Daily Reading 47. Swamiji speaks on the Gayatri mantra and compassion.

From Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

The Gayatri mantra is the most important Hindu prayer. It is the essence of all the Vedas. Repeat it ten times. The Muslims are great, they pray five times a day. Why great? Because if you say prayers five times a day, you are thinking of God almost all the time. You’ll think, ‘What is the time? What time must I do the prayers?’ And so you become God-conscious. You can say the Gayatri in English if you want to. Every human being should be doing it. Some say: ‘These, those and the other people must not say the Gayatri.’ But that is not so.

Gayatri mantra in Sanskrit, transliterated and the meaning in English:
ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः ।
तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।
धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ
tat savitur vareṇyaṃ bhargo devasya dhīmahi
dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt

We meditate on the glory of that Ishwara [God];
Who has created the Universe;
Who is worthy of Worship;
Who is the embodiment of Knowledge and Light;
Who is the remover of all Sins and Ignorance;
May He enlighten our Intellect.

Any mantra should be said so only you hear it. That is the safest. The scriptures say, ‘Do not tell the guru mantra to anybody else.’ This means tell it to yourself! We hear: ‘In the morning face the east, in the evening face the west. At midday face the north and at midnight . . .’ etc. etc. If you have faith in God you can face any side because God is all around, everywhere. God’s name makes everything holy.

You think you cannot make everything holy? All right. In the Hanuman Chalisa it says: 
भूत पिशाच निकट नहिं आवै।
महाबीर जब नाम सुनावै।।
Bhūta piśāca nikaṭa nahiṁ āvai |
Mahābīra jaba nāma sunāvai ||

Meaning: Ghosts, evil spirits, and negative energies do not come near when the name of the mighty Mahavir Hanuman is invoked. So use the name of Mahavir. This is an instruction. Hanumata vira. This means: Always do japa on Hanuman, thinking that he is a hero.

The scriptures are not easy to follow if you do not understand them. They give certain vibrations. The sound has a seed meaning but we do not know what kind of a tree [result/manifestation] it has in it.

Chaitanya Consciousness is not consciousness of something. So we are Chaitanya. Everything is this [Swamiji points to his heart]. Purusha [spirit] and Prakriti [nature] got into samadhi by meditating on an aspect of the Deity.

Swamiji speaking on compassion: Who is compassionate? So long as the ‘I’ is there, the ego is there. It means there is no compassion.

Sri Ramakrishna went into samadhi and said, ‘Who are you to feel compassion? Worship, worship, worship.’

To know you are perfect you must use a method. Speech is only a symbol of something else. If IT is Infinite, speech cannot describe It. They asked Christ, ‘What is Truth?’ And he was silent. He could not describe Truth because he was established in Truth. Then they asked Sri Ramakrishna what Brahman [the undifferentiated reality] is, and he said, ‘One cannot say. It is Brahman.’

Swami Vivekananda asked Sri Ramakrishna, ‘Have you seen God?’ And the answer came, ‘Yes, I have seen God and I see Him more intensely than I see you.’ They say Sri Ramakrishna is an ordinary saint, but he is not. He is an Incarnation. And an Incarnation must have the power to show God to you. Other saints can give you the method – but they may be imperfect themselves. Sri Ramakrishna is not the fool that some people say he is. It is they who are at fool level.

When I first heard about Master [Sri Ramakrishna] I thought, ‘These people are stupid, worshipping a man. I am a worshipper of Shiva, Kali, Hanuman.’ But all I had found in them, I found in Sri Ramakrishna.

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.