Swami Shivapadananda

Your mind is a rogue

[Depicted: Prahlada meditating on Lord Vishnu whilst in the fire his father Hiranyakashipu hoped would kill him]

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

Transcribed from the recordings made by Mother Radha

Day 1031

Prahlada was asked by Lord Vishnu, 'what do you want?' He said, 'give me love for your lotus feet. – give me bhakti [divine love,devotion]'. The Lord said, 'Ask me for moksha – complete liberation. Ask me for wealth. Ask me for a wife and children. Ask me for horses and elephants. Ask me for whatever you like, but please, I beg you, don't ask me for this. This is the rarest gift. Don't ask me for that.'

'But Lord, why?' The Lord says, 'anyone that follows jnana, knowledge – they get moksha themselves. They do not bind anybody. They do not worry anybody. Didn't you see that Radha [the Shakti (female aspect of the divine power) of Lord Krishna] made me her slave? Every second she cries, I have to give her attention, "Yes my dear – what do you want?" [devotees laugh]. Prahlada, they're putting you in the fire, "yes, what happened my dear?" [Swamiji plays the 'harassed' God to emphasise the point] Dhruva, crying in the forest - they make me virtually their slave. I'm so tired of being a slave. Ask me for anything else but for love, bhakti, devotion to me, don't ask me.'

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said too, 'O God, you can have everything but please leave my bhakti alone'. So when you're asking God, ask him for...what? Love, increased love, in my heart, for you. Not for a new car. Not for a wife, they will get old. Then the trouble starts. So please, not those things. Ask for that which will never get old - that will remain constant. It will be a tremendous love and that love is ever constant. Can you imagine? You'll be happy, happy always.

This human love fluctuates when a man grows old and a woman gets old. And that poor woman will dress up nicely one day to please her husband and he'll say, 'why are you dressing up so nicely?' [devotees and Swamiji laugh heartily] This is true! Whether you like it or not. These are the hard facts of sensual pleasure. So ask for God alone and ask God, 'give me bhakti.' What has Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said? It's very practical spirituality – it's the attitude of the mind. He said, after worshipping God, say, 'God, whatever merit I've got for all this spiritual worship, service to man, Lord whatever I've got, I wholeheartedly surrender it at thy feet. OM shanti, shanti, shanti.'

Don't stand and think for one second longer or your mind will change. Your mind will change and you'll say, 'Lord, no I think tomorrow I'm going to look for work, please give me work.' I know – because all this happened to this fellow [me]. Don't worry, your mind will change. The final thing you should say to God is, 'whatever merit I got, Lord, I surrender it at thy feet. Om shanti, shanti, shanti.' Don't stand there please, because if there's anything in this world you cannot trust - anything - it is your own mind. It is your own?...mind. Whether you may say out of ego [ahamkara], 'I trust it', you know how many times it's let you down. [Swamiji chuckles] Don't worry, you know that.

The mind…if you deal with other people, you have to deal with the mind. If you're dealing with yourself, you're still dealing with the?...mind. It is always there. It is the mind. That's why 'manu', 'man' - in Sanskrit -  manu, man, mind, manushya, mind – all these are minds. All these are?...minds. So, in English too, you get the word, man, 'm' which is mind. In Sanskrit you get the word, 'Maya' – it starts with 'm'. Everything that starts with 'm', just watch it. Mother, capital letter, Maya, also. Maha Maya [God's power of illusion/delusion]that is. So, there you are. Watch it.

So this mind should not be trusted [Swamiji chants in Hindi] The mind will say, 'commit suicide.' You think, 'yes, I'll do it, I'll show these people a point'. When you have drowned yourself you'll see how much chance you have to see people crying. You go to the sea and drown yourself. Only your mind will say, 'very good. Look what I did.' The mind is a thorough rogue. After putting you there, it's going to laugh. 'Look what I did.' Don't trust your mind. Trust God's mind. And how to trust God's mind? When you surrender your mind to God then it becomes God's. As long as you don't surrender it, it's your mind. Don't trust 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

What’s the ‘colour’ of your mind?

