What’s the ‘colour’ of your mind?
[Pictured: Sri Ramakrishna 1836-1886]
[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]
[now a Centre of the international Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission]
DAILY READINGS
Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.
Day 986
A beautiful analogy is given by Sri Ramakrishna [pictured above]. He said that the mind is like a cloth. Whatever you dip it into it will take that colour. It will take that?…colour [i.e. influence]. We have satsanga [religious or prayer services] because Sat means truth and wherever mind [manas] is with truth, it will be pure. So we try to join with pure-minded people because they are thinking of pure things – or the purest Being, God. They are talking about that which is always. They are discussing about that, which is infinite, which exists eternally. Unlike I exist today but tomorrow I may not exist. So when they discuss these things their minds are pure. And when we go near them our minds automatically take on that purity. Purity awakens in us. When we look at that purity and we hear those pure words – the pure glories of God, then we go there first of all, to purify our minds.
How to find out if your mind is getting purified? When your mind starts desiring God and God alone. When your mind refuses to have anything to do with the world. Refuses to do anything outside [externally focused], when it only wants to be inside [introspecting], know that your mind is becoming pure. As long as your mind is running outside [drawn externally], as long as your mind desires worldly things, then know your mind is not yet pure. Your mind is not taking the colour of sattva [equilibrium, harmony] – purity.
Two things you go through: One, you are purified. Two – when the mind is purified you get intense desire to know God, want God, not to ask God for his creation. The mind must start desiring God alone. And you may ask me, is that possible? It is possible! It happened to Ramakrishna, it happened to [Swami] Vivekananda [spiritual heir to Sri Ramakrishna], it happened to all the other great saints and sages [Rishis, mahatmas]. So it must happen to us. Therefore satsang is that environment that gives impetus, gives a push for our minds to unknowingly go towards God.
There's one good advantage in satsanga – that you have the company [of others]. You are used to having company. Now it's a companionship that is turned a little towards purity. It is the company of pure minds rather than having the company of impure minds. In which your mind becomes more and more impure, desiring more and more things.
Devotee asks an inaudible question:
Swamiji: Ah! That is again where the grace of God comes in. Two ways you can get the desire for this. One is when you are fed-up [tired] of the world, you will start looking for that which is not worldly. For instance, if you are terribly sick you will look for a doctor. I don't create a desire to go and look for a doctor. So when the world kicks you, gives you blows, breaks your teeth and nose, shatters you, then you'll go looking for satsang and that day must come. It has to come. Whether it comes in this birth or another birth, but it has to come. You will actually realise that all you have done is waste your time, because the world is not yours.
You know how you sometimes rebel against your father and mother, you know that feeling? So that's one way you will get the desire to look for something else and then you will go for satsanga. The other method is to read religious literature and admire – the word admire is underlined – admire the lives of great saints and sages without prejudice. Admire them.
A sadhu [holy person] has no time to look at the bad in others because he's so busy looking at good. Just like the moth is so busy looking at the light it can't see any darkness around it. A sadhu – a good man – is so busy looking at the good, you have no time for looking at the bad in anybody. You'll find some good in the greatest sinner. So, by reading good books, you'll have the desire, your mind will become a little stable, your mind will become a little purified, and then you will look for living company.
Now you may ask me how you get the desire to read good literature? [Swamiji chuckles] That's again where what you can call a recurring problem, comes in. That you will get, when the world rejects you. But the easiest way is to force your mind to read it. To force your mind to?…read it. There are two ways to create desire in people's hearts. One is take the fruit and dangle it front of them. They'll look at it, 'The neighbour has a Mercedes Benz, I also want a Mercedes Benz,' – they will get the desire. The other way is to give that fellow a broken-down car, make him annoyed with all kinds of cars. When all other car models fail, then he'll look for Mercedes Benz. One is the positive and one is the negative method.
1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time.
2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.
There are currently available, 150 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order.
For more about the Holy Trinity, and also the founding Swamis of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, please mouse over their names below:
Sri Ramakrishna Sri Sarada Devi Swami Vivekananda
Swami Nischalananda Swami Shivapadananda
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online
Reference websites – please mouse over the name and click to connect:
Ramakrishna Math and Mission Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa Ramakrishna Dham