Body, exercise, food and thought
[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 994
One should take someone from the rung of the spiritual ladder from where that particular being is presently. Therefore 99% of us are still at body level – we are body-conscious. What level?…body – we think that we are the body. Very few think that we are the spirit. That being the case, then you must think of this body as being the temple of God. Temple of?…God. And it is my duty as a devotee of God to keep the temple clean, and the altar clean and decorated with beautiful flowers. Beautiful flowers will be beautiful thought. Keep it clean with God's glories and thinking good about the whole world.
With it you must try to keep sickness away. If sickness is like holes in the temple, the rain of pain and misery will leak into it. So, you have to exercise the body. Keep it healthy – close up all the holes with putty. And when you exercise the body with different kinds of exercises, then you feel nice and healthy and comfortable. Then to concentrate, meditate and sing God's glory becomes easy. But besides being kept just clean and healthy what you put into the body is two things – food and thought. Food and thought.
Swami Nishreyasananda [then head of the Ramakrishna Mission in Zimbabwe, pictured] used 
to say, 'The banana I ate yesterday, is today my body.' The banana is converted into body. The body is not just body, brains, nerves, eyes, nose – see, the banana [food] also transformed it. You must eat sattvic [balanced, wholesome, pure] food. Sattvic food that does not increase your passion [rajas], does not excessively activate your senses so that they become out of control. What you eat must make you calm and it must be food that is easily digested, so it will not become the womb of germs – to breed there.
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