[Pictured: Sri Ramakrishna 1836-1886]

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 986

A beautiful analogy is given by Sri Ramakrishna [pictured above]. He said that the mind is like a cloth. Whatever you dip it into it will take that colour. It will take that?...colour [i.e. influence]. We have satsanga [religious or prayer services] because Sat means truth and wherever mind [manas] is with truth, it will be pure. So we try to join with pure-minded people because they are thinking of pure things - or the purest Being, God. They are talking about that which is always. They are discussing about that, which is infinite, which exists eternally. Unlike I exist today but tomorrow I may not exist. So when they discuss these things their minds are pure. And when we go near them our minds automatically take on that purity. Purity awakens in us. When we look at that purity and we hear those pure words - the pure glories of God, then we go there first of all, to purify our minds.

How to find out if your mind is getting purified? When your mind starts desiring God and God alone. When your mind refuses to have anything to do with the world. Refuses to do anything outside [externally focused], when it only wants to be inside [introspecting], know that your mind is becoming pure. As long as your mind is running outside [drawn externally], as long as your mind desires worldly things, then know your mind is not yet pure. Your mind is not taking the colour of sattva [equilibrium, harmony] – purity.

Two things you go through: One, you are purified. Two - when the mind is purified you get intense desire to know God, want God, not to ask God for his creation. The mind must start desiring God alone. And you may ask me, is that possible? It is possible! It happened to Ramakrishna, it happened to [Swami] Vivekananda [spiritual heir to Sri Ramakrishna], it happened to all the other great saints and sages [Rishis, mahatmas]. So it must happen to us. Therefore satsang is that environment that gives impetus, gives a push for our minds to unknowingly go towards God.

There's one good advantage in satsanga - that you have the company [of others]. You are used to having company. Now it's a companionship that is turned a little towards purity. It is the company of pure minds rather than having the company of impure minds. In which your mind becomes more and more impure, desiring more and more things.

Devotee asks an inaudible question:

Swamiji: Ah! That is again where the grace of God comes in. Two ways you can get the desire for this. One is when you are fed-up [tired] of the world, you will start looking for that which is not worldly. For instance, if you are terribly sick you will look for a doctor. I don't create a desire to go and look for a doctor. So when the world kicks you, gives you blows, breaks your teeth and nose, shatters you, then you'll go looking for satsang and that day must come. It has to come. Whether it comes in this birth or another birth, but it has to come. You will actually realise that all you have done is waste your time, because the world is not yours.

You know how you sometimes rebel against your father and mother, you know that feeling? So that's one way you will get the desire to look for something else and then you will go for satsanga. The other method is to read religious literature and admire – the word admire is underlined – admire the lives of great saints and sages without prejudice. Admire them.

A sadhu [holy person] has no time to look at the bad in others because he's so busy looking at good. Just like the moth is so busy looking at the light it can't see any darkness around it. A sadhu – a good man – is so busy looking at the good, you have no time for looking at the bad in anybody. You'll find some good in the greatest sinner. So, by reading good books, you'll have the desire, your mind will become a little stable, your mind will become a little purified, and then you will look for living company.

Now you may ask me how you get the desire to read good literature? [Swamiji chuckles] That's again where what you can call a recurring problem, comes in. That you will get, when the world rejects you. But the easiest way is to force your mind to read it. To force your mind to?...read it. There are two ways to create desire in people's hearts. One is take the fruit and dangle it front of them. They'll look at it, 'The neighbour has a Mercedes Benz, I also want a Mercedes Benz,' – they will get the desire. The other way is to give that fellow a broken-down car, make him annoyed with all kinds of cars. When all other car models fail, then he'll look for Mercedes Benz. One is the positive and one is the negative method.

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

Nature calms mind

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 977

The great saints and sages [Rishis] showed us the road for the kind of environment in which to practise sadhana [spiritual exercises]. In a way it is not surprising that when you look at these great Rishis, saints and sages they seem to become joyous and peaceful like their surroundings. The big question is, 'does the environment play a part in the life of a spiritual aspirant?' The answer? Yes.

