Swami Shivapadananda on seeing God in all
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
Taken from Mother Radha's notes, written at Swamiji's feet.
Day 407
[Clearly spoken on a festival day] May He [God] increase your bhakti [devotion], your faith, and your knowledge of God, and give you unflinching belief that there is a God, and that He may be found in our daily life wherever we may be.
May you be blessed this great day. May He be born in your heart this day.
Avoid anything that disturbs your peace of mind. Stop the [internal discussion] monologue. For example: retaliation in the mind. That is a self-made trap, you cannot get out. When the inward noise stops, there is peace.
Be polite, be sweet – give, give, give and do not expect anything in return.
As Master [Sri Ramakrishna] says, you may hiss and show anger [bit not bite]. Sternness is necessary sometimes, outside. But inside – it is dangerous.
Before, it looked as if Vedanta [higher Hindu philosophy] was only a theory, but Swami Vivekananda made it practical. We must live it, i.e. see each person as divine. We must transcend group consciousness, colour consciousness and religious consciousness – the soul will manifest through that.
Religion is subjective not objective. If something goes wrong, look at yourself and not at the other person. Nature is a mirror, it reflects man's mind. But you refuse to listen to nature. You want to do what you want to do.
It is time to get to simple prayer. For example, pray: 'O Lord, what is good for me, give me that. And what I [already] have that is good for me, preserve that.'
The 100 CDs of Swamiji speaking have been converted to mp3
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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