Category Archives: EBOOK

Saying of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda

HE WHO COMES TO KNOW THAT HE IS ONLY AN INSTRUMENT IN THE HANDS OF THE LORD, HAS NO EGOISTIC FEELING. HE IS AWARE THAT HE IS ONLY A TOOL WITH WHICH GOD HAS HIS WORK DONE. SUCH A MAN CAUSES HARM TO NOBODY. THE POISON OF EGOISM IS NO MORE IN HIM. A STEEL KNIFE BECOME A GOLD KNIFE WITH THE TOUCH OF THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE. THOUGH THE FORM THE KNIFE IS THERE., IT IS NOT USEFUL ANY MORE FOR CUTTING. SIMILARLY, THE JNANI RETAINS A SEEMING INDIVIDUALITY, BUT NO IGNORANCE BORN ACTIVITY OCCURS IN AND THROUGH HIM.

Prayers and Peace Chants

Sri Ramakrishna’s Daily Worship Procedure: - five Items

It is recommended that we bath and wear fresh clothes or especially reserved clothes to perform the worship. This maintains the purity of the shrine. Play holy chant or bhajans on a tape, until the worship begins. Clean the alter area. Remove the used flowers and place them in the bushes situated next to the temple. Clean the incense plate and the oil lamp. Get the necessary fresh articles ready.
The most important part of the worship is the touch of devotion and faith that actuate the worshipper.

1. Make salutations.

2. With the use of paper towels or a special handkerchief that is wet with a mild scent and a few drops of water, wipe the pictures and dry them.

3. The five Item Worship - Chant the specific mantra and then perform each action as follows:

Parables – The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

There was a farmer to whom an only son was born when he was rather advanced in age. As the child grew up, his parents became very fond of him. One day the farmer was out working in the fields, when a neighbor told him that his son was dangerously ill-indeed, at the point of death. Returning home, he found the boy dead. His wife wept bitterly, but his own eyes remained dry. Sadly, the wife said to her neighbors, ‘Such a son has passed away, and he hasn’t even one tear to shed!’ After a long while the farmer said to his wife: ‘Do you know why I am not crying? Last night I dreamt I had become a king, and the father of seven princes. These princes were beautiful as well as virtuous. They grew in stature and acquired wisdom and knowledge in the various arts. Suddenly I woke up. Now I have been wondering whether I should weep for those seven children or this one boy.’ To the jnanis the waking state is no more real than the dream state. “God alone is the Doer. Everything happens by His will.”

On The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna – Swami Yatiswarananda

Image Worship

“When should I attend to my morning, noon and evening service? The sun is shining in the sky of my heart. It does not rise. It does not set.” - (Upanishads)
When the necessary mental purification has been attained by the aspirant, rituals are no longer of any use. There are people who renounce rituals before they are sufficiently developed. This is very wrong, just as renouncing image worship before having outgrown it, is very wrong and very harmful. Never decry people who worship images. There is a great truth in image-worship and the Protestants are quite wrong in denying it. They do not know anything of spiritual traditions and spiritual life. There is not only subjective but also objective manifestation in the holy image. This, too, is the idea standing at the back of the Roman Catholic forms of worship, however distorted they may have become in course of time. For most of us, worship of some image, physical or mental, is absolutely necessary if we really wish to grow, and not merely to theorize. The idea of the formless etc.,

Life of Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, the great soul loved and revered in East and West alike as the rejuvenator of Hinduism in India and the preacher of its eternal truths abroad, was born at on January 12, 1863. Before Vivekananda was born, his mother, like many other pious Hindu mothers, had observed religious vows, fasted, and prayed so that she might be blessed with a son who would do honor to the family. She requested a relative who was living in Varanasi to offer special worship to the Vireswara Siva of that holy place and seek His blessings; for Siva, the great god of renunciation, dominated her thought. One night she dreamt that this supreme Deity aroused Himself from His meditation and agreed to be born as her son. When she woke, she was filled with joy. The mother, Bhuvaneswari Devi, accepted the child as a boon from Vireswara Siva and named him Vireswara. The family, however, gave him the name of Narendranath Datta, calling him, for short, Narendra, The Datta family of Calcutta, into which Narendranath had been born, was well known for its affluence, philanthropy, scholarship, and independent spirit. The grandfather, Durgacharan, after the birth of his first son, had renounced the world in search of God.

