Daily Reading 26. Swamiji on ‘Right Spiritual Attitude’.

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

An Excerpt from Meditation and Spiritual Life, by Swami Yatiswarananda: Bhakti is intense hunger of the soul for the Paramatman, the Supreme Spirit. Get purity through complete surrender to the Lord.

Swamiji: You think you are sincere, but you still find fault with others, thinking you are far above them. But you do not know that you are far below them.

Reading: There must be absolute one-pointedness of love in us. That is the goal of sadhana. Every thought must be centred in God. Consciously, steadily, direct all thoughts and desires on God. Nothing must draw the mind away. This leads to purification.

Swamiji: Otherwise, you get concentration but you have not done away with impure desires.

Reading: Ego is the source of all misery.

Swamiji: If something goes wrong, ask yourself, ‘Do I want to please God, or someone else?’

Reading: As a test, Sri Ramakrishna treated Swami Vivekananda [then Naren] with utter indifference. After a month Sri Ramakrishna asked him, ‘I do not exchange one word with you, yet you still come here.’ Swamiji Vivekananda said, ‘Do you think I want to talk to you? I love you, I want to see you.’

Swamiji: We must remember this in our daily sadhana.

Reading: Sri Ramakrishna loved the young devotees because he saw the Lord in them. He said, ‘If this were not so I would not be able to be in their company for one moment.’

Swamiji: Swami Vivekananda also said to Master [Sri Ramakrishna], ‘I love you because I see my Deity in you. I have no worries because you can never give me up.’

Underlined words are links to clarification, explanation or other sources. Just tap on them.

The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography, ‘A Life Lived For Others‘, is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.

For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ booklet of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.

There’s also a Facebook site for Swamiji’s posts now. They feature newer readings published more recently. Click HERE to view.

These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to those with him at the time.