Uploads of live talks by Swami Shivapadananda
Blessed April 2025. A delightful new addition to this blog!
Radha Hoare was a stalwart member of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, Avoca ashram in Durban South Africa. Over many years she made in situ recordings of Swamiji speaking, on a 1970s hand-held audio cassette recorder. As you can imagine, with background noises, people coughing, children crying etc. hearing Swamiji's voice on playback could be a challenge all these years later.
But Tim Hoare, Radha's son – pictured below with Swamiji – has painstakingly worked with software tools on the recordings, to 'clean-up' background noise and make for easier listening.
This is the first upload to a global audience, of one of the recordings with Swami Shivapadananda speaking to devotees, at a satsang, yoga camp or in small groups. This is one of hundreds that will be uploaded with a brief summary to this blog and later elsewhere too, so you can click and listen at your leisure.
Where possible, we'll group them into categories. But all the talks will also be found under the menu to the right, categorised under 'Recorded Talks'. Events like the Ramakrishna Centre's Yoga camps at Tongaat beach, festivals such as Diwali, Krishna Jayanti, Ram Noumi, Navaratri, topics like meditation, brahmacharya, managing the mind, etc., will where possible, also be clustered together, to make topic searching easier for you.
Your feedback or questions on this expansion of the blog are welcomed. The usual guidelines apply: Please keep engagements civil, constructive and in the spirit of respect for all religious and spiritual paths. No discriminatory comments on any topic, ethnicity, gender, etc., will be entertained.
We'll have a brief description with each audio link, so you'll have an idea of what you're about to listen to, which will make it easier to select a topic of special interest.
Here's the first clip: Duration 07:25 minutes.
(Click on link)
Overall theme: Swamiji speaks on the vital need for complete truthfulness. Alignment of thought, word and deed – particularly in prayer. Swamiji gives the example of a corrupt landlord trying to oust Sri Ramakrishna's father, Khudiram, from their ancestral land, and attempting to co-opt a neighbour to give false testimony against Khudiram in court. The neighbour, a man of truthfulness, refused to do so, even under threat of eviction from his own land by the same evil landlord.
The second portion of the talk is about the Shodasi ceremony which Sri Ramakrishna performed, by seating the Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi and worshipping her as the universal Divine Mother.
God bless. We hope you enjoy the blessing of these recordings. Please share with friends, fellow devotees or interested parties.
Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
The original audio recordings of these posts, were made by close Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and Swami Shivapadananda devotee, Mother Radha Hoare. The audio editing and noise reduction of the original 1970s tapes has been lovingly crafted, over many years, by our gurubhai Tim Hoare. We thank them both.