Knowing who your Ishta Deva is
[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 1014
Swamiji continues talking on the Ishta Deva [Personal Deity or Chosen Ideal]:
So how to find out who your deity really is? It's that deity that comes up most in your mind. According to the Bhagavad Gita, what you last think of at the time of bodily death, the next birth you will become that. Not that you will become that only – suppose I'm thinking of someone mad, I won't become mad. No – then every desire that was also inside me will also be projected. What I thought [as predominant desires, samskaras or mental impressions] – it will now become – it will materialise in this world. [As stressed in the previous posting, Swamiji emphasised that the prevailing pattern of thought at death, would be the key determining factor].
Raja Yoga says that because you had the desire to see, God made eyes. You had the desire to smell, the nose came. Desire first – organs later. Desire first, organs?…later. That's why when someone is deaf I think they may have burst someone's ears in a last birth. Or maybe they had no desire to hear. So God says, 'Why must I waste my time – I have no time, time is running out. Might as well make another one – let this fellow go without hearing. [all laugh] When he comes here and says, 'I want to hear,' then in the next birth he'll have hearing. You need have no fear of that.
Your guru [Spiritual Preceptor] will correct you. You can never make a mistake. Nature is a wonderful book-keeper but this can happen – that there may be a little delay of time. What? Delay of?…time. Therefore it is so essential to pray to God first of all, 'God I don't know which is my deity, God I don't know who you are, please reveal yourself in the words of Sri Ramakrishna.' He must reveal himself to you.
Now, the other way to do it, is to go to a guru – if you have God's grace in the form of a guru. He will tell you because he is all-knowing. He is?…all-knowing. He may be unconscious for some time but he becomes conscious when you need him. How? I was telling them this morning that a girl is not born with milk. Only when the child comes along then the milk comes. So, the real guru is only God-conscious. He's not conscious of x plus y equals whatever. He's not worried. But if someone wants that kind of knowledge when he comes to the guru, that thing manifests itself. If someone wants water, that thing will manifest as water. He's only one-thing conscious. God-conscious. But what you desire, he will materialise it.
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