Learning to meditate

DAILY READINGS

From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji

651

 
 

You contemplate on a thing; then you concentrate on a thing; and when it becomes a continuous flow, like oil from one bottle to another, when it is unbroken, it is called meditation.

There are lots of ways to do meditation. If you want to concentrate on a particular symbol, keep it in front of you, look at it, close your eyes. Look at it again, close your eyes. Try to see it inside. Do this over and over. When you get a good vision, close your eyes and look at it and repeat the mantra.

Another method is to look at the tip of your nose and repeat Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya; this is according to the Bhagavad Gita. Or you can look at the flame of a candle without blinking, and without staring. Looking and staring are two different things. You can get concentration like that. Or sit down in a quiet place, close your eyes and ears, and try to hear what sound is heard in the right-hand ear. This also will give you concentration.

If you have worshipped a particular [Ishta Deva] deity from a young age, and if you get married, and if your husband does not want you to worship that deity in his house, then he can go to hell. This is my set belief. Your partner should allow you to worship your own deity, the one whom you worship, provided that you do not disregard the deities that are already there at that house. You can respect those deities, you can love those deities, even worship those deities with flowers, but you have the right to worship the deity that you love (just as you chose the husband you wanted to choose). And no one should stand in anyone's path. There is no compromise whatsoever.

Of course you must not go and push the deity that you love down other people's throats. Do not go there and say things like, 'My deity can do so many miracles, your deity did not do any miracles,' and so on. All that should not be said.

Swami Vivekananda was very clear about it. He said, 'Following the ishta devata system, it is possible that in a Hindu family one could worship Allah, though one is not supposed to tell others what one is worshipping.'

Let others worship what they want to worship provided they do not push it down your throat. If you do not want to keep your deity in the shrine, keep it in your own room in a corner.

Gauri was the deity that Mother Sita worshipped when she met Sri Rama. After getting married do you think she threw Gauri away? Do you think she threw away the one who gave her Sri Rama. She would never throw Gauri out, never. Where did Sri Rama meet Mother Sita? At Gauri's temple. In the Ramayana you can read about it, it is there.

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, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.

Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Nischalananda Puri, Swami Shivapadananda

Click Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna to read online…

Reference websites (please mouse-over the name to connect): Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Ramakrishna Centre of SA, Ramakrishna Centre of Southern Africa, Ramakrishna Dham, Swami Shivapadananda 2