Swamiji on taking ‘time-out’ for God

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.

Day 458

Sri Ramakrishna said, "Once a year we should go into solitude, into quietness and there whole-heartedly worship God." So we do these Yoga Camps, not to cure any disease, not to give us wealth in the form of material things, but to yearn and cry to God. We must be like like Prahlada, like Dhruva and like other bhaktas [avid devotees] and childlike saints who continuously called on God. For three or four days, we should go into solitude and try, as far as possible, to forget the world completely and to remember God alone. Cry to him to give you bhakti – unmotivated pure love to His Lotus Feet – and to give you jnana, knowledge of God. Knowledge of God only comes when you are dissatisfied with your present condition, and when you know that there is something greater than this transitory world. We meet at these Yoga Camps for this reason. We try to study the scriptures, to sing bhajans and kirtans, to do japa [repetition of a mantra or God's names]  and meditation so that our minds get a taste of that great yearning for the Supreme Brahman in the form of our Ishta Deva [chosen or preferred deity]. First we must control the mind and the intellect. After that, the world will not affect us when we do our daily work. With control we will be able to overcome all kinds of difficulties. With control, attachment to worldly things will not be in our minds nor in our intellects. The sciences only deal with hypotheses. And a hypothesis is based on the effect of something which caused it. Scientists have not yet really come to the Source, but one day they will.

Think carefully what it means when you are doing your arati [offering and waving of lighted lamps to the deity] or your sadhana [spiritual practice] at home.

God will not forgive you if you are bluffing. He is the one who hears the heartbeat of the ant. Do you mean to say He does not know what you are saying and doing?