Swami Shivapadananda with additional meditation instructions
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji
575
While you are meditating, images of other deities will come into your mind. If you are meditating on Sri Ramakrishna, Lord Shiva's image or Mother Kali's form may come into your mind. Do not push this image away. Our gurus say, 'Look at it for a little while. Then take it and merge it into your Deity [Ishta Deva] proper.' Let the other deities be respected and merged into your deity. Similarly you must picture your deity regardless of whatever other mantras come to mind.
This meditation I have described is meditation on God with form. In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna rightly says, 'O Arjuna, it is difficult to meditate on God without form, on My unmanifest aspect. It is easy to meditate on My form and forms.'
As a beginner you must start off with half an hour and keep it at half an hour for six months. Do not do more than that. Your mind will say, 'Go a little bit more than half an hour, you are a great yogi.' You will find that the mind gets dissatisfied like this; but even if it wants to do extra time do not do it. If, on the other hand, the mind wants to do less, push it for the full half hour.
After six months you can push the time a bit. Do five minutes more. Keep it like that for three months and after another three months you can increase it until you reach one hour. After that you do not have to keep time, it will take its own course.
After meditation, if you want to sing, you can lovingly sing a kirtan. You can sing before meditation too if you want.
Devotee: Swamiji, when we are meditating how will we know how long we have been sitting for?
Swamiji: If I say, 'You will know,' you may not believe me, but you will know. When you are almost reaching that half hour your mind will start telling you. Otherwise you can use an alarm clock.
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.
2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in
red in the posting for further explanation
or links.
There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.
Reference websites (please mouse-over the name to connect): Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Ramakrishna Centre of SA, Ramakrishna Centre of Southern Africa, Ramakrishna Dham, Swami Shivapadananda 2