Talks Excerpts 653 to 656 inclusive. Swamiji elaborates on Sri Ramakrishna’s Suprabhatam and morning vibrations.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
Excerpt 653.
[Swamiji speaking about the Sri Ramakrishna Suprabhatam]:
When you recite the suprabhatam your mind must feel each word. The suprabhatam means: ‘O, may the morning be auspicious to You.’ Just as in English we say, ‘Good morning to you,’ similarly this suprabhatam is a ‘good morning’ to God. You must say this prayer in such a way that the words are very clear in your mind. Lovingly let it be dipped in God’s grace. Your mind must be dyed in the colour of God’s praise.
It is a tradition as followed by the great Rishis of the past. Thousands of years ago this was started in India. ‘Good morning’ in the eastern world was associated with the greatest and the highest virtues and glories of a particular deity.
Every householder [Grihastha] on waking, should say, ‘Good morning,’ to a deity. Otherwise they will wake up with a pawpaw [gloomy] face and go into the world with bad vibrations. That vibration does not bring harmony to the universe; neither does it bring harmony to you.
He is a good employer who first says to the servants [or employees], ‘Good morning, how are you? How is your family?’ You will find that the employee becomes so happy that he will go out of his way to please his employer.
Translated, the suprabhatam means:
Seeing the decline of dharma you hastened to be born in the prosperous village of Kamarpukur in the house of a pious Brahmin. O Lord Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this holy morning. . . .
The Lord took birth because he found that his children were suffering and dharma was declining. He embodied Himself. Sri Ramakrishna’s father was that kind of a Brahmin who was full of truth and was pious.
Excerpt 654:
In childhood you experienced bhava samadhi on seeing a row of white cranes flying against a background of dark clouds; and (in your boyhood) you had the bliss of communion with Shiva on the Shivaratri night (while playing the role of Shiva).
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this holy morning.
You practised spiritual disciplines according to various sects of the Sanatana Hindu Dharma and you have also practised disciplines according to the religions of other countries, like Christianity, and thereby shown the underlying unity of all religions.
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this holy morning.
The bee of your mind always sipped honey from the black lotus-feet of the Divine Mother Kali, and you have shown the oneness between Sri Sarada Devi and the Mother of the Universe (the Divine Mother Kali).
O Lord Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this morning.
Chant it with a sweetness of voice. You are saying it to the most Beloved One.
You trained your apostles Rakhal [Swami Brahmananda], Tarak [Swami Shivananda], Hari [Swami Turiyananda], Narendranath [Swami Vivekananda], Shashibhushan [Swami Ramakrishnananda] and others who were pure souls aspiring for spiritual realisation.
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this morning.
You were always experiencing the bliss of union with the Self in samadhi and you gave the glimpse of that bliss to those who surrendered at your feet, and thus pacified their spiritual thirst.
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this morning.
[Swamiji says:] Imagine you are holding his [Master’s] feet and saying: ‘I adore you this morning.’
You took on yourself the sins of those who surrendered at your feet, out of compassion – the sins which they committed throughout their lives – and as a result you endured the sufferings that were caused due to those sins.
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this morning.
Saluting your lotus feet in the morning easily removes the miseries of the world. Knowing this the devotees devotionally take refuge at your feet.
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you in the morning.
People become filled with nectar-like bliss when they sing your hymns and get the darshan of your lotus feet. They thus become blessed by getting together near you.
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this morning.
You give the bliss of your vision to those who surrender to you, and you remove totally the darkness of ignorance in them. O Sun of Knowledge, O Ocean of Devotion, O Remover of everyone’s suffering,
O Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna I adore you this morning.
O Mother, unselfish compassion is in your very nature. Even wicked and hard-hearted persons are seen to worship you. You alone are fit to be the Mother of the whole Universe.
O Saradesvari, O Rame, I adore you this morning.
Vivekananda, you have awakened the Indians who were slumbering deep due to lethargy and idleness, by giving them blows through your powerful speeches; and you made them conscious of their duty towards their nation and towards their own selves. You have inspired them to follow the supreme spirit of religion.
O Viresha, who has brought glory to the Datta family, I adore you this morning.
One who chants this stotra with devotion after getting up in the morning and remembering Sri Ramakrishna becomes immortal.
Swamiji says: I say to you that by saying good morning like this, your children can become saints.
Excerpt 655:
In the morning I say Suprabhatam to the deities and carry on. (If you do not know Sanskrit it is okay.) After saying ‘good morning’ to the deities I look within myself and say, ‘Suprabhatam to you, may auspiciousness be to you.’
Maybe you do not have time to recite the whole Stotram, so learn one verse from each deity and recite it every morning. There is nothing wrong in that. Take any one of the mantras. Recite the one that you like best.
I know one person who, wherever she is going, will look at Hanumanji and say, ‘Good morning, how are you today Hanumanji?’, as if he is a great old friend and birth after birth he has followed her.
It is very beautiful. The chanting of the Suprabhatam creates such an intimate feeling. In the ashram if anyone comes in the morning, I also say to them, ‘Suprabhatam, suprabhatam’.
It becomes part of your nature. You do not try to do it. But you do it all-consciously because divine feeling comes into you.
Excerpt 656:
The early morning is a period where creative vibrations are in operation. But if a man does not catch hold of this creative vibration, then the whole day he feels as if he is pushing a car up a hill. He will be struggling and his mind will not be function very well. He may grow apparently healthy in body, but he will be very poor in mind.
In the scriptures Manu says that if a man gets up after brahma muhurta (especially after six a.m.) then he has committed the sin of killing Brahmins. This late rising destroys our spiritual life.
Those people who are very fond of getting up after six in the morning: beware, because God can question you; and He may say you have committed brahmahathya. Lord Brahma got up to do his work; he gave you the creative feeling, he gave you creative power, but you have lost it. It is like when the time comes to collect your ration, hundreds of people are passing through the gate, but one man is sitting down saying, ‘When everyone is finished then I’ll go and get mine.’
Brahma muhurta is a very important time in the life of a sadhaka – whether he is a householder or a brahmachari. Those people who get up after six become very lazy. You have to prepare for your next birth too; so make a habit of rising early. God is a very loving God, He is very merciful, He gives you that which you love best. Beware! Only rakshasas can enjoy sleeping well.
So, mangal arati offered during brahma muhurta, is very important. The great Rishis formulated this sadhana for themselves so that they would always be able to keep their minds high and on high ideals. Let us do the same.
Dear Devotee, if you’d like to listen to the Suprabhatam being chanted, with a running English translation alongside, please click HERE.
NEW! For our gurubhai Atmaprakash Kramer’s beautiful pictorial ‘memoir’ of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca Ashram, please click HERE.
The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.
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 an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.