Swami Shivapadananda Puri says look deep down ‘inside’ to see your connectedness with all consciousness.
Picture borrowed from Pinterest
Having a peaceful state of mind will bring in your own blessings. And when you put all the blessings together, you will go from here, with more blessings than you came with. What you brought in here, you will go with. We can't give you anything new. If you came here with God you'll take God with you, a thousand-fold. So make sure that you include God, consciously.
The whole day we think and mostly do things which are duty, but not godly duty. You must make up your mind that the little time that we have to give to God, let us do it perfectly.
Swamiji asks the group to close their eyes, imagine and feel as if they are the ancestors of the great ones. That they have a great power of holiness in them. That they are all perfect. (A beautiful exercise for the imagination).
Says Swamiji: Blessed children of God, before proceeding, I prostrate to the Supreme Being, sitting in the form of your chosen ideal (deity), in your heart. And also, I prostrate to all the different deities with form and without form, that Mohanbhai and Rambhai (who are clearly present in the group), and their fathers and forefathers worshipped. I prostrate to them, knowing that they are all embodied in Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. I prostrate to them all.
Swamiji prays: O Lord Ramakrishna, to us thou art not form only, thou art not formless only, but thou art that which we cannot express through our senses. O Lord, thou art Sat Chit Ananda (Existence, Knowledge, Bliss). I prostrate again and again to thee.
Swamiji: Man, from time immemorial, displays restlessness, no matter where he or she is. He's always restless. And because of this restless mind, he seeks activity. He wants to do something. Out of that activity, you find the manifestation, the variety of different activities in this whole universe.
This activity manifests because all of us are ignorant. We are trying to reach that which, finding it, will give us peace of mind. How does it happen? It happens like this: I do not know that you and I are one. I am ignorant of that. I don't know what you're made of, and I don't know what I am made of. Because of that ignorance, I want to reach you. I want to possess you. I want to possess the things of this world. Because of this wanting, which is desire, I reach out – activity. Because I reach out, I adopt various means to get hold of it.
If somebody stops (obstructs) us from getting hold of it, we manifest anger. And anger, as if a type of volcano hidden in man's mind, erupts, in many different forms. Jealousy, hatred, and so on. And thus activity is multiplied by activity.
The saints and sages tell us just the opposite of that. They say that you have to activate something. But do not activate it outward, but rather go inward. Now what happens when you go inward, you discover 'That', which is the basis of everything. The ground (foundation) of everything, and 'That', which every religion calls by different names. The vedantists call it Brahman, the Shankars (worshippers of Lord Shiva) call it most probably Atman, Father in heaven (Christians), Allah (Muslims), they give it some sort of term.
When Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was asked by force, to go to school – and here Swamiji jokes that he's not giving a licence to modern-day children to opt out of school – he said to his eldest brother, Ramkumar, 'What am I to do with mere bread-winning education?' That's what he said. He continued: 'I want that knowledge, by possessing which, I will know all things in this world.' He, in a way said that he wanted to find the basis of everything. And he called that, 'Kali' – Mother Kali. What kind of Kali? Jagadhatri. Who preserves and looks after the whole universe.
Now we see here, that out of this ignorance, we do things. Because we do not know that there is nothing to be reached for. Everything is built in, in this body.
Swamiji, in his inimitable way, then tells a story of islands that spoke to each other. A little island looked across the dividing ocean waves and saw his separateness and was sad because he couldn't get closer and touch the others. One of the wiser islands said to him, 'You are already one. You are not separate.' This confused the small, complaining island. The large island told him to look deep, deep down in the water until he could see that the seabed connected them all. And of course when the little island followed the instruction, he saw that they were indeed all connected. They were one.
Says Swamiji: You and I may not know that the Rishis discovered this knowledge. Because rather than looking outwards, they looked within. And in their hours of deep meditation, this knowledge was revealed to them. That they lacked nothing. They possessed all those things because they are one with everything in this whole universe.
Now, if you've caught this little idea, then we'll go further. It's like this – you all recite the Gayatri mantra (which Swamiji then chants). This mantra will create a certain vibration when you recite it. But if you want instant, now, knowledge, do it with meaning. Recite it with the meaning.
Swamiji explains: Let's say I came to Ramanbhai's house and every time Ramanbhai told me, 'Chor che'. Say I don't understand Gujarati, so I thought he was greeting me, like in Namaste! I would visit again after a while and he'd greet me with 'Chor che'. I'm thinking he's greeting me, patting me on the back, this is a very good Swami this fellow. But after ten years I discover the meaning. I asked someone, 'What is Chor che?' A rogue or crook was the answer! All these years I didn't know the meaning. Ten years I wasted. Where if only I knew, I would have done something about it. (Swamiji laughing).
There's a delicious pun built into this anecdote. Our beloved gurubhai, Professor Pankaj Joshi, explained to me that this might equally well have been Kem che, which in Gujarati means, 'How are you?' 😂
Much of Swamiji's humour was based on puns.
Click on the link below to enjoy the listen! Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
Duration 10:55
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.