One God, One Truth – and Grace
[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 1004
Swamiji talking at a Yoga spiritual retreat camp. A devotee had just finished speaking on Lord Shiva:
You have sung the glory of that eternal, infinite Being [Brahman] under the name of Shiva, described to us the mantra Om namah Shivaya, drawing to our notice that each letter of the alphabet stands for one of the elements which is no other than God himself or God's power. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Bhagawan said that God and God's power are inseparable. They cannot be separated. Just like milk and its whiteness, just like the fire and its burning power can never be separated – similarly God and his power, manifested as this great universe, can never be separated.
But he has veiled himself as you said to us. And we can only realise this, not in the course of our own effort, not because of our own strength, but by his own grace. And when his grace dawns on us, he reveals himself. Who covers it? He himself covers it. Because he covers it, we have more power to uncover it. Why? Because he is the Almighty. Almighty means that all the might you know of – the ant's might, the saint's might, the sinner's might – are all his might. How can you ever exert your might when it is his might? So it is only when he uses his might of revealing himself, that we see him. In this way we must be humble. If we have the slightest bit of ego, thinking 'I will do sadhana [spiritual practice] and God will reveal himself,'…. you can't even do sadhana because sadhana-might is his! The speaker said, Kriya sakti, yoga sakti, all saktis are God's [Swamiji chuckles] – so how can you ever boast about having sakti?
Gurudev, Swami Nischalanandaji Maharaj, used to tell us that man is a slave but he prides himself on being a master. Don't you see, at night-time they say, 'I'll sit up for Shivaratri [an all-night vigil],' and you find half of them snoring. [Swami chuckling] So he's a slave to sleep. Then you see people who say, 'I shall fast,' but inside them there's hunger. 'Slave to hunger,' Gurudev used to tell us. In this way you must humble yourself. Humility is one of the prerequisites of a sadhaka [spiritual aspirant, practitioner]. One time my beloved guru [spiritual Preceptor] Nischalanandaji said, 'Ah, Inder [Swamiji's pre-monastic name] , stand like a mountain but when it rains, where does the water collect?' He said, 'not on the mountain, but in the valley.' He rebuked me many times, 'Ego, ego, ego, ego!' [ahamkara] And then I used to think, 'what kind of Swami [Hindu monk] this is?' – you see the child thinks everything about the parents. Sometimes when the parents say, 'Don't go to the bioscope [movies],' the child thinks, 'In his time he went, now he doesn't want me to go.' We think like this because we are still children. We are immature. I used to think of my guru, 'what's he saying about ego – you mean to say he's telling this without ego?' The mind reacts like that. Later on you realise, 'No – that's not ego. His ego, like Sri Ramakrishna said, is like a long rope which has been burnt to ash. It can be rubbed away, erased. It's like writing on the water. It cannot be read, but yet it's written. Gurudev used to say, 'humility, humility – ego must be out.' And when you get off the mountain ego, there will be a big hollow at the foot of it. And in that, the grace of God will be collected.
I also sat like this in front of my guru. And once I told him, 'if you cannot be like a little child, then be like a dog, watching his master all the time'. And Gurudev went into samadhi [spiritual superconsciousness]. Can we becomes dogs of God? Can we? Can we say, 'Lord, I shall guard your Dharma [righteous path, guidelines] like a faithful dog'? Can you and I say that sincerely and act accordingly? Ah! Wonderful what the speaker said. He covers [veils, conceals, masks] himself, he puts Maya [God's power of illusion, delusion] – his own power – on himself. And when he's happy, he's like a child now fully matured in the egg. The golden egg. Now is the time. [Swamiji makes a popping sound] Break it open. Beforehand if you break the egg, it will be premature and the chick will die. So you must wait for the right time. When with God's grace, God knows you are fully baked. When you are fully baked he'll pull you out of the oven of Maya. He'll pull us out. Maya is his power.
Then the speaker also says that Shiva is the creator, Shiva is the preserver and Shiva is the destroyer. How beautiful. Now if you take the Vaishnavites [worshippers of Vishnu], they also say that Vishnu is this creator, preserver and destroyer. The Saktas [worshippers of the Mother aspect of the divine] also say that Sakti is the creator, preserver and destroyer. [Swamiji chuckles] Well, who are they talking about, then? It can't be many people doing that because they'll destroy themselves. It must be that One – but they give it different names and other different aspects. They are looking at it and giving it that. It is only ONE [Brahman]. Ekam sat viprah bahuda vadanti [truth is one, sages call it by various names – Rig Veda]. There is only one Sakti [power]. Wise people – which kind of people? – wise people, not the ignorant people like us….wise people look at it and say, 'ah – it is called by different names, because it has taken different forms.' There's only one thing we're talking about.
So this Lord has got the creating power. What does he create? He creates his own lila. Lila means play. What kind of play? Divine play. Divine play – he creates his play, he plays in it, then he preserves it. How does he preserve it? By…the Nataraja…the cosmic dance. Every step he does, our mind is constantly on it – it preserves it. When it's finished he just stops. Static. It's finished. So this Shiva is like that. He's got the five different ways of acting. He creates, he preserves, he destroys. He covers and he gets joy just to reveal 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