Daily Reading 12. Swamiji gives advice on home shrines and meditation.

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

Your Shrine: Have a little shrine in your home, otherwise you are like a person without a heart, without life blood, who has built a life on materialism. God gives all. If you cannot think of Him as the boss, think of Him as a shareholder. Your shrine can be small but keep it clean and pure. When you are angry do not enter there, calm yourself first. In the shrine have pure holy thoughts, a vase of flowers, a symbol of light and symbol of AUM/OM. Or project it further; have a photo of the Deity you love. But don’t make it an art gallery. If you do you won’t know which one to worship, and the mind will jump from one to another.

You must have a Chosen Ideal – a picture, a light and agarbatti. It must be clean. It must be
beautiful. Then the mind becomes naturally calm and this makes holy thoughts manifest. You can worship according to the scriptures, or as you like, out of love.

Meditation: Sit straight and relaxed. Open with the Guru’s name, Ganesha, Mother Saraswati. All must be thought of. Then think of the Deity you love the most. Feel you are the guru, Ganesha, a manifestation of the whole universe. All is God. Pray to Him or Her to bless the whole universe. Feel it penetrating your whole body, the shrine and the whole universe. May all love you, and may you love all.

The greatest mantra is the shanti paat. Do it at the beginning. These are complete mantras and have the power to bring down peace. See the Deity in the form of light, of AUM/OM. Pray for the family, for unity, love and that the relatives may be happy, that you may be pure. Ask for your spiritual progress, prosperity. May there be no emptiness, pray for intellect, for children, for the highest wealth.

Then sit down with the japa mala, do japa and meditate on the Deity. See the Deity from foot to head. Do one mala, then 10 malas, then 20 malas. Keep to the same number for three months at a time. If you increase after 3 months, increase by one mala at a time. Then put the mala aside.

Sit calmly and meditate on the Deity in your heart. Or meditate on the formless – neti, neti – meaning ‘not this, not this’. Or sit calmly and do not think of any form, just sit. Then the mantra the guru gave you will come up automatically. Start with five minutes and increase every month, up to three hours. As you get older do this for three hours. Then the mantra will go on the whole day.

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.