Efficacy of japa and prayer DEVOTEE: How can I develop love for God? MASTER: Repeat His name, and sins will disappear. Thus you will destroy lust, anger, the desire for creature comforts, and so on. DEVOTEE: How can I take delight in Gods name? MASTER: Pray to God with a yearning heart that you may take delight in His name. He will certainly fulfil your hearts desire. So saying, the Master sang a song in his sweet voice, pleading with the Divine Mother to show Her grace to suffering men: O Mother, I have no one else to blame: Alas! I sink in the well these very hands have dug. With the six passions for my spade, I dug a pit in the sacred land of earth; And now the dark water of death gushes forth! How can I save myself, O my Redeemer? Surely I have been my own enemy; How can I now ward off this dark water of death? Behold, the waters rise to my chest! How can I save myself? O Mother, save me! Thou art my only Refuge; with Thy protecting glance Take me across to the other shore of the world. The Master sang again: What a delirious fever is this that I suffer from! O Mother, Thy grace is my only cure. False pride is the fever that racks my wasted form; I and mine are my cry. Oh, what a wicked delusion! My quenchless thirst for wealth and friends is never-ceasing; How, then, shall I sustain my life? Talk about things unreal, this is my wretched delirium, And I indulge in it always, O Giver of all good fortune! My eyes in seeming sleep are closed, my stomach is filled With the vile worms of cruelty. Alas! I wander about absorbed in unmeaning deeds; Even for Thy holy name I have no taste, O Mother! I doubt that I shall ever be cured of this malady. Then the Master said: Even for Thy holy name I have no taste. A typhoid patient has very little chance of recovery if he loses all taste for food; but his life need not be despaired of if he enjoys food even a little. That is why one should cultivate a taste for Gods name. Any name will do-Durga, Krishna, or Śiva. Then if, through the chanting of the name, ones attachment to God grows day by day, and joy fills the soul, one has nothing to fear. The delirium will certainly disappear; the grace of God will certainly descend. SRI RAMAKRISHNA KATHAMRITA
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:31:29 +0000
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