Swami Shivapadananda on congruence and authenticity

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.

Day 448

 
 

In the Ramayana we read: Ragu kula rit sada chali aye prana jaye para vachana najaye. In the lineage of Sri Rama the Raghus will give up their lives for the sake of the principle of dharma [righteousness]. Thus it's better to die for the sake of dharma than dying for adharma [unrighteousness].

Man has a free will. Man is an intelligent being. Man should not use God to do the wrong things. You should use God to do the right things.

Ravana came as a holy man into the forest and took Sita away – he was dressed as a sannyasi [monk], as a holy man. But Ravana took advantage. He made use of dharma to do adharma. In the cloak of a holy man he stole. But the end result was that his kingdom of Lanka was destroyed – even though he had moksha [liberation] at Sri Rama's hands.

So this one fact you must remember: God has given us free will – even though that free will is limited by our past karma. By our conscience we know when we do something if it's right or wrong.

We must even give up our lives to do the right thing.

Sri Ramakrishna always stood by truth. It is written in the scriptures that to make ourselves perfect we must have the same idea in thought, speech and action. He said it so beautifully; that mind, word and deed will all be the same for a truthful, great man.