Swami Shivapadananda

Our true nature

 

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 857 Monday

   

I always tell you that a man has a nature. Like chillies have a nature. What is the nature of chillies? [Devotee responds by saying 'hot'] Swamiji says, Not hot [chuckles] – super hot! Chillies are pungent. But you can't say that sugar's nature is to be pungent. It is sweet. Similarly, the sun's nature is to give light. The day it starts leaving its nature, it'll start dying. If the sun starts becoming cooler and then cold, what will happen to the sun? It'll die. So just like that – man himself has got a nature – and what is the nature of man? The [true] nature of man is to live selflessly through discrimination. Selflessly through….discrimination. And an animal's nature is to live selfishly. The fittest survive. Man is supposed to do good to others.

If you cannot do good absolutely it does not mean you cannot do it relatively. Anything you see, touch, feel, relate it to God and the mind will go higher and higher - to God. Brahman [the one indivisible universal consciousness] is space itself and space itself is Brahman. Space is the mind itself and so everything is like that, i.e. Brahman.

Thoughts for contemplation:

The wisest man keeps repeating God's name [Japa, the meditative repetition of a mantra or one of the many names attributed to God] and thinking of Him.

You cannot say [merely intellectually], 'All this is Infinite.' Only above-thought level is it Infinite.

Shiva has both yoga [asceticism] and bhoga [enjoyment]. Sometimes he is meditating in the forest, and sometimes he is with Parvati.

We must read the scriptures. Take what you can and practise that. This does you good.

Observe what attitude your Deity [Ishta Deva or Chosen Ideal] had to its Deity. This will give you an idea.

Live in God thought. Do all for God. It is easy - but you find it difficult.

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

   

Question perspectives

 

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

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

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

759

   

[Pravrajika] Atmaprana [the first Sannyasini (Hindu nun) of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]: If you are looking at Consciousness in everything, at that particular moment you are actually going beyond the form of the thing.

Swamiji: But then there is one small thing you didn't catch yet: it will not be you looking. It is Consciousness looking at Consciousness. Just get that straight.

Mantras [sacred sound syllables or words] are never forgotten. Theories are forgotten. What I am talking now will never be forgotten. It will come [snapping his fingers], it must come. These are mantras.

Swami S: A question a few children asked at the recent Yoga Camp was, 'Who was Lord Shiva's father?' How are we going to answer that to children?

Swamiji: You must ask them, 'Do you think Lord Shiva was God?' If they say no, then you say, 'You are wrong, Lord Shiva was God. God is one. He takes many forms and one of the forms is Lord Shiva. And God has got no father.' When you are talking about human beings, human beings have a father.

He is everything to Himself therefore He is everything to others. If I am good to myself I will be good to others. If I am horrible to myself, naturally, I will be horrible to others.

When a question is asked the spiritual man must straight away take the question and think: 'Is this a spiritual question or is this a worldly question?' Now the child asked you a worldly question because he was thinking that his father had a mother and father, and so on. But once you show the child that it is God you are talking about, not man, they are finished.

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