Best times for meditation
[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 992
A saint or a sage [mahatma] has no hatred. Forget it. You'll find all the saints cursed Hanumanji [the great devotee of Lord Rama] to forget his real nature, his real power. But that ignorance was put there only for him to become mature. If you crack open an egg too early, the chick will die. It has to be in darkness for a certain time for it to mature. So 'Mother Ignorance' is a wonderful thing. It's a boon [blessing] of spiritual realisation. What is it?…a boon of spiritual realisation. That time you must be there to mature and then break through. Then Shiva-power [the ignorance-destroying power of God] will come to destroy the shell. The golden egg was burst by Shiva and Parvati. Read it in the Puranas and see.
Devotee asks off-microphone question: Something about 'routine difficult to follow'.
Swamiji: There are certain times that the mind and the whole of nature goes into calmness – into equilibrium. And the four times are: 45 minutes before sunrise, 45 minutes before midday, 6 in the evening and 12 midnight. This is when all of nature manifests a certain calmness or equilibrium [balance]. You can feel it in the atmosphere and your mind also becomes calm. They say you must take advantage of those periods – sandhya – you must take advantage of them.
Brahmamuhurti – 4 a.m. you must get up. You must take advantage. Why? Because it is conducive to spiritual calmness, to spiritual vibrations. Now, if you don't take advantage at that time, at other times you will struggle. You will struggle. You'll be wasting more time. Just like when there's a high wave coming in the ocean and you don't take the wave and use the assistance of the wave to swim out of the water, then you will struggle. You'll get tired. So when it's not conducive, you'll be wasting time.
Also, in the beginning it is very important and essential that one should follow time [a routine] to get the mind into the habit of taking God's name [in japa]. After you have, in the initial stages, formed a genuine habit to take God's name, to love God, then it doesn't matter what time you do it. Because it itself will be continuously flowing in the subconscious mind. It'll be continuously flowing. You see, if you get up every morning at four o'clock, you'll find that automatically, even on holidays you'll get up at four. Because you get into the habit your mind adjusts itself to that.
Like India is three hours ahead of us. I used to eat food here at about 12 [noon]. When I went to India, about 9 [a.m.] I'm feeling hungry and thinking, 'What is wrong with me?' Then I realised, wait a minute, it's 12 back in South Africa and my habit is to eat at that time. You see how the mind is? At exactly 12 o'clock my stomach will start rumbling. So habit is very, very essential my dear son. Well, Sri Ramakrishna said, and other great saints and sages said, 'If you're so tied down [with obligations] and you really, sincerely think you have no time, then any time will do. Then, whenever you get a chance, snatch it, take the opportunity to say his name. But it won't pay the same benefits as when you follow a routine and times that are conducive to spiritual vibrations. Like on the full-moon day mentally unstable people become even more unstable [because of the energies]. So similarly, at spiritual times like that, the mind will automatically desire God – it will tune into him. You got it? Very essential.
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