Swamiji says forget about destiny. Start doing good and DEMAND grace. Don’t beg for it.
Swamiji tells a story about a King who was told by his astrologer that he was going to die the next day. The king was very sad. On seeing this and hearing the reason, the king's minister took action. Listen to what it was.
The outcome of the story is Swamiji confirming again, that our destiny is only our past. We can alter that destiny by doing good things. Swamiji concludes the anecdote with a delightful pun! 😉
Swamiji says that it doesn't matter what name we use for God, but we must keep going towards Him/Her/It – the Supreme Being.
Swamiji's beloved Guru, Swami Nischalananda Puri, used to say to him, 'You're a beggar, you!' He told Swamiji to stop begging the divine Mother for this and that, but to make demands the way you would of your earthly mother. Not, 'God, please give me this now.' What nonsense! said Gurudev. Why are you bargaining with the Mother? I'm your child – give it now. If you're not going to give it, who's going to give it?
When you make demands, God admires you. He's almighty and you're part of his might. He doesn't want to see his might going 'mightless' says Swamiji. Be a hero. Die demanding, not begging. Me? says Swamiji, I'm the son of a queen. Listen to Swamiji's description of his thinking and approach. It's not something negative. It's making legitimate and persistent demands. 'God is your very own', Holy Mother Sarada Devi said.
Swamiji says that if we're asking for the wrong thing, God, like any good mother, won't give it, if it's going to cause harm. But demand from the human point of view anyway. If you don't get the answers or results you expect or want, don't leave the deity and move onto another.
Swamiji says he once got upset with Sri Hanumanji and refused to worship him any longer. Switching to Lord Shiva instead. Swamiji says, imagine how ridiculous it is to think you're going to show God a point. He tells a very funny story about a frog and an elephant. And how physics intervened.😂 It gives great context to our squabbles with the divine.
Swamiji explains how he thought he'd pushed Hanumanji away and embraced Lord Shiva – only to discover that Hanumanji is an incarnation of Lord Shiva! So, his tiff with his Deity in fact brought him even closer to God. The outcome was Swamiji fully understanding and embracing the learning that all deities are only an expression and manifestation of his own chosen Ideal [Ishta Devata].
Swamiji circles back to his starting theme: Do your sadhana [spiritual practise] with faith. Destiny is nothing. You can alter it in two seconds. How? By having faith in God.
Swamiji wraps up the homily by explaining that Brother Tim's wife was worried about him having a car crash, and wondering if Swamiji would save him from it happening. Swamiji says no, I wouldn't have saved him from the crash, but I would have asked for leniency, so that the minimum damage took place. This is how divine grace works with karma. [Holy Mother Sarada Devi said numerous times, that you may be destined to lose a leg, but with God's grace you'll get just a pinprick instead.]
To share in these beautiful lessons, please click on the link below. Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
Duration: 10:35
Click here for the Flipbook version of: → Swamiji's biography
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However, if you'd prefer a straight-up PDF version, please click HERE.
Dear Devotee, if we use the term 'He or he', when referring to Swamiji, it's not impolite or disrespectful. It's to minimise the repetitiveness of saying or writing 'Swamiji' too many times.
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 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, was often very specific to the needs of people with him at the time. Please bear this in mind.
Links to our Guru Parampara (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 was crafted using prompts to Microsoft Copilot AI. (Artificial Intelligence).