You find that whenever you see a photo or painting of a yogi, a saint or Shiva, particularly Shiva - or Kartikeya – you find that there are hills, valleys, beautiful trees, huge mountains, blue sky and lovely clear water. Pools with running water making rippling sounds. You begin to think, why all of this? When I used to see the mountains and other things I used to think of beauty. God is beauty. So the yogis used to somehow be captivated by this beauty of nature. Look in the distance, it's blue. Blue represents infinity and God is infinite. They used to go there to think.

If you sit on a high mountain and you look way down below, you know what a tiny drop you are, compared to the vast area around you? Just like a speck of dust. Infinity is very well represented there. You don't even feel that you are a grain of sand, really. Because when you look down there you don't even notice a grain of sand. Even a tree seems like a toy tree.

You begin to think, what is the importance of you, you insignificant being, not even noticed by anybody. What are you proud of? What is your importance? I begin to think like this. We close ourselves in a [water] well and we project ourselves to be greater than the well, bigger than the well and we live in our own pride, made in our mind. And thus we live by false hope. But the quicker we find out that we are 'Mr. No-noticeable', then it helps you in your sadhana to become ego-less.

The next thing I used to watch were the ripples in the clear, running water. It made me think of so much purity - and at the same time this purity has rhythm. It's not just haphazard. It has a rhythm about it. The yogis say you must sit near a waterfall and then you can hear the Omkara [AUM sound, pranava]. And the Omkara is not just a sound. It is the deep rhythmic sound of creation. Deep…rhythmic sound of? – creation. This whole world is one harmonious mass, rhythmic, not just haphazard.

So when see these things in a picture or painting, in the life of a yogi or in the life of someone who wants to discover something within himself - look at why he runs away from all this hustle and bustle. I used to think before, why? Why? Now the answer is clear-cut. Why waste time? Why must one waste time on unnecessary things? What for? If you have started realising higher levels, then why waste it? Waste time in what? To fight the other man's mind. [Swamiji chuckling] You tell a fellow to do something, he doesn't do it, there's trouble. You tell someone to go to work, he doesn't go to work, there's trouble. Every second you're colliding [in conflict] with other people's minds. Now even if you don't collide consciously, unconsciously they give out vibrations, which are disharmonious vibrations. It's not a harmonious vibration. If I say, 'God' he'll say 'dog', another will say 'cat' and someone else will say 'money'. Just look at that. Contradictory vibrations, coming and impacting. The result is that you shatter your whole life trying only to defend yourself against this.

Where then do you go? You go to a holy place. In a holy place, you'll find there is less hustle and bustle, less collision [conflict] - but still there is collision. Your force [impetus/energies] won't also be so great to defend because other factors will contribute to your harmony. But you will still hit against certain vibrations. Devotees coming, devotees going, people complaining about this and that. You see someone not cooking the food correctly, that fellow's not operating the [printing] press correctly, someone not burning the camphor or doing the arati [ceremonial offering or waving of a lighted lamp in front of the deity] correctly. All that happens.

Then you think, why go to a natural place where there is quiet? Because then you have nothing to fight - nature is always in harmony with God's vibration - always! There is never a time when nature is out of rhythmic beat of God's tune. It is always in tune. So what greater aid can you get? If you are truly interested in attuning yourself with the rhythmic vibration of a God-guided life…..then God-guided life is this tree, these plants, because they have got no mind of their own to do anything. They are always guided to do what God has put [programmed] into them already. Man is the only creature that will do what he thinks is right to do. Animals live by instinct. The animal lives by?...instinct. God has put it there and you can identify it. But man – even if the god inside him says, 'You're doing the wrong thing,' he'll still go on doing the wrong thing. Think. Think carefully. Think about yourself. There's no use you projecting it outside - look at your own life.

So when people go to natural places, they must try as far as possible to be in tune with nature. The best way is to do japa [meditative repetition of a mantra or one of the many names attributed to God] and think about nature. What will happen is that you will also benefit. Rather than you giving out the wrong thought – thought that is contradictory to that environment, you will have a battle. There will be greater [harmonising] counter force because nature – and people living there – are more in tune with nature. So nature and you will fight it out.

Rather than that, just tune yourself to God. And you'll see what you derive. Try it - go to any holy place like this, you'll go calm and watch. Health is nothing – with this you'll get something like 'super health'. Something called…super health. So I beg and plead that you will realise this.

