Beautiful music and readings from the kirtan:

Notes for a kirtan at Mahayogini and Rohan’s house, 16 April 2022, from a discourse given on 18 April (Easter Sunday) 1990 at Ramakrishna Loka

‘Christ, the seed of Brahmanhood, comes down and plants the cross. And the fruit of the cross is Himself, blood and wine mingled, the fruit of his mercy. Trust him. Sister Faustina was told to write, “Jesus, I trust in You.” This is an effect that will last until Eternity. Jesus said: “The world will pass away, but my word will never pass away.” When the world finishes, revelation will come – another kalpa[1], and another, and another. When God comes, if your devotion is sincere, if your backbone is strong, you can carry the cross a bit further. Otherwise you are buried with the cross. Christ alone is raised from the cross.

‘Ignorance is darkness, and here we are suffering; but it’s better to suffer here than there. Here we have the chance to go back to our Brahmanhood. Go and pray in church – but let this church be your own room, your inner sanctum – God alone sees it. The minute you pray with love you invite God, because God is in you in the form of love, and is calling Himself, so this love is an invitation to God. In the approach of self-invitation you get more than if you have been invited.

‘lt is coming to pass eventually. God has to fulfil scripture, but He is not monotonous. The Father is Shiva, the Son is Christ, so beautifully have Shiva-Christ Consciousness, blood of the Father and the Son, united. Jesus told Sister Faustina : “Before I come as King of Justice I come as King of Mercy.” If love has invited God, you go to the church within you, in your own mind, you have volunteered yourself, and everything comes from the Self. One seed, so much harvest. A little bit of practice, effort. One step with the true heart of love brings the kingdom, and God Himself manifests. Everyone experiences God for himself, sometimes in an inebriationary way. The mind that offers itself to God gets inebriated. He hungers to go back to his communion. He cannot do without communion. He is visited by unexpected drops of purifying agent, the Blood and Light Consciousness.

‘Christ gave more grace than any other guru. His disciples got their power from the grace of God and the grace of the guru, practically none from themselves. Christ gave them a tremendous amount of grace. He gave them power to heal, to cast out evil, to raise the dead, and He has not deprived the power to this day. Ramakrishna and Christ are very similar, because Ramakrishna Aalso spoke of the grace of the guru. But he gave his power only to Narendra, to Vivekananda. He said: “First get the authority and the power from God. Then go and preach as much as you want. Who will be converted otherwise?” And Sri Ramakrishna also said that the name of Kali is enough to absolve sin. Kali is the last name in spirituality. Those who have not taken the blessed sacrament should say Kali three times. But this is private. God is for everyone, and everyone is personal and individual. The mother prepares food to suit the digestion of the child.

‘Avail yourself of the time, let the heart beat with the Indweller. Eagerness swallows time, it limits time. Eagerness, love, self-effort – the first steps. Then the Father, the Son, and an avalanche of zeal draws drops of blood from the head of God Father and Son. The Son proclaims the grandeurof the Father. He has said, “No one comes to the Father, except by Me.” Likewise Sri Ramakrishna says: “ Go to the man in charge of the stores; I have given him authority.”

‘I stand by what I have said because I have faith, and faith is what matters. Faith without practice is a talker. But practice is also a great talker, a talker of secrets. Practice unwinds the bobbin of love in the heart, and each length is measured by every breath you take. So take that string of love, and bind your mind to wherever it is manifesting. We go on mood, which is formed by the pendulum of the heart. So thank the Lord always. Eucharist means Thankyou.[2] He knows what is best according to your love, and He will not give you up. God’s love is a word, and the Word became flesh. You have to practise whenever you have a minute – in the toilet, bathroom, study, your sanctum sanctorum. Why build a tabernacle? I am in the tabernacle of your heart.

‘I love to pray, and I love to look with gross consciousness at the open sky, the earth, plants, nature. But internally all is the glory of the Kingdom of God. We spend hours in prayer, but you must have zeal of heart or it gets dry. Crucify the senses, the wandering mind, the fantasies. Those who want must dive deep in their consciousness, and draw an idea, a sketch, an image of Christ.

‘God is with form and formless. When He came in form of Jesus, they criticized and crucified Him. When formless, God’s invisible print is in every face, which is like St Veronica’s cloth, imprinted. Man’s love and search is a cloth of Christ, his love and search is the print of that divinity. God’s invisible print is in man’s face, why can’t you believe it? God is living in every existence of all existence. You believe it, and then – “Come confusion! Come delusion!”