Life Of Sri Ramakrishna Part 3

Kesavchandra was attracted toward Sri Ramakrishna from the day he first saw him, although he was inspired with Western ideas and ideals, his heart was filled with a real love of God and it was impossible for him to enjoy the nectar of devotion all by himself. As he was getting more and more light on the path of his life’s journey from Sri Ramakrishna’s illuminating words and contacts, he freely told the public about it and invited them enthusiastically to come and share with him the joy and bliss of his holy company. It is therefore seen that all the English and Bengali newspapers controlled by the Brahmo Samaj such as Sulabha, Samachara, Sunday Mirror, Theistic Quarterly Review etc., were full of discussions about the pure character, words of wisdom and the liberal religious tenets of Sri Ramakrishna. Kesav and other Brahmo leaders were seen to repeat on many occasions Sri Ramakrishna’s words from the altar when they addressed their congregations at the end of their services and prayers.

Life Of Sri Ramakrishna Part 2

The mental states derived from Sattva, those from Rajas and those from Tamas verily proceed from me. But I am not in them; they are in Me. Deluded by these three states, the modifications of the Gunas, all this world is ignorant of Me, who am beyond them and changeless. - Gita 7. 12, 13.

Many have now come to know that at the end of extra ordinary austerity practiced continually for twelve years, Sri Ramakrishna was bidden by the Mother of the universe to “Remain in Bhavamukha”, which command he obeyed. But is very difficult to understand and explain what it is to remain in Bhavamukha and how deep its meaning is. We find in the lives of the other great souls that they said and explained the truths they had to teach in simple language and in short parables and in homely similes and allegories touching heart.

Life of Sri Ramakrishna Part 1

In the province of Bengal, north-western part of Hooghly village, two miles west of Kamarpukur there are village called Dere. Their lives a religious minded Brahmana family of moderate means in the village of Dere. The head of this family, name was Sri Manikram Chattopadhyaya, they were of noble descent, observed the customs of the pious Hindus, and worshipped Sri Ramachandra. He had three sons and a daughter. Of these, the eldest, Kshudiram, was born probably in 1775 A.D. Kshudiram; the Lord had blessed him with truthfulness, contentment, forgiveness, renunciation. He was tall and stalwart and had a fair complexion and pleasing looks. Kshudiram showed deep devotion to Sri Ramachandra, who was being worshipped in his family generation after generation. He never accepted gifts from his inferiors, and would refuse rites for them.

Life Of Nag Mahasay

Let us introduce the life of this great saint, with the ever-memorable words of Swami Vivekananda: "I have traveled far in different parts of the globe, but nowhere could I meet a great soul like Nagmahashaya. “There is a small village, Deobhog by name, at a mile's distance from the port of Narayangunj in Eastern Bengal, (now Bangladesh), where Saint Durgacharan Nag, commonly known as Nagmahashaya, was born on the 6th day of Bhadra, 1253 B.S., corresponding to the 21st August, 1846 A.D. It was the first lunar day of the light fortnight. The moon was in the Leo of the Zodiac. His father's name was Dindayal, and his mother Tripurasundari. Their ancestral home was at Tilerdi. Deobhog had been their subsequent settlement for two or three generation. Dindayal had two sisters. Bhagavati, the elder, became a widow at the age of nine and remained with her brother till her death; but nothing of any importance has been known in respect of the younger sister Bharati.

Life and Comentaries of Swami Brahmananda

Swami Brahmananda was born on January 21, 1863, at Sikra, a village near Calcutta, Bengal. His parents were Ananda Mohan Ghosh and Kailas Kamini. Kailas kamini, his mother, was devoted to Krishna and she spent most of her time in prayer, worship, and meditation. Maharaj was her only son. Being a devotee of Krishna, she named him Rakhal, “the shepherd boy.” She passed away when Rakhal was five years old. Rakhal like being with other children and played all kinds of games with them. He was especially fond of “playing church.” He would mold a clay image of the Divine Mother and worship her with his playmates. During religious festivals, he would take his seat behind the priest, and sometimes while watching the worship he would be filled with fervor of devotion and become absorbed in the thought of the Divine Mother. Ananda Mahan loved gardening.