Daily Reading 94. Swamiji speaks on universality, purity and love as essentials on the spiritual path.

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

Spoken at a Yoga Spiritual Retreat:  The yoga camp itself is the embodiment of your Deity. Let that Deity now go out and serve the poor, the miserable, the illiterate. As you go on serving Master’s [Sri Ramakrishna’s] children [devotees] the Truth will be revealed to you.

Do not be a fanatic. If you must be a fanatic, be a fanatic of Universality [i.e. the equal value and validity of all religions. Sri Ramakrishna’s dictum was that ‘Religions are like rivers; they all flow into one ocean called God’]. Do not listen to anyone speak ill of parents, Guru or Deity. You must safeguard the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.

Swamiji to a man living far away, who often dreamed of Swamiji: Even if there is no physical contact, inside there is spiritual contact. Ordinary man bows, but God knows.

[Swamiji told us that when you dream of a holy person, it isn’t a dream – the holy person is actually present and ‘visiting’ you in the subtle body.]

You must concentrate on pure things and you will become pure. You must concentrate on immortal things and you will become immortal. Sit at the feet of the Guru, that is, serve the Guru. If the Guru walks, you run. If the Guru sits, you sit.

As long as you think ‘I am this or that,’ you will suffer. When you think it [all] is God’s grace, you will be above suffering. You cannot obtain the Self through sadhana [spiritual practise] etc., only through Grace. That means, when God chooses.

Swami Vivekananda said, ‘Feel from the heart. Through this comes inspiration and love. Love of God is the gate to all the doors of the universe.’ Do you feel?

I am a Kali worshipper, a Shiva worshipper, a Hanuman worshipper, a Ram [Lord Rama] worshipper. All these I find in Sri Ramakrishna – so why must I run here and there?

Sannyasa is absolute self-dedication to humanity.

Teach your child to see the Deity in the palm of his hand. This leads to concentration. When there is a problem, he automatically looks at the Deity.

Guru is a smouldering fire that burns without fuel. Sri Ramakrishna’s devotees have no problem. They only mustn’t indulge in free play of senses or become greedy.

[Holy Mother] Sri Sarada Devi said, ‘O my child, when there are difficulties – like a cloud they will go. Difficulties come to all.’

The more you practise spiritual love, the more impurities are reduced. If the heart is pure, the causal, subtle and gross bodies are pure – pure in thought, word and deed. Pure in heart means the soul is manifesting its pure nature.

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.