‘The will of God must be done in all things. If you try to do something that’s not the will of God, people will be cranky with you. So in meditation you will have a sign of God manifesting. And you will know when the thing of God is being manifested – it throws me down! I bounce by His very word! It lifts me up and throws me down, over and over. I become light. I lose all my weight through one word. The word has become flesh, has become light. In His sight we lose our sight, in His presence we lose our mind. The proof is in the doing, when day has become night and night has become day, and your soul is awakened. Let one man get the light, take the trouble. I thank God for all His gifts in return for the little that I do. “There will be no peace until man turns to my mercy,” Jesus has said to Sister Faustina. In silence everything is beautiful. An empty harp.

‘Think of Christ as a man – forget his divinity. Take him as a simple man. What a triumph of a man is he! And he has said, “What I have done you too can do greater.” The amount of cures he has done, the sight he has given; and the warnings. He prevents them from falling again.

‘Voluntary suffering is victim love – you invite it. But suffering is also from the ancestors: “Let his blood be on our children and on our children’s children,” We are suffering for the benefit of our ancestors, we are responsible for our fathers. So first we have to release our ancestors. But if they have been good they will give success to one of their children. And what you do is also for the children – that is inheritance: good for good, bad for bad. But self-effort, voluntary, is beyond the law. He who gives his life receives life eternal.

‘At the end, all will be liberated. But where is your self-effort, if you have heard there is such a thing as liberation? It’s a challenge, a dedication. And the moment of dedication is in the sanctum sanctorum of the heart, Call to Him aloud with your soul, He is not deaf. But we pretend to be deaf by ignoring truth, reality, scripture. If He sees your interest He is more eager. And He responds, in a little while, after a little interval.

‘Jesus told Sister Faustina, “One hour of meditation on my passion is worth a year of flagellation.” Dedicated practice brings you very close to the heart, the Kingdom of God. That Kingdom is spiritual inebriation in the fairyland of Earth, everyone is bliss. And the Kingdom of God is also contentment and happiness. But if love is lost, God is lost. And yet, is God ever lost? We may forget, but God never forgets. Spirituality is never lost, especially if it consists of dedication. A voluntary soul is a free gift, a boon, an offering.

‘Jesus and Sri Ramakrishna both speak of surrender. Find out what is the worth of your life. Who does it belong to? Who are you keeping it for? Sri Ramakrishna said, “ ‘I’ and ‘mine’ are ignorance; ‘Thou’ is knowledge. Desires are harmful. But desire for the love of God is exempt.” You have to be a worker, restless in daytime for time to make time. Pray for a minute to become an hour. Take out the tepidity of human love and replace it with angelic, divine, transcending love, love just for love, love crucified. May your love become crucified love.

‘A minute of this love is a deep jyoti lamp lit in your soul for eternity. The heart is lit, the mind doesn’t function freely. Say, “I have no will. Thy will is my will. From today I have no will.” That was what Christ told Sister Faustina: “From today my will does not exist.”

*[1] Age

[2] The Greek word for thankyou is ‘eucharisto’

Here are just a few (of the many) highlights from the celebration of Ramakrishna’s birthday at Glen Lodge on 5 March 2022. It was a good kirtan with music from Tryambaka, Yogini, Sanjana and Sri Lakshmi. And Shiva Shakti led a programme finishing with waving of lights. Jai Narain read parts of a discourse from February 18 1984 which you can read below.

And Satchitananda’s thoughtful programme included a guided meditation from Swamiji with beautiful flute from RajaRam and sarod from SadaShiva.

Play the audio to listen to the guided meditation:

Yogini led a chant to the Guru which you can enjoy here:

Read parts of Swamiji’s discourse given at a kirtan on 18 February 1984 and shared at Ramakrishna’s Birthday Kirtan at Glen Lodge, March 5, 2022:

‘The Lord of kirtan, the lord of samadhi, the lord of love, was born on this day according to the Gospel of M. Love personified was born as Ramakrishna to show the path once again, the simple ways of bhakti yoga: chanting, contemplating, and devotional singing. And his consort Sarada too is the incarnation of God in body, the mayic manifestation of the Divine Mother, which is no different from Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna and the Divine Mother are one… Vishnu also was born as Ramakrishna, and Rama and Krishna are His incarnations. You must not forget the love of Radha and Krishna as a life of guidance here – Radha is the fierce love of Krishna, which again is invisibly present. If you don’t see God in person you can see Him through the feathery affectionate ways of approach to the subtle influence of love. Love permeates, crosses mountains, crosses oceans, goes deep where the ground is impermeable – love reaches even there…

‘The heart of the true devotee is like a star with many facets – one for his Ishta Dev, one for his Guru Dev, one for his main Dev, one for Maheshvara, the Lord of yogis. He is not monotonous. Where he is, Krishna drops in, Rama drops in, Lord Hanuman drops in, the Mother drops in. This devotee likes to be incognito, no publicity or anything. Yet the devotee’s heart is the microphone to God’s ear, so loud. When he speaks truthfully and doesn’t keep himself in darkness he shares his starlight. You see the stars when there is no cloud manifesting. And the Lord who bears the moon on his forehead is next to you. No doubt the star is beautiful, but when the moon comes out the star recognizes it is Maha Dev (or Maha Devi) who bears the crescent moon on His/Her forehead. ..

