Daily Reading 100. Swamiji reminds us that Sri Ramakrishna is the embodiment of all the deities, past present and future.

Taken from Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

We may remain externally quiet but [internal] judgment goes on all the time. What to do? Remember the Lord constantly. Instead of listening to the radio or the talking, think: Everything is Divine – salute It all the time.

[Holy Mother] Sri Sarada Devi said: ‘Truly I am your mother. In extreme trouble, remember you have a mother.’ May you know you are on Mother’s lap and she is in your heart.

Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘For God-realisation you need self exertion.’

Thy will be done – so I am able to love everything in the world.

Master [Sri Ramakrishna] said, ‘You are not a sinner, you are a child of God. You are born in a new school of thought.‘ Pray thus: ‘O Lord, by your grace I am here.’ When you’re oblivious of yourself and only conscious of your Deity, then you have surrendered. If you feel you have lost time in the past, start now. Live in the present.

Don’t underestimate Sri Ramakrishna. He is the wish-fulfilling tree – not only the tree but the root too. Give him what he loves. He loves God-love and God-realisation. Just get Master to love you. What worries you, he takes it away. Pray to God. That is what Sri Ramakrishna loves. Sri Ramakrishna is the embodiment of all the deities, past present and future. He had cancer to teach us to become above suffering.

We must be cosmo-centric, not ego-centric.

Spoken during Navratri [the nine days of worship of aspects of the Divine Mother]. Swamiji comments on the immersion of the image of the Divine Mother: Referring to the immersion, Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘The Divine Mother has become a block of ice for us to worship. [*see footnote] Now She is going back to Shiva, to the formless, the nameless.’ This period squeezes the Lord [male aspect] out of the devotee’s hearts, the purified devotees, and gives Mother a place to live in the Divine Love.

Our Rishis [sages] and munis [holy men] were so very great that they sought out different days, weeks, months – periods, declared to be periods of worship. This is a very emotional period because the Mother of the Universe is worshipped by Her earthly children, to realise they are not mortal but immortal. She is called Shakti etc. And we call it Sri Ramakrishna. When her devotees are suffering, she incarnates herself. Thus intelligence manifests in this world.

We Hindus take hold of Nature and say it is Mother, Shakti, Energy. The Energy of the Rishis is full of Consciousness. A scientist calls it ‘energy,’ he does not call it ‘full of consciousness,’ he does not call it living. It needs something to accomplish it, to direct it.

We are all shaktas [worshippers of the divine Shakti or power] – whatever we may think. All are worshippers of the Divine Mother and no one else.

Children must rely on their mothers and fathers. Jesus Christ was a man but he manifested Mother-power, ‘Come ye, heavy-laden, and I will comfort you.’ Only Mother can comfort you like that.

Sri Ramakrishna is not like other avatars [incarnations] who came for particular people, or for [a] particular dharma [path]. We find him manifesting the nature of his Divine Mother, who he worshipped in the Dakshineswar Temple [near Kolkota].

[* Footnote: Sri Ramakrishna and Swamiji often referred to water in the ocean freezing and taking on a shape. So for a time, it became something tangible. Then it would melt back into the sea. They used the phenomenon as an illustration of ‘birth/death’ and ‘manifesting’, then ‘dissolving’ again.]

Underlined words are hypertext links to clarification, explanation or other sources. Just tap on them.

The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography, ‘A Life Lived For Others‘, is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.

For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ booklet of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.

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These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to those with him at the time.