Swami Shivapadananda on the purpose of sadhana

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.

Day 440

 
 

At an Easter Yoga Camp Swamiji said: At these Camps we come together by God's grace to harmonise our hearts, minds and thoughts so that we may have intense inspiration and restless earnestness to know and realise God and our goal.

When people meet in the name of God they are blessed for it is only after many a birth that we realise that there is a God. After knowing this we must find out who God is. Thus we meet on this battlefield of spiritual discipline to wage the war of self-discipline.

Sri M, [Mahendranath Gupta] the author of 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna', says that there are two kinds of discipline; one is forced upon you and the other you willingly take upon yourself. But he says, "Far better is the discipline that you willingly take upon yourself." So we must remember that we have gathered here through our own will, inspired by God's grace.

The purpose of the [Yoga spiritual retreat] camp is to purify ourselves and to speak with one voice, the voice of love. When we do this we do not have to ask God to reveal Himself to us, for He stands Self-revealed. We only have to remove the dust and dirt that has gathered over many a birth on the surface of our "world-pond," called the mind. When this is removed we do not have to bring the sun to shine in it – it shines by itself.

We need a keen intellect and truth of purpose to dig out, to search out, that which is within us, hiding us from our own nature. Yes, you yourself will have to find yourself. You yourself will have to ask yourself how truthful you are, how sincere you are, how selfless you have become or are becoming.

Swami Vivekananda [Sri Ramakrishna's chief disciple] said that the whole of sadhana [spiritual practice] is only this: To realise who you are. Sincerely believe in That [one divine consciousness] and become That.