‘Don’t you remember how in the book of Mother Sarada Devi (who is blessing you this very minute), she says ”God is subtly hidden in His name”? But first the channel must be de-blocked. Or it may be open but still not receiving. The receiving channel can be cleared as soon as ego is eradicated, and the man becomes a fit vehicle for God. Then his mind will be like a vehicle that has been M.O.T’d . And this This MOT Mother is the blissful accelerator which enables the devotee’s mind to travel without light. Time is immaterial. As you think, so you are, immaterial of day or night. The devotee will eventually acknowledge that God is manifesting energetically, Shaktily, through love’s lightning flash. People can receive God without going in bliss, if God manifests Himself – or Itself; with form or without form is immaterial, light has no particularity. The subtlety of light permeates the body of the devotee. You keep God in your heart in the form of light. And when God has come the devotee is bare, he surrenders to light. …

‘So bliss, ecstasy, is not outside you, for you to seek it. It’s a false knowledge to go and seek ecstasy and bliss outside. Light is within. That inner light takes the garb of darkness, appears as you, or me, or Radha and Krishna, playful, romantic – and eternal. That’s His maya, His play, His lila. He seeks His devotees first. “Give Me a pearl,” He says, “Don’t give Me a sham.” But to get pearls you have to dive deep; just mere floating – what will that do? …Worship the guru, then worship your Ishta, then merge in your Ishta. But don’t be monotonous. All these Gods manifest as these beings, so whatever is the simplest way – step in there. God’s heart is wide open. Shouldn’t you open yours a little bit, for access?

Holy Mother Sarada has said, “The essence is the lotus of the heart.” Everyone has got this essence. In the caterpillar there is butterfly, and the human being is like the caterpillar because this essence is in you, this essence is you. But if you want to have light you have to be in contact with light, not with darkness. To receive light you have to be light yourself. You are the light of Brahman, and Brahman is again the Wish-fulfilling Tree. God has become the nectar fruit, and that fruit has given seed of you, me, and us. But we have been pecked by the birds of desires. So we think we are not worthy to be even offered to these Gods. But when the attitude changes, men become children of the Immortal. Then, “All are my brothers” – God in the form of the holy man, God in the form of the crook, of the rogue, of the yogi.

‘Therefore you have to have discrimination, and discrimination you will get not by keeping yourself in darkness but in light. This light is God, and God is the wisdom in your dark, perturbed, gloomy thought and condition… So many things are lurking in the subconscious of the mind. But you must not be affected by this world. Not being affected by this world is a great step to realization. So simple! But you must not be a hypocrite and say you are not affected when you are… So practise this, yours affectionately.

[Reads:] ’ “The subtlest, purest and most beautiful substance of the jiva’s heart transports itself into the rasa, the blissful sentiment. It is by this rasa that the meagre power of the jiva gets liberated and nurtured… At all levels of life, rasa is the life-giving principle, expressing itself as the joy of living. The complete manifestation of rasa is the Lord himself. To make the devotee taste this rasa the Lord manifests Himself age after age as man. In the present age, to make mankind taste this rasa He appeared as Ramakrishna, the ideal son, the child beyond the three gunas, and as Sri Sarada Devi, the quintessence of the mother’s heart…”
‘ We will end by reading when she left the body: [Reads:] “… Under Reverend Sarat Maharaj’s instructions [Holy Mother’s] clothes were changed and her body was placed on a clean bed. They were all sitting at a distance, steeped in sorrow, when one of them happened to notice that rays of light were emanating from her face and spreading around. At this he shouted out in excitement, “Look, look, the face of the Mother has become luminous!” All eyes were turned towards her face. They were all speechless and looked at one another saying, “What is this? What is this? Whence has this effulgence come? We have never seen it before.” The heart of everyone was filled with joy divine. They started singing a song about the Mother…”

Read Swamiji’s full discourse taken from a kirtan given on Feb 18 1984

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