: However much he may struggle, even that Maya [God's power of illusion/delusion] which has held under her sway all living beings both animate and inanimate trembles before the Lord, who makes her dance to the play of his eyebrows.
Swamiji: In other words, forget the word 'tremble' and think, 'complete power over it.' Complete control. That before which the ordinary mind trembles, the Lord controls it. The ordinary minds tremble before Maya, not so? Leave Maya alone. Many people don't understand Maya. How your mind makes you tremble. How it makes you dance. Can you imagine the day you have your mind under control? And you make it do exactly what you wish – sattvic [harmonious, balanced] things. Nothing but sattvic things. What a great achievement. Mind is Maya. Mind is?...Maya. If mind is gone, there's no Maya, isn't it so?
Reads: Leaving such a Lord, tell me, whom should we adore?
In ordinary life we adore the hero, not so? But this is the hero of heroes. Control the mind itself.
Reads: Give up all cleverness.
In this way the Lord sported as a child to the delight of all people of the city. That is why Ayodhya is a blessed city. But besides the Lord purifying them, all those people must have been worthy of it. From that point of view we should consider it to be a good place because holy people live there.
Reads: The mother would now dandle him in her arms and now put him down and rock him in a cradle.
Beautiful. Remember that. If she only knew that it was the Lord himself, the problem would be really different. I'm telling you the Lord wouldn't have time to rest. That is what happened again in the life of?...Sri Ramakrishna and [Master's distant nephew] Hriday [see paragraph 6 of reference].
Ramakrishna was one evening walking with Hriday. Hriday was thinking, 'All the time these people [devotees] are seeing visions and having experiences. How is it that I don't see anything? Ramakrishna says that we are God and that Atman [universal soul] is all.' Suddenly he found Ramakrishna full of light - glorious, self-luminous. He looked and Master's whole body was self-luminous and he shouted, 'Hey, we are gods, we are gods! Thakur [Master] we are gods.' And he was making a huge noise. 'Hey, come, we are gods!' [Swamiji chuckling] And Ramakrishna said, 'Shh! You fool. I have so many of these visions and I say nothing. You have just one glimpse of it and you make a huge fuss.' [Swamiji chuckling heartily].
The same thing might have happened with Mother Kausalya [Queen of Ayodhya and mother of Rama]. 'Ah, you are somebody else, a god. Come people, come!' The other people would come there and see a child and say, 'this woman has gone mad.' So you see – something good can also put you off gear [unbalance you] in the world, where your real progress should be.
Doesn't Ramakrishna's life reveal a lot? It gives me little glimpses of the whole of the scriptures. I wonder from that point of view about this commentary.
Reads: The Lord gave her [his mother] his vision before taking birth.
But with all that the Lord is so clever he makes you forget it – for your own good. For your own?...good. Because otherwise the same thing will happen, that happened to Hriday.
Reads: Kausalya remained so rapt in love that days and nights passed unnoticed. Out of affection for the boy, she would sing, sing songs of his childhood. He's still a child. She's singing about when he was even smaller. We picture the Lord to be adult only. But the Lord is not always adult. It has to be Lord by taking all the lilas [divine plays]. From the tiniest to the highest. Here you find he was a little baby – apparently. But to us he was a little baby, caressed by his mother. Washed by his mother. Now and then crying. You can't say what she did – I can't tell you. They don't put that in the scriptures. I wish there was someone who could put all those things in. But I also suspect that sometimes he got it [disciplining]. They can't make him such a good child. How will the children get inspiration? That's why Krishna on the other hand would steal butter and be mischievous. The children will say, 'wait a minute, there is something here, too, for me.' If they imitate stealing butter and other things from the father or the homeowner and yet think Krishna did it like that, it must take them higher, not so?
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
