Swami Shivapadananda on Guru-Chela relationships
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
Taken from Mother Radha's notes, written at Swamiji's feet.
Day 429
Sri Ramakrishna's love and compassion for humanity is incomprehensible. He came to make religion simple for us.
Tripurasundari is a name of the Divine Mother. Sundari means beautiful. The Divine Mother's words are sweet, soothing and comforting; her gentle touch removes all pain and suffering, and her compassionate glance can give one liberation.
The Ganga [River Ganges], the Yamuna and other sanctified rivers are not mere streams or rivers – as you may think them to be. They are sacred, and represent the Divine Mother Herself.
The most sacred relationship is the relationship of the guru and the disciple. When the guru and guru's grace are bestowed on the disciple, nothing can touch him; not even the gods have the power to hinder him from his spiritual endeavour. These are not empty words – pay attention to them.
It is said that the disciple may deny the guru billions of times, but the guru never denies the disciple even once. The child will deny its parents, but the parents will never deny the child.
If the child – and we are all children – disobeys its parents it hurts the feelings of the parents – and the guru has no power over that. But it is the guru that wins the kingdom of God and gives it to the disciple, like a gift.
What does the disciple give the guru? He is supposed to give selfless service and love and obedience. Obedience is the greatest prize a guru can accept. If the disciple does not give these he is becoming more indebted to the guru each day.
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.
Reference websites: Ramakrishna Math & Mission, Ramakrishna Centre of Southern Africa, Sri Ramakrishna Dham