I have come to realise that these are the reasons why the yogis say 'why waste time, that's a very unimportant thing – for what? What is the reason to fight? For what? Why waste it [the energy]? Get it and tune it and get in tune with nature.' A plant never fights against nature. You've found a plant fighting against nature? Never. You'll never find the elements fighting with nature. You'll find the elements are always in tune with God's rhythmic vibration. Thus you take the aid of nature and calm your mind and get to nature. Don't worry about what happened in the past. No amount of thinking of the past will put you right. You'll just create more vibrations.

So our gurus [spiritual preceptors and teachers] say that don't worry about what wrong habits you have. Just start practising right habits. Don't start fighting against your own nature – the one you have formed already – try to get to natural things, that which was your nature in the beginning. And that is by doing the right thing.

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

 

Mind and Nature’s rhythm

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 961

One gets a fairly good idea about God's mood and God's beauty from nature. Keep watching nature and see how nature changes and how calm it becomes. You can actually get God's nature out of its beauty and the whole day you can feel how His moods change. Because it's a natural element, natural phenomena and natural things are not going to be imitation. It is always natural. The natural is God and God cannot be separated from that which is natural – eternity. It cannot be separated from Itself.

Thus you find saints and sages, when they looked around when they found leaves and other things were agitated or full of activity – [in harmony] with the mood of nature outside, the mind behaved. If it's windy you'll find your own mind getting agitated. If it's too windy you want to run away and take shelter. But yet look at when nature is so calm. Your mind actually behaves how the external nature does. It [nature] has a control but you may think you are the boss. You are no boss. It has a control over you and this control, if you can [just] capture it, in sattvic [calm, balanced, harmonious state] attitude, this is sattvic attitude now – calm, quiet.

Look at the colour, look at the beauty, look at the water on the dam. Just look at it. You know, if you look at the water from here, if you look into the distance, just look at it. It's calm, quiet. But you see, there's another aspect to this. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa advised Nag Mahasaya [a saintly lay devotee of Sri Ramakrishna], he said, 'Wherever you see a mass of water, just sit and meditate.' Sit and meditate on what? Now you see, that's Sat-Chit-Ananda that is. That reminds you of Satchitananda. [meaning] Existence, Knowledge, Bliss Absolute. Everything is in that water.

In that water there is we'll say, fish, germs. Isn't that existence? It doesn't rely on outside. And among those germs you'll find it [natural consciousness] is knowledge. Where you find consciousness is manifest. When consciousness is there, knowledge must be there. The fish have a particular way of behaving. It's intelligent. God's knowledge is manifest in that. And then you'll find that the whole thing is contained in what? In water. The life-giving, which is in reality the supreme Brahman [the One universal consciousness]. The whole thing is in that water. And if you can sit and meditate [as if there is] water above and water below, you are right in the middle, your body is made out of ice supposing we say – and you are in that water. Water above, water below but your body slowly, because it's ice, it melts away – you become one with the water. It's just like you become one with God. Because you are spirit in reality and God is the supreme spirit.

Spirit surrounds you everywhere. If God is everywhere, down below and above and you are concretised spirit captured in this body, slowly as it becomes in touch with spirit it melts away and becomes spirit. Just like the ice doll gets in touch with the water around, melts away and becomes one. And if you can just get this and go beyond thought, beyond word – once you melt away there is no thought of your own. You have got no individual thought, no individual mind. God's mind becomes your mind, because God's mind merges into your mind. Like you take a bowl of water, take it and put it in the river, what happens? It merges with it. You become one with it. And how beautiful it will be the day you can forget your individual self and become the universal self – because there won't be any separation, there won't be any fear. There won't be any pain.

The only pain is in separation but in uniting there is no pain whatsoever. If we separate from the people around here we'll feel a certain pain, isn't it? But in uniting, how much happiness came? Just like that, if you unite with God, unite with Satchitananda, Parabrahman [the supreme Brahman] - all bliss is yours.

[Swamiji concludes the session with recitation of the peace- shanti - mantra.]

