09/01/2021
Ekadasi
9 January 2021
Jai Ramakrishna
(Today is the birth-day celebration of Revered Swami Shivanandaji Maharaj. May he bless us all with Bhakti.)
Place : Monastery at Belur Head quarters, Ramakrishna Math and Mission, India.
Time : Thursday, October 28, 1920.
In the morning, according to their custom, the monks of the monastery at Belur gathered upstairs in Swami Shivananda’s room, where he was seated, looking very serious and indrawn.
Presently a monk, who had come from a branch centre a few days previously, unburdened his mind, saying:
Maharaj, though I have been practising meditation to the best of my ability, I find hardly any joy in it. Most often I find I go through my practice as through a routine. That does not satisfy my heart nor does it give me any peace.’ Swami Shivananda said very quietly : ‘Look here, my boy, peace is not such an easy thing to attain. The way to peace is very difficult, full of thorns. “Sharp as the blade of a razor and hard to cross is the way to Self-knowledge? so the sages have described it.” These are the actual words of the illumined seers. The path is indeed extremely difficult, however easy it may seem to those who have not entered it. Great effort is required to make progress in the realm of the Spirit. But if one sincerely wants to realize God, it is certainly true that he will receive His grace. You must have read in the life of Sri Ramakrishna that even he had to go through tremendous spiritual discipline before gaining the vision of the Mother.’Spiritual efforts without sincere love for God are fruitless. Sincere love is what counts. The Master used to say that when the three attachments? that of a devoted wife for her husband, of a mother for her child, and of a miser for his wealth become one, then one realizes God. If anyone feels the same intense longing as would result if these three attachments were united, only then does he have God-vision. Sincere love brings God-realization and in that alone is genuine peace and joy.
