Swami Shivapadananda on the senses and sadhana
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.
Day 456
Now and then bhakti [devotion] will be weak, and now and then it'll be strong. But when you become like the gopis [Lord Krishna's cowherd devotees] – on hearing just one call of the flute you leave everything and run – that is parama-prema supreme devotion and ecstatic love of god]. It is prema when we hear God's voice calling us.
We have bhakti for God all right, we love God all right, but we don't love Him so intensely that we can leave everything behind and run to Him.
Devotee: Why did Ravana have ten heads?
Swamiji: It has a symbolic meaning – the ten senses. Sri Rama had one head so all the senses were converged in truth, and that truth is one head. Truth always beats that which is untruth.
If one of your senses is out of control, you know how it runs a riot in your life. But can you imagine what your position would be if all ten senses are out of control?
Here it means the ten senses were not under Ravana's control – though sometimes one was active or two were active, sometimes all were active.
Devotee: When we are too tired to do our evening sadhana [spiritual practice], what should we do?
Swamiji: Now this is a very futile question. First of all you say, "when you are too tired." How can you measure tiredness? If you can go to the lobby, if you can go to the table to eat food, if you've got time to have a few glances at the TV, then are you tired? You are not tired. But you want to leave your sadhana and give preference to something else which appears to be more important.
But the most important thing is your sadhana. You must do your sadhana to the fullest.
If you are sick or if a doctor's patient is dying or if somebody is dying on the road then you have the right to prostrate to the Lord and say, "Lord, you are in that person and you would run to his aid if you were here. Lord whatever little sadhana I did may he get the merit of that instead of me."
No compromise. You must adopt the attitude of non-compromise. A real sadhaka [spiritual aspirant, practitioner] is he who has the attitude of non-compromise with anything except God Himself.