Swami Shivapadananda on ego and the Guru

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

Taken from Mother Radha’s
notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

Day 296

Love must be here in the ashram [Hindu monastery, hermitage]. You do not
like someone? OK. But do not bring that thought with you here. Be free to have
loving relationships with others here. I must be able to have a loving
relationship with everyone here too.

The ego pops up all the time, in every disguise. That is [the Divine] Mother too.
Rather sit quiet, say the mantra [sacred sound-syllable or name of God] twenty
times, and you will grow more loving.

If there is conflict between devotees, and if I am acting from Truth,
then I smile and laugh and say, ‘Well that is the way it is. Why are you
getting cross?’

Do everything for the guru [spiritual Preceptor], renounce the world and
attach yourself to the guru. Repeat, ‘I do it for him – not for me, but for
him,’ and the ego goes.  We do not know
God love, so we use the guru. The guru must be a good rider. Watch your
reaction. The guru laughs and tightens the reins. He does not react when you
expect him to, he watches.

If you react with anger it is ego. If with laughter it is detachment.

There is love for the guru, love for God and there is love for man [i.e.
humans]. The lowest form is the love of a boy and girl, yet nothing stops their
meeting.

You come here expecting the guru to give you knowledge, but what you
have in your mind, he reflects. You must come to any guru with an open mind so
that you receive his teachings. When you look at anything – let’s say at a chain
– do not think, ‘This is a chain,’ think, ‘This is God.’ Keep on and on and on
with this.

Footnote: In seeing God in an inanimate and indeed, manufactured,
object, one is looking beyond it to the microscopic atoms of its construction,
God with form – and beyond that the formless.

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