- Every Saint Has a Past, Every Sinner Has a Future – Swami Shivananda
- That is Not Your Task
- “I Am Here to Protect You.”
- Truthfulness is The Key to God-realization
- Ramkanai Ghosal: Father of Swami Shivananda
- Tears During Prayer or Meditation
- Father’s Spiritual Blessing
- “Sickness Scares Away Worldly People”
- Secret Pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya
- Public Festival of Sri Ramakrishna
- Work and Worship Simultaneously
- Worship the Living Gods
- Wishes of a Knower of Brahman
- Prophet Muhammad and Sri Ramakrishna
- You Are The Allpervading Atman
- “I Was Wide Awake.”
- Last Birth and Desirelessness
- Signs of Spiritual Progress
- Thief and The Locket
- I Hold It Down to The Lower Planes
- Hypocrisy and Self-deception
- “I Am The Dog of The Master.”
The holy couple prayed to Lord Tarakeshwar Shiva for a son and performed austerities for a year. One night Vamasundari had a dream in which Lord Shiva appeared before her and said: “I am pleased with your devotion. I bless you. You will be the mother of a spiritual son.” Because the child was born by the grace of Tarakeshwar Shiva, his parents named him Taraknath. An astrologer made a horoscope, which indicated that the child either would be a monk or a king. Later, when Tarak became a monk, he threw the horoscope into the Ganges, and thus renounced the memory of his past life.
At bedtime the Master would tell us how to lie down. He would say that if we were to lie flat on our backs and visualize the Mother in our hearts while falling asleep, then we would have spiritual dreams. He asked us to think of spiritual things while going to sleep.
One night at 1:00 a.m. the Master came out to the veranda where I was sleeping and asked, “Could you chant the name of Gopala for me?” I chanted for an hour. Some nights when he did not have anybody around him, he would call the night guard to chant the name of Rama for him. What love the Master had for the name of God!
While coming down from nirvikalpa samadhi and still under its influence, Sri Ramakrishna would try to describe that state, but he was never successful. Eventually he would say: “I wish very much to tell you about it, but I cannot. Somebody shuts my mouth.” Really, that state cannot be described. “Only he who has had the experience can understand it.”
During his stay in Almora, Shivananda met some sincere seekers of truth and talked to them about spiritual life. Lala Badrishah Thulghoria, a rich local merchant, became an ardent devotee and welcomed Shivananda to his home. He was very happy to serve Shivananda, but he was unhappy that he did not have a son to maintain his family line. One day Lalaji humbly asked Shivananda to bless him so that he would have a son. Pleased with his devotion and service, the swami prayed to the Lord. By God’s grace, in due course a male child was born. Badrishah named him “Siddhadas” — a servant of the saint. Later, Badrishah’s Almora home became the residence for visiting Ramakrishna monks, including Swami Vivekananda.
Once he explained the philosophy behind his work: “The Master does his own work. You and I are only instruments. Fix your mind on him — he will make you do what is to be done. Work done out of ego accomplishes nothing. What good does it do to the world? He who has performed much austerity, God makes him an instrument and works through him. He only works in the right spirit. Work that lacks the spirit is a waste of energy.”
In spite of his stern exterior, he would serve the monks like a loving mother. Once he said to a senior monk: “You know, the boys living here are like young cobras [which means they possess the same deadly poison as a mature cobra]. You should not belittle them. Those who have taken refuge in the Master are great.”
One day a devotee lamented to Shivananda about his sinful life. The swami replied: “Haven’t you heard Sri Ramakrishna’s words on this subject? He used to say: ‘Sins are like a mountain of cotton. Even as a tiny spark of fire reduces to ashes mountain-high cotton, so does a little of divine grace [reduce to nothing] heaps of sins.’ Don’t be afraid. Call upon the Lord and repeat his sacred and potent name; nothing else will be needed.”
