[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]
[now a Centre of the international Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission]
DAILY READINGS
Day 1025
Swamiji speaking on OM/AUM
The same OM means Shiva. The same Om has come in the form called?... Shiva. Shiva is also guru [Swamiji sings the line 'Om gurunatha, Siva gurunatha..'] and what kind of guru is Lord Shiva? 'Jaya gurunatha,' – he always gives you victory, or he hails [draws/calls] your soul towards him. Towards?...him. Other things chase the soul away but he hails it towards himself. And what kind of as guru is Shiva? 'Satgurunatha,' – sat means?...truth. Sattvic guru, not tamasic or rajastic guru. What kind? Sattvic guru. And wherever sattvic quality is, it is always revealing God and God alone. Where there is no sattvic quality it will remain multiple. What? Multiple…meaning more than one.
Now Radhe – Radhe is what we call Nature – Prakriti. Or the Vedantists call it Maya [God's power of illusion/delusion]. Samkhya people call it Prakriti, and the Vaishnavites or the Saivites or [Divine] Mother worshippers call it Sakti. So Radhe is that Sakti. Which Sakti? That Sakti which reveals Krishna. Which reveals?...Krishna. And what kind of sakti has Radhe got? Radhe has got the sakti which is love [bhakti]. Swamiji asks a devotee] What kind of sakti, son? [devotee answers] 'sakti of love'. Love! It's love! She binds God. She?...binds God. You can't bind God with prasad [sacramental food offerings], you can't bind God with learning, you cannot bind God by giving a lot of charity, you cannot bind God by doing a lot of katha and janda [ritual prayers and flag-raising]. But you can make God your slave – if you love him! If you?...love him. Once you love him, he becomes your?...slave!
But the devotee never considers God to be his slave. The devotee always considers that he is the slave. Meanwhile, God has become his slave. Sri Krishna Bhagawan said in the Bhagavad Gita, that 'I am seated in my devotee's heart.' Where am I seated?...in the heart. So if the heart is full of love, Radha must be there. So what part of our body is Radha? Heart. What part of our body is Radha? – heart!
When the heart reaches out, God is powerless. His intellect, which is Krishna – what happens with that? It dissolves. In love, like a block of ice dissolving in the?...ocean, so to say. Understand? So if your heart is full of love, that is Radha. And where Radha is, Krishna can't stay away. Krishna must come! Yes. Govinda Radhe. Go-vin-da. Govinda is?...Go-vinda. 'Go' is cow. The keeper of cow is?...God. And who's the cow? Pure devotees are the cows. Like Jesus Christ had the sheep [devotees]. Shiva Bhagawan had the bull. Krishna Bhagawan has the cows. And the cows are we devotees of God. Why are devotees of God classed as cows? Because if you drink cow's milk, you will have a pure mind – you will have a sattvic mind. So if you drink cow's milk you will get sattvic [balanced, harmonious] mind. Therefore have sattvic food. And if you have sattvic food, God cannot stay away from you. Not only sattvic food, but sattvic thought. Sattvic?...thought. God can never stay away.
So what the devotees must do, is keep himself pure like Radha. Radha lived only for Sri…Krishna. She didn't live for the world. She would be sitting in one place for the whole day. When she heard Krishna's flute, just like a dogs ears go up, she would be running there. Her mind was open only to God's voice. Not the voice of the?...world. Have your mind like that. Only tuned to God's voice. And what is God's voice? All the good dharma [righteous action/path] is God's voice. Any dharma that calls for doing good is God's voice. Bad thoughts will come. They're like a bird. We don't like that Mynah bird [Swamiji replicates their noisy chattering sound] – but then they fly away. The good one ['thought-bird'] comes along – I'll capture it. Huh? Capture it. Get it?
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