Swami Shivapadananda on remembering you’re NOT the body
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji
Day 511
You are closing your heart in the form of sleep, in the form of laziness, in the form of wandering. You cannot learn like that. You have the time but you are wasting it. That is your business. In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna has said, 'I am Time the all-devourer.' He devours both vidya [knowledge] and avidya [ignorance]. In the form of laziness and non-concentration he is devouring knowledge and leaving you in more ignorance. So, watch yourselves. Your deity has come in the form of time, so worship it, take advantage of it.
Swamiji to devotee: Did you see yourself this morning?
Devotee: Yes, Swamiji.
Swamiji: Where did you see yourself?
Devotee: In the mirror.
Swamiji: No. You saw your eyes in the mirror, [laughter.] It is a very funny thing but you can never see your Self and yet you say, 'I saw myself, I looked very beautiful.' Every morning you are doing it.
Sri Ramakrishna said, 'O Lord I don't know what to say about You. It is better to say nothing, because everything that I say, You are not that.'
When you looked in the mirror you forgot what you had learned here – that you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not the intellect. You are thinking, 'This is my body, I am designing it, I am making a beautiful coat and putting it on.' Forget it. You cannot realise God like that. You have to remember that you are not the body all the time.
People say to me, 'Swamiji, I am doing so much japa [repetition of God's names or a mantra] why is nothing happening?" I say, 'What will happen? Nothing will happen. What's supposed to happen is happening. You think you are the body so it is making you conscious of the body.' You keep on thinking thoughts like: 'I have been looking at this body through these eyes for years.'
God is impartial, sooner or later He comes to everyone. So all this: that you are the self, that you are this, that you are that, that your headache got cured, that your nose was bent and it became straight – is not God. No. Every second you must think that you are not the body.
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was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time.
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