You are just a hosepipe
[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 968
When a man won the grace of his guru [spiritual preceptor, teacher], by his guru's grace he became prosperous. One day as he walked into the big factory he had built, he looked at the 500 people on one side and 1000 people working on the other side and the thought came to him: Imagine if I hadn't built this factory, 1500 people would be out of work!
Just at that moment his guru walked in. He said to his guru after prostration and adoration, after offering all the required things, 'Gurudev, look at what I have done. I have built a factory and look at this factory. 1500 people are now able to afford bread and shelter'. His guru smiled and said, 'Yes my child…' Now look at the guru too. He doesn't bang it [the pride, ignorance, ego, ahamkara] on the head. The guru is a great psychologist. He is great. You don't know him yet. You'll still have to know him. He doesn't use psychology to trap people, but he uses it to give it a higher bent [perspective]. A higher…bent .
So the guru says, 'Ah, very nice, so many people – 1500 people are living better. Come let's talk a walk in the fields.' They go to the fields and they come across a big rock. The guru says 'take a hammer and break this rock.' The devotee takes a large hammer and breaks the rock. Out of it jumps a bullfrog and water spills out. He looks at his chela [disciple] and says, 'Oooh, I suppose that you provided water in this rock too, and looked after this little life called frog'. 'No, no, no – it's nature…,' began the disciple.
Swamiji [chuckling]: Wonderful scientist this fellow is now. Nature? But whose nature? God's nature. You fool, if God can look after this frog, you think he'll leave it to you to look after those men in the factory? [Swamiji and devotees chuckling]
You are doing nothing. You are only a hosepipe [instrument], through which sometimes clean water comes and sometimes dirty water. When dirty water comes, that's when your own ego gets in – your own karma gets attached – then dirty water flows. But when you just become nothing….huh?….try it, try it, try it. Just become nothing. You will do the same things but it will give you a higher feeling inside. God's grace will be flowing and clean, pure, purifying water will flow.
From that point of view Swami Vivekananda [spiritual heir to Sri Ramakrishna] makes it very clear. He says, 'My God in life, my saviour in life, Sri Ramakrishna – whatever good has come out of this mouth, a little inspiration wherever it has come out from this body – it is all his. And if anywhere I made a blunder – did anything wrong – it is mine.' He is so sure that ego must have taken over sometimes. That's why something went wrong.
Have you got that same faith [shraddha] in your deity, in your guru? [Swamiji asks devotees]
A devotee: No, no. I haven't got it.
Swamiji: No? Nothing wrong, nothing wrong – it just didn't yet come. But then don't try to look for the higher things to come. Until this comes, don't try to think in your mind, 'why didn't I get it?'
Why didn't you get it? Because the answer is here. Where is the answer? That you are not yet free and imagining inside you, for the grace [kripa] to flow. Sometime or other all of us get like that. All of us get?…like that.
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