Swami Shivapadananda on doing everything as if for the Guru

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

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

Day 297

 

All speak of the guru but no one knows. With every action think:
‘This is for God,’ or, ‘This is for the guru.’ If you forget then try again and
again. If it works for one, it must work for all. You cannot know God [directly,
in the initial stages of spiritual life] so use the guru. Devotee: If I do all
the things you say I will be wrecked. Swamiji: Wonderful. That is what I want,
for the ‘I’ to be wrecked. Instead of attachment and detachment and renunciation? God.

Jnana [knowledge, wisdom] plus bhakti [devotion, love] equals balance.
Use worldly devotion to broaden the heart. Today many hearts are shrunken. So
first open the mind and heart. This leads to calmness and progress.
Determination is the only way to achieve this. We will automatically change our
habits once we have detachment. This will happen quickly – though to get
detachment may take us a long time. Keep on.

Sincerity is childlike faith. If the child burns itself it does not rush
round saying, ‘It is your fault,’ or giving a thousand excuses. It just cries
and says, ‘Burnt, burnt.’ We say a child has no discrimination, but it has. Out
of a hundred people she can pick out her own mother. This is how we must be.
Have discrimination and serve God.

Make all your own.

With the Havan [Hindu sacred fire worship ritual] we pray: ‘O [Divine] Mother,
awaken the knowledge of the Self in me, as you awaken the fire in wood.’

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1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji’s
words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave
was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time.