Daily Reading 135. Swamiji on encountering Sri Hanumanji, and doing sadhana to benefit others.
Taken from Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.
Newly married [Grihastha] people must live for each other. You make her happy and she must make you happy. Always remember your Deity.
Who cares how long the wait is for God, so long as we begin the journey.
It makes me laugh when they say Hanuman [the great devotee of Lord Rama] is not alive today – they are mad. In India, a lovely Sadhu [holy man/monk came to where I was and pressed [asked] me so nicely for food. He was all red. Only afterwards I realised it was [Lord] Hanuman himself. [Sri Hanumanji is one of the 7 or 8 Chiranajeevis permanently on earth.]
All have had experiences that there is a God. Hanuman is the embodiment of the four yogas [Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Raja Yoga], plus the embodiment of a devotee, and the embodiment of a Paramahamsa [lit: Great Swan – highest ranking holy person. Great saint-sages are declared Paramahamsas either by their Guru, or by leading religious pundits and scholars according to traditional signs and manifestations].
OM is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. In meditation, where the thought goes, witness it. Let the thought go. See it, but let it go. The witness is not the thought. The witness is unseen, unknown, unknowable.
You should make the place of worship calm and serene so you can concentrate on the atman [soul]. Do not live in the past. Start now, live in the present.
Swamiji to a Lord Hanuman devotee: You must first see Sri Ramakrishna seated on your head on a lotus, and worship Him. After that you prostrate to him and carry on with your worship of Hanuman.
Hanuman is the Guru personalised. Hanuman is the ‘body-less’ Guru. Other Gurus may have bodies but he guides you without a body. May the Guru of Gurus be happy on us.
Swamiji to a devotee: See the Ishta devata [personal Deity] sitting in the Sun.
Devotee: But I do not have a form.
Swamiji: Think of it as supreme intelligence – feel He is in the sun. It [the Sun] is not just a gaseous mass, it is living intelligence. What I tell you, you must keep doing. Do not reverse, then my mind will not answer. I will say, Mother knows best. Swami Yatiswarananda says, ‘The [spiritual] seeker seeks the company of God. You and God together are strongest. Otherwise you are weak.’ Speak about God, otherwise it is weakness.
Sri Ramakrishna said: ‘Some sannyasis [monks, renunciates] do sadhana [spiritual practise] only for their own moksha [liberation from the cycle of birth and death]. Sukadeva did it for the benefit of others.’ Sri Ramakrishna also falls into this category.
[Clearly said to a smoker in the congregation.] Smoking creates the physical craving of the cells. Take chewing gum or a sweet when you feel that craving.
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.
There’s also a Facebook site for Swamiji’s posts now. They feature newer readings published more recently. Click HERE to view.
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.