Swami Shivapadananda Puri talking to devotees about maya, purity of heart and prana.
Overall theme of the audio post with comment from the site admin.
The audio clip opens with a question from a devotee, asking, 'Swamiji, what is maya?' So it's a good continuation from the preceding post 101 – 2. Swamiji gives examples – the most telling perhaps being that if maya is an actual mysterious power of God, it can't be illusion or unreal. The illusion or concept of 'unreal' lies in our misunderstanding of it.
Admin comment: Years ago, I said to Swamiji, 'The Advaita concept of *'neti, neti' (not this, not this) – doesn't sit comfortably with me. Because for a rope to be mis-perceived as a snake (a commonly used Advaita example) the substratum in the form of the rope has to exist in the first place.' Swamiji's response was, 'I'm glad you thought that through.' (*the practise of discriminating through negation, when exploring the path of non-dual Advaita Vedanta.) I find it helpful to remember that Swami Vivekananda emphasised that we don't move from untruth to truth, but from truth to higher truth. And, as Swami Shivapadananda said, Maya is partial truth.
A devotee then asks how we get to realisation of the full truth. Swamiji quotes the Lord Jesus as giving the method: 'Blessed are the pure in heart – for they shall see God.' Swamiji emphasises that it's not purity of mind, but purity of heart.
Following an interesting discussion about spiritual struggle, Swamiji says: 'The trouble is that we don't go inside (in meditation) to realise this. Christ said that even the birds are provided for.' We don't have sufficient faith or trust that the divine has provided – indeed pre-provided for all of our needs.
In what at first appears to be a topic switch (but isn't), Swamiji asks, 'Do you know where prana comes from?' And then proceeds to tell a delightful story about an innocent monk, sent to collect bhiksha (beg for food). Having been cloistered among men only, he sees a young woman for the first time. He's puzzled by the physiological differences. And Swamiji uses the story to stress that even before we're born into a body, the divine has pre-provided food in the form of the mother's breast milk.
The clip concludes with a very entertaining discussion about vegetarianism which is not to be missed. Click on the link to listen. Enjoy and God bless. Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
Duration 08:24
The original audio recordings of these posts, were made by close Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and Swami Shivapadananda devotee, Mother Radha Hoare. The audio editing and noise reduction of the original 1970s tapes has been lovingly crafted, over many years, by our gurubhai Tim Hoare. We thank them both.