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

 

Mind and vibrations

 

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 873

   

At one time there was an upright but poor man. He never did anything wrong, and he was feeling very good about it. One day a rich businessman happened to meet him and asked him to come home with him. This is true, it is not just a story.

He sat down in the lounge while the businessman went into the rest of his house. The poor man looking around saw a beautiful golden container. He took it, hid it, and quickly walked out of the house. He went some way and then suddenly thought to himself, 'Why did I do this? I have no need of this. Why did I take the golden thing?' So he went back and asked the businessman for forgiveness and said, 'Look, I am sorry I took it.' The man said, 'No, no, take it anyway.' But the poor man said, 'No, no, please keep it.'

He left it there and as he went away he met a saintly man. He told the saint what had happened. Do you know what the saint told him? He said, 'When you went to his house that man's impressions [vasanas and vibrations] got hold of your mind. So you did exactly what that rich man does in his daily life.'

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

Posted at 09:01 AM in Sadhana [spiritual practice] | Permalink | Comments (0

Mind is gateway to 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 868

   

When the scriptures say, one should listen, all of us take it for granted that we hear. But Christ said that people have ears but cannot hear. We think we listen but we do not. We think there is God but we do not see God.

Some people may think it is nonsense to see God everywhere but when you perceive a gross thing and think that God is permeating it, you are already going to the mental state. From the mental state you go to the spiritual. Without entering the first stage [mental] you can never go to the last stage.

Nothing will happen by miracle. Everything has a set rule, a set path, a set way, a set method, to reveal Himself [God, self-realisation]. Only some do it knowingly and some unknowingly. There is only one way and that is through the mind. The mind is the gateway to this world. The mind is the gateway to heal. The mind is the gateway to the Self. Everything is the mind.

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

 

 

Focus monkey-mind on God

 

 

 

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

779

Hanumanji [the so-called 'monkey' god - and great devotee of Lord Rama] was a monkey - not a monkey's body - but a monkey's mind he had. Did you see a monkey sitting still? Never will you get a monkey sitting still. Unless you make it drink and sleep. [Laughter] You'll never get a monkey sitting still. But then you see, how wonderful Hanumanji is – He says, 'Why I must look at Rama. When I'm restless, I must look at Him. Any work, I must do for him. Him and Him [alone].' Put activity into action, but for who? For God. So don't worry – you are all in that category. You can never stop without action – you want action. Three days, if you don't do action, you'll die. So you've got that – Hanumanji's quality. But the only thing you haven't got is that you must serve God. You forgot that part of it.

So if you can only serve God, you'll get moksha [liberation from the cycle of birth and re-birth]. Hanumanji got it. On the other side [hand] you get Rishis [Sage-Seer Saints] who have completed this business of acting in the past births. Somebody told me the four stages of life are: Brahmacharya [student phase], Grihastha [married phase], Vanaprastha lit: wandering in forest, contemplative phase] and Sannyasa [renunciation phase]. Don't you think [you might well ask] that I'm going against the scriptures [meaning Swamiji himself as a sannyasi - i.e. not having married]? I say if you knew my last birth, you'll tell me. I must have got more fed-up [tired] than you. Right, now we cannot judge the man like that. That man must have been be born through all those activities [and creation of desires].

Now he has withdrawn from that state [of studying or marriage] - he has left - and now he's continuing [in another phase]. How come now that you say he's wasting his time? It's like saying the father has retired and the son who is about twenty five years old is saying, 'My father is wasting time'. But he's full – his finished his duty. In the complete sense I'm talking about. Because the greatest thing [Swami] Vivekananda said – the greatest, and strongest – is thought. Do you know this whole world is thought? This whole world is thought.

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

Soul and Consciousness

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

766

   

Continued from Posting 765

Other scriptures will tell you it happens at certain times, at certain breaths, but the soul was always there.

For example: You're outdoors with a very dirty mirror. Wiping doesn't clean it so you put some cleaning agent on it. There's no sun reflected in it, it's dark. Keep on cleaning it and when the surface is clean, 'Hey, the sun has manifested.' Or the soul has entered. But the sun was always shining everywhere, only this mirror didn't reflect it. But you see the sun reflected so you say, 'The sun entered.'