Shivananda managed the Ramakrishna Order through his magnanimous personality as well as his spiritual power. One evening in Varanasi a young brahmacharin expressed his unwillingness to work according to Shivananda’s instructions. The brahmacharin later became repentant and apologized: “Maharaj, you alone know what is best for me. I am ready to do whatever you want me to do.” With great tenderness Shivananda said: “That’s right. You have rightly understood. It will certainly be good for you if you listen to us and follow our instructions implicitly. Whatever we say comes directly from Sri Ramakrishna. These days I live wholly united with the Master.”
Shivananda began to initiate people in 1922, but he never claimed that he was a guru. One day in Varanasi he said to a monk: “The Master has effaced from my mind the idea that I am the guru. Shiva alone is the true guru, and in this age it is Sri Ramakrishna. It is the Master who inspires the devotees to come here, and I tell them as he prompts me from within. He is the Soul of my soul.”
On 15 January 1928 Jawaharlal Nehru came to visit the Ramakrishna Mission Home of Service in Varanasi, and he was delighted to meet Shivananda. A few days later, his wife, Kamala Nehru, came to Shivananda for a blessing and spiritual instruction. She became a devotee and visited the swami in Belur Math many times. The entire Nehru family maintained a good relationship with the swamis of the Ramakrishna Order.
Once a senior monk asked Shivananda to take disciplinary action against a monk and expel him from the Order. Shivananda listened to the accusations attentively and then asked the senior monk, “Does he not have one or two good qualities?” When the senior monk mentioned a couple of the monk’s good qualities, Shivananda’s face radiated with joy and he exclaimed, “That is enough!” That monk stayed in the Order.
Another time Shivananda told the monks: “You cannot reform people by simply talking and reprimanding. If you have the spiritual power, redirect and change the inner tendencies of people. Talk to the Lord and pray to Him so that He may do the work of reforming. If He is gracious, then in a trice bad tendencies will undergo wholesale transformation.”
As to his own realization, Shivananda once exclaimed: “I am happy. I have realized the purnam (the Infinite) by the grace of the Master.” He then joyously chanted the peace mantram of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: “All that is invisible is verily the Infinite. All that is visible is also the Infinite. The whole universe has come out of the Infinite, which is still the Infinite.”
One day Swami Kamaleshwarananda told Shivananda, “I want to study the Upanishads with you.” Shivananda replied: “Can you study our lives? Our lives are verily Upanishads. Here you will find the quintessence of the scriptures… . The light that I received from the Master I am sharing with you. The flame of one lamp lights another — thus we are all connected.”
Once, seeing his prolonged meditation, an attendant asked, “Why do you need to meditate so much?” The swami answered: “Not for myself, my child. I initiate many people into spiritual life, but not all can keep up the necessary practices. Others find it possible to do so, yet make little headway. When I concentrate, their faces flash before me and I pray for them, removing the obstructions to their progress.”
One night he told his attendant: “Today the queen of Balangir came. She made a great statement. While leaving she bowed down and told me in tears: ‘Maharaj, you have many devotees like me, but I have none like you.’ This great statement was made by Radha to Krishna. The attitude of the gopis was to surrender completely to Krishna.”
Purna Haldar, an old fisherman from Bally, would catch fish in the Ganges, not far from the monastery. As he was feeble and bent with age, most of the time his catch was poor and not sufficient to provide a meagre living. Shivananda used to watch this old man from the upper veranda, and his heart would go out to him. In order to help him, Shivananda instructed the monk in charge of the kitchen to buy whatever he caught and to pay him handsomely. In addition, the swami now and then would give him cloth and other things. For a few days the swami did not see Purna, and then after inquiring learned that he had died. Immediately he sent a monk with sufficient money and clothes to his widow, so that she could perform rites for her departed husband. Afterwards he sent money to Purna’s widow regularly.
