Swamiji speaks about Satyam Shivam Sundaram [Truth, Goodness and Beauty].
Swamiji speaks about the beauty of art. He says the whole world is the art of God, and any building or structure must have auspiciousness – Satyam Shivam Sundaram [Truth, Goodness and Beauty] – especially a temple.
About how essential it is for the aesthetics of design, architecture, construction and ornamentation to be beautiful, so they trigger the appropriate mental response.
Swamiji quotes Swami Vivekananda saying that if anything comes out of the Indian scriptures like a bombshell, it's 'fearlessness'. So if something reminds you of auspiciousness and beauty, where is the fear? There can't be fear.
A devotee asks Swamiji if it's true that if you're sincerely spiritual, the material [side of life] will look after itself. Swamiji gives a fascinating, detailed, profound and expansive answer, that we all need to take note of. [Swamiji also frequently cautioned us as young ashramites, 'Don't develop a shop-keeping relationship with God.' Like: I do my sadhana, give to the poor etc. now as a reward or in exchange….]
Swamiji wraps up the homily by sharing his internal response when people show him their houses. And it's obvious who the favourite or 'special one' in the home is, from the beauty of their room.
Swamiji explains about the beauty in those days, of Ayodhya and the literally indescribable beauty of the palace in which Mother Sita was accommodated. Coming full circle to the Satyam Shivam Sundaram thought, that triggered this initial discussion.
To listen to these life-altering words, please click on the link below. Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
Duration: 06:44
The original audio recordings of these posts were made by close Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and Swami Shivapadananda devotee, Mother Radha. The audio editing and noise reduction of the original 1970s-onwards tapes, has been lovingly engineered, over many years, by her son and our dear gurubhai, Brother Tim. May Sri Ramakrishna and Swamiji bless them both.
Admin tip: Underlined words are links. If you click on them, they'll take you to an explanation of the particular word or term. [In these overviews, Admin comments are typically in a smaller green font, and square bracketed, like this statement.]
Dear reader, if you spot typos or or other errors, please feel free to email the site admin on info@imbizo.com with your suggested correction/s.
Context: As always, care should be taken to remember that what Swamiji was saying, may have been very specific to the needs of people with him at the time. Please bear this in mind.
Links to our Guruparampara (spiritual lineage) organisations, which will broaden your knowledge base: Ramakrishna Math and Mission and our alma maters, the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and the Sri Sarada Devi Ashram in Durban. The Ramakrishna Centre of Johannesburg is also active in Gauteng province in South Africa.
There are various publications [The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna etc.] which you can download at no charge, from the Ramakrishna Centre of SA website page, HERE.
The image in today's post is borrowed from here.