It may take three months to form and maybe, from a certain place, it appears to shine. I take it for sure that because the kundalini is here in the sahasrara [chakra] there will be more reflection of subtle things in this sensitive area called the brain.

[Pravrajika] Atmaprana [the first Sannyasini (Hindu nun) of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]: I always think of it as a magnetic force . . .

Swamiji: Yes true. But it is not a magnetic force as we think of it. It's an intelligent force. If I say to it, 'Go and pull Sri,' this mind can go and pull Sri [Pravrajika Atmaprana's pre-monastic name] and bring her here. But if you send a magnetic field to do that it can't. It's an intelligent force; highly sensitive.

How sensitive a stethoscope [instrument used to heart your heart beat] is. But the scientist [Sir Jagadish Chandra] Bose [pictured alongside] went a little higher than that. Even in plants he   detected consciousness. That is more subtle. That which detected it must be a more subtle instrument; because only a subtle instrument can create a subtle instrument. So the subtlest will detect the subtlest. That's your intellect, nothing else.

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  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

 

Mind manifested

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

765

   

Explanation continued from post 764

Swami S: What is it when Swami B talks about mind?

Swamiji: I gave you an answer before. At a certain level of vibration the same material has the power of reflecting. That is why you call it mind if it is doing certain things.

Let's put it another way. I said at a certain level the eye starts seeing, the ear starts hearing. At what period did the sound enter? When the conditions were right. Take milk. Can we say there is no butter there, no ghee [clarified butter] there? At what period of the milk does the ghee come in? When it's churned.

So there is a churning power in this Nature, and at that time that which was previous minds, comes to the forefront. So, when that is reflected, that is 'soul'.

The Light is never affected by the impressions on the mind. Sri Ramakrishna says very clearly, 'The sunshine is not deformed in any way if my optic nerves are somehow deformed.' That Thing is always perfect. So Atman is omnipresent always. But it is the reflection of it that is caught in the mind. Because that mind itself is imperfect it thinks Atman is imperfect.

A child walking with red glass in front of his eyes will say, 'Hey, the sunshine is red.' The sunshine is red? No. When the particular condition comes about in the mind it is a dog or a man (and in man there are extra manifestations, as it were, of different faculties - intellect and so on) and if It reaches a sharp point It will know It is not this any more, it is That. It is the sun reflected in a pool called 'dog'; the sun reflected in a pool called 'cat'; the sun reflected in a pool called 'man'.

You as a man will say, 'Ah, dog.' What do you think it does? Barks and smells doesn't it? You see a cat and what does a cat do? Catches rats doesn't it? And when you look at a man, you superimpose all the intelligence you have on that man. Whereas in reality all are the same, captured in different upadis, limitations, agents.

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  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

 

 

Vasanas and samskaras

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

764

   

[Pravrajika] Atmaprana [the first Sannyasini (Hindu nun) of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]: That is our whole problem: to try and forget the samsaras, the early things we learned.

Swamiji: Even Swami Vivekananda [lead disciple of Sri Ramakrishna] found it difficult. In the end he said, 'I hope I forget all that I have learnt.' Don't say he is saying it for nothing.

Atmaprana: I was wondering, Swamiji, what's the difference between the samskaras and the vasanas?

Swamiji: Vasanas are latent impressions already in the mind. Samskaras are the impressions that are already operating.

For instance we say, 'That is his samskara, it is his nature.' All the impressions have made up a part of his character. There is not much difference between samskaras and vasanas. Samskaras are well established and brought to the forefront. Vasanas are that which is still latent. Your vasanas can come up.

Swamiji: What do you understand by the term: 'God is everywhere'?

Devotee: It is permeating . . .

Swamiji: I am dead against you using the word permeate. When you use the word permeate it means there is something else but God. But there is nothing else but God. If I say the thread permeates this towel it means there is something else but the thread.

It's God permeating God. So all is God. Everything is God. Only at a certain level it becomes 'carrot', at a certain level it becomes 'dog', at a certain level it becomes 'man', at a certain level it becomes 'atheist'. Limitations are called dog, cat, god. These are limitations. When you are thinking of entering or permeating you are thinking of a foreign thing entering.

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  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