Swami Shivapadananda on knowledge and unity

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

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

Day 413

 
 

From a book by Swami Yatiswarananda: You must have an intimate relationship with the divine, draw inspiration from the divine. Only when you become the witness – i.e. the inactive party – do all troubles etc remind you of the ephemeral world.

Swamiji: The first step is to keep repeating God's name [japa] and this leads to thinking about God – and what you think, you become. You must be a gentle man, or a gentle woman, first. You must be good and perfectly controlled.

Learn to be patient.

Watch yourself, not others. MYOB – Mind Your Own Baby, your mind. [Swamiji sometimes also used this acronym to mean: Mind Your Own Business.]

If I can do good, I do, if not, I leave it alone.

You must pull out that giant in yourself and in others. Let us altogether try to build the temple.

During Master's (Sri Ramakrishna's) birthday celebration: Today is a great day because Swamiji Vivekananda said, 'Where there is knowledge there is unity.' Ignorance leads to disunity. The very fact that we got together to praise God, God must be dwelling here in the form of knowledge [jnana] – knowledge of things we know, and do not know. We make a difference between man and man, but we are all seeking to understand ourselves and others.

It is lack of knowledge that has become the devil today. Our great saints and sages were born under different conditions, they had one message: To know God you must have knowledge of God.

 

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