Swami Shivapadananda on qualities needed for God-realisation

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

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

Day 266

Something hurts me. What
hurts? Something pleases me, what is pleased? Give all that away too and take
the good and the bad as it comes.

If you put your mind on God it leads to
purity. Purity is sattvic and leads to Self-realisation. Give all to God and
guru and say, ‘This pleasure is Yours. This pain is Yours. This love and hate
is Yours. O Lord, all, all is yours.’ Try this for three months and see the results.
This is not book-learning, it is experience that I speak from.

The first quality you need
on the path is fearlessness.

When you begin worshipping a
photograph of the Lord, it is just a photo. Gradually it becomes alive if you
are sincere, and reveals itself to you. It must, this is the Law.

If you think you can reach
God-realisation by criticising others . . . Never, never.

All life comes from Him, The
Ancient One, God. There is no death, only change. The life living in this form
is now called Y, before that it was Z, and before that?

The bhakta [devotee] loves
like Christ – even if it kills him – he gets strength to bear suffering. Try to
keep the feeling of meditation all day. See God in all his creation, and love
the creation, thus you see Him everywhere.

We all want to receive love
but we have forgotten how to give it. In my absence, love one another. Give,
give, give of yourself, give it all to God, it is God’s already. God is beyond
name and form, beyond thought and feeling.