[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 1017
A devotee told us a beautiful story this morning. He told us that a particular yogi wanted to keep the people out – the 3rd grade people and 4th grade people. [Swamiji jokes] Of course the 2nd grade people have to be cleaned up [devotees chuckling]. He wanted to keep all the worldly-minded people, who were pretending to be religious, away from him. So every time he saw them he started using choice language - swearing. This went on every time those people were present and nobody asked the yogi, 'why are you doing this?'
One person who somehow managed to serve him, after a scripture teaching, he had the guts to say, 'please forgive me Swamiji, but I want to ask you something.' The Swami said, 'what?' 'All this preaching and talking about God is very nice, but why do you swear so badly?' [devotees chuckling] 'Please don't think I'm criticising but we feel bad because all these people come here, some of them educated, some rich, people with dignity attached to them. They come here and you swear. Some of them don't even come to the Ashram [hermitage, monastery] any more. What to do?'
The Swami thought and he thought, thought, thought. Then he said, 'but I'm only doing what they do!' The disciple asked, 'what is that Maharaj?' The Swami said, 'well, I'm saying it only from the tongue. Because they are saying God's name only from the tongue and not from the heart.' [devotees chuckling as they get the point] You see, the yogis do things like that only from the tongue, to make [the wrong kind of] people run away.
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
