Swami Shivapadananda on devotion

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.

Day 481

 
 

Swamiji reads from "Sri Ramakrishna and his Disciples" by Sister Devamata, and comments

Balaram's [Balaram Bose's – pictured alongside] family did not feel it fitting to drive to the Dakshineswar Temple [pictured above] in a pretentious carriage with servants and clanking harnesses. Yet to go on foot through the crowded streets of the city was contrary to the custom of Bengali ladies who never go about excepting in a palanquin or carriage. To solve the difficulty they rose at three in the morning and walked the six miles to the Temple, whilst streets and roads were still empty of traffic and people. There they would wait until after eleven at night to return home.

Swamiji: Look at the humility of Balaram Bose and his wife. Just by lifting a finger they could get a carriage. But they knew better. To go to a holy place they had to humble themselves. I want you to look at the humility, to look at the quality of these householders. Now if one of you did something like this your wives or your husbands would call you mad, silly. But there is nothing silly about it. Everything about it is holy.

Reads: The whole family caught the fire of their devotion and shared in the fervour of that spirit. I saw Balaram's mother, she was over ninety years of age, yet she still went on special occasions to 

visit the widow Saradamani Devi [the nun-wife of Sri Ramakrishna – pictured, after the mahasamadhi of Sri Ramakrishna]. She was full of glowing ardour and expressed her devotion for the Master in many ways. One day she arrived at the Temple when the barber was cutting Sri Ramakrishna's hair. (In India the barber goes to his customer.) A curl fell from the shears onto Sri Ramakrishna's lap. He picked it up and laughingly gave it to her. She took it home and put it in a silver box and preserved it with great reverence.

Swamiji: She preserved the hair of the Avatar [Incarnation – Sri Ramakrishna –
pictured alongside] with great reverence. I want you to look at the devotion behind it. Look at it. Look at the reverence. What did she put it in? Not in a wooden box but in a silver box. She preserved it, and most probably worshipped it.

No one however, in that devout household, could surpass Balaram Babu in loyalty and unquestioning surrender. The disciple Shashi [later Swami Ramakrishnananda – pictured below] told me that
Balaram had a little casket in which he kept a picture of the Master. It was his custom to waken at four in the morning, open his casket, stand the picture up and, seated on his bed before him, spend a long time in prayer and meditation. When his life was ebbing and he was lying apparently unconscious, with closed eyes and helpless hands, exactly at four o'clock he reached for the casket, opened it, looked at the picture and soon after passed away.

Swamiji: How many of you have love for your guru [Spiritual Preceptor] like that? He was unconscious (that word must not be forgotten) but subconsciously he was awake. At four o'clock he opened that drawer, took out that picture, looked at it and passed away. In this age and in this time a young boy did the very same thing. He came and visited us in Durban [KwaZulu Natal, South Africa], went back to Ladysmith and suddenly had a heart attack. He picked up his photograph of the Master – he was suffering from excruciating pain – he held it tight and passed away. That was Ricky. It happened then, it happened now. He did not call for his mother, he did not call for his father, he did not call for his brother or sister. He knew that his eternal companion was God Himself. Nobody would expect that from Ricky. Think about it. Is it a play? Is it something so simple to do? I have experienced, by your grace, that when death comes one straight away gasps for breath, one does not even think who is near and who is far. Here a man had the time to take the casket out, open it, look at the photograph and go peacefully.

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