Swami Shivapadananda on the end of Ritual Worship
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.
Day 464
Master [Sri Ramakrishna] said that when your hair stands on end [in an ecstatic state] then ritual worship has come to an end. This only happens when you think about God alone, when you are drunk with God's wine. Please do not take wine literally here. [laughter] I am talking about something that intoxicates not your mind but your soul. If the soul becomes drunk with God, who is going to worship? If your mind becomes drunk on alcohol you do not know the difference between your motor car and your bed. So can you imagine what happens when your soul is drunk with God?
Sri Ramakrishna was not an ordinary teacher. He said that his teachings would last for one thousand five hundred years and that he would then manifest again in a different body. He said he would take birth in the West – this can mean anywhere in the Western world. If he comes, you had better be prepared. So become loving and cultivate love of God.
In the Bhagavad Gita chapter ten – The Yoga of the Vision of the Cosmic Form – you find that Arjuna is on the battlefield [Kurukshetra] – the battlefield of life. He is struggling to know the truth, the truth of the purpose of life on Earth and the truth of the purpose of life in this body. This happens to almost all of us at some time. We come to the crossroads and want to know what the purpose of all this is. Arjuna asked himself this question and saw that there was nothing else but the purpose of God. Then he had a revelation and in this revelation Sri Krishna, the boy he had played with as a child, manifested in him; and showed him that this whole world, this whole universe, is not out of God, it is in God. It is part of God; and through God it all lives. They call this the Vishvaroopa [for Arjuna at the time, all-powerful, terrifying Cosmic aspect of the Lord, consuming the universe].
There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order.
Reference websites: Ramakrishna Math & Mission, Ramakrishna Centre of Southern Africa, Sri Ramakrishna Dham