Swamiji gives an example of every-day deep concentration.
This is a very short clip – but one which will provide food for thought for the whole day. It's about concentration.
Swamiji says: Start by thinking about your Deity's [Ishta Devata's] lila [divine play] – then you will be thinking about the deity itself. Swamiji gives an example, naming our dear Brother Dagwood, who was obviously present. Swamiji says: Imagine Dagwood brings me a slab of chocolate. I think, 'Such a nice boy!' Then, I start eating the chocolate, I just think about Dagwood. Meantime, thinking about Dagwood, it won't be 'I'm thinking about Dagwood', but just, 'Dagwood'. That's meditation.
You see people reading something and they forget. Trains go by, cars go by, but they don't know the trains are going past. They're here. They recognise to a certain extent, 'I am reading', but they will soon forget they're reading and they'll be absorbed by the facts [in the book] alone. They identify fully – there's no separation from the thing itself.
Swamiji teases, 'Like every day when you meditate, you go into deep sleep. You and sleep become one.' 😉 Swamiji chuckling. You don't exist. Sleep does not exist. It's just existence. But that's ignorant. If you can think of God like that – consciously – when you and God become one, that is meditation.
Here, through prayer, meditation and self-surrender, you will get that love – that love which knows no motive whatsoever. If you ask God, 'Why did you give me this love?', he'll say, 'My nature is to give this love.' That's all. Not because somebody asked me to do it. Why does the sun give light? Because it's the sun's nature.'
Let our motive become motiveless. Let our desires become desireless.
Swamiji concludes by saying: When we become desireless and motiveless, there will be nothing left but God himself.
To hear these profound thoughts directly from Swamiji, please click on the link below. Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
Duration: 02:03
Click here for the Flipbook version of: → Swamiji's biography
It's a free-to-read, draft 396 page, extended version of 'A Life Lived For Others. No need to install a PDF reader. It'll work in your present browser.
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).