One noon after dinner, Shivananda saw a cobbler mending shoes while seated under the mango tree in the monastery courtyard. He told his attendant: “Ah, we all have had our meals, whereas this man is drudging there with an empty stomach. Go and give him a good quantity of offered fruits and sweets.” The attendant obeyed and on his return found Shivananda standing by the window of his room with a half rupee in his hand, looking intently at the cobbler. Seeing the man eating, Shivananda remarked: “Ah, did you notice this? The man must have been awfully hungry. That is why he began to eat right away. Stand here and watch. I am having a little fun.” Saying this, he dropped the coin in front of the man, who looked up and understood the situation. Overwhelmed with gratitude and joy, the man saluted him with folded hands and put the coin in his pocket. Later, finding a monk bargaining with the cobbler regarding the price for the work done, Shivananda reproached him: “Ah! The man is poor. Why bargain with him?”
Shivananda had tremendous love and respect for Swamiji and Brahmananda. Sometimes he would enter Swamiji’s room and carefully check every little article in it. Once while looking at a group picture his eyes fell on his own figure, and he began to laugh. “Eh, who is this rogue, here?” he said. “This one became a saint, having been with saints!” Referring to six disciples of the Master who were earmarked as ishwarakotis [godlike souls], Shivananda remarked: “Swamiji, Maharaj, and a few others belonged to that category. I was not so high, but now I also have become an ishwarakoti through his grace.”
Swami Apurvananda recorded: “One afternoon after his rest the swami was seated on his bed facing the west. Sometimes he meditated closing the eyes and sometimes looking at a picture of the Master on the wall. The door and the window of the western veranda were open. Suddenly Mahapurushji raised his head upright and pointing to the mango tree in the courtyard, said: ‘Look, such a great amount of power has accumulated within me that if I tell that tree, “Be liberated,” it will be liberated. I can make people free just by looking in a particular direction.’ Saying so he again bent his head and became absorbed in meditation.”
Swami Jnanadananda recalled: “One day I was sweeping the courtyard of the Math near the mango tree. After I finished sweeping, Mahapurush Maharaj said, looking at the courtyard: ‘Hello, what are you doing? The Master walks here. I still see dust and used match sticks on the courtyard. Clean this place with special care, so that the Master can walk with joy and his feet won’t get dirty.’ After this I realized that the Master dwells everywhere in the monastery. Although we do not see him, the swami does.”
Swami Nikhilatmananda reminisced: “I used to mop the floor of the shrine every day. Sometimes the rainwater would flood the southern veranda of the shrine. One day after it rained I did not mop the veranda. Mahapurush Maharaj observed it from his room. Calling me to his room he said: ‘Look, is it the way to serve the Master? The Master can’t walk on the veranda because of the rainwater. His feet will get wet. What are you doing here? I see the Master walking on that veranda every afternoon. My child, always be careful so that the Master may not feel discomfort. He is the Soul of our souls, the Lord of the universe. “If he is pleased, the whole world will be pleased.”’”
Seeing God in everything and everywhere is the culmination of the Vedantic experience. Shivananda’s mind was full of Ramakrishna. He once told Brahmananda in Belur Math: “Raja, I see the Master even these days. Were it not so, it would be unbearable for me to live.” Pointing to the picture of Sri Ramakrishna, Shivananda said to the devotees: “Don’t think of this picture of the Master as an ordinary picture. He himself dwells in it and listens to the prayers of the devotees.”
On another occasion Shivananda said: “In this age the name of Sri Ramakrishna is the mantram for liberation. Rama and Krishna — the combination of these two incarnations is simultaneously manifested in Ramakrishna. If you chant the name of Ramakrishna, you will get the result of japam of the Rama mantram as well as the Krishna mantram. He was born to liberate sinners and sufferers, and showed a simple and beautiful path for God-realization.”
Dhan Gopal Mukherji, one of Shivananda’s disciples who had been abroad for many years, came to Belur to see him; but seeing the swami’s fragile health, he burst into tears. Shivananda consoled him: “When Buddha was about to attain pari-nirvana, final release from the body, Ananda was overwhelmed with grief. At this Buddha said: ‘Why are you weeping, Ananda? This life lasts for fifty, sixty, or at the most a hundred years. But I am about to attain eternal life.’”