Past births and evolution
[Pictured: Tibetan wheel of life, samsara, artwork]
[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]
[now a Centre of the international Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission]
DAILY READINGS
Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.
Day 964
Day 963 has reference for continuity
So Mother Ganga [the river Ganges] came to earth after a great, great sacrifice [tapasya]. Watch it. Then again a secret is given – that you may not be able to do it with just one deity. And what are deities? Nothing but one's own inner psychic power, manifest in physical form. Physical…form. And what is the psychic power? Ultimately you'll find where the minds ends, consciousness begins. Or where the mind merges, consciousness is there. So everything is a manifestation of the consciousness called God. The… consciousness called God.
Now we can see that great sacrifice has been done. And how sacred the guru [spiritual preceptor] and chela [disciple] relationship is. It's based on? Sacrifice, self-sacrifice. Not sacrificing material but self-sacrifice. And then again we come and see that whoever did the first cooking was forgotten. We don't know them. So the greatest thing is to be 'self-forgotten', even the world should not remember you. Why? Because your happiness comes by just seeing the whole universe happy. How? Through your own sacrifice. Sacrifice itself is a privilege. It is a privilege to do this.
We come to the sadhaka [spiritual aspirant or practitioner] again. I said the sadhaka's life must be based on certain principles. And broadly speaking, these principles are divided into four different categories. The Brahmacharya [student or celibate] principle, the Grihasti [Grihastha or married state], householder's principle, the Vanaprastha – the recluse, the retired man's principle – and the last one is Sannyasa [renunciate, monk, nun] principle. But you cannot put them into compartments, in tight compartments. One overlaps into the other. Where one ends, it just slowly gets into the other.
Thus spiritual life to the general world, to the general population of the world's people – is a growth. What is it? A growth. You must learn how to grow this plant of spirituality in your own life. It's not just something that comes from heaven. [Swamiji chuckles] It's not just something that will fall on you. Though you must have witnessed thousands of people just 'get' spiritual, we Hindus do not believe that he became spiritual just like that [Swamiji clicks his fingers to emphasise the point]. We believe that last birth, birth after birth [cycle of samsara]he worked very, very hard. He worked very strenuously, sacrificed a lot of things, therefore suddenly Drona [Dronacharya – the royal family guru in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata] got God-realisation, [Bhakt] Prahlad got God-realisation. You will see that they were divine beings who sacrificed long, long before this birth. There is no short-cut to God. There is no?…[congregation repeats in unison]… short-cut to God. One goat has to be sacrificed. One sheep has to be sacrificed. Nothing less – and the goat and sheep is your ego. That is the goat that has to be sacrificed at the altar of selflessness. No other goat – don't think about the other kind of goat. This goat, called ego or ahamkara [literal meaning: I am the universe] – it must be sacrificed. You must be serious. Otherwise you won't get 'It'. You may get It after learning thousands of lessons.
Now I said there are four groups of principles for a slow growth towards God-realisation. Now you cannot judge it – well this man is born as a child, why should he not become a Grihasti [householder]. Swamiji was born a child and why didn't he become a Grihasti – why did he become a Brahmachari [monastic]? You can't judge like that because I told you we believe in last birth. Other births, who knows, [Swamiji teases and chuckles] I must have got married, got 50 children. I can't support them. [devotees chuckling] Got frustrated. With the wind of God's grace everything blew away. Peaceful. There is no one to fight with because I am the only one existing in the world. There's no one to give opinion to because I am the only opinion left. Opinion becomes opinion-less. You just live in Satchitananda [Existence, Knowledge, Bliss Absolute].
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.
Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.
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