Topical Musings
hat is the Sadhana that Swami Vivekananda prescribed for us? Contrary to popular belief, he did not prescribe anything new, of his own. He merely amplified the exact method that Sri Ramakrishna had prescribed. Swami Saradananda has written a wonderful book, Sri Ramakrishna Lilaprasanga, translated into English as Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play. It is an authentic biography of Sri Ramakrishna. It has a very interesting
work. It is just as when a young wife advances in pregnancy. She is given less and less work to do; and when the child is born, she gives up household work altogether and is busied exclusively with the infant. But an ordinary person must try to do his duties with detachment, depending on the Lord, like the maidservant who does everything for her master, knowing in her heart that her home is elsewhere. This is known as karma yoga. As far as possible one should take the name of the
51 The Vedanta Kesari
PA G E S P O N S O R : A D E V O T E E , K I S M AT P U R , H Y D E R A B A D
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June 2019
Our Sadhana
passage in this regard. While delineating the divine revelations of Sri Ramakrishna after his six long months of Advaita Siddhi, Swami Saradananda writes about one such revelation showing that ordinary people will progress through Karma Yoga. This is indeed a momentous revelation and Swami Saradananda explains it as follows: ‘The Master indicated the limits of Karma when he said, “The action of a sattvic person drops off automatically. He cannot work even if he tries to; the Lord does not allow him to
Lord and meditate on Him while discharging one’s everyday duties in an unattached way.”’ 1 Now, let us compare this with what Sister Nivedita has to say on the same topic. While ex p l a i n i n g t h e s a d h a n a t h a t Swa m i Vivekananda delineated for all of us, she writes2: ‘Let us be true to our work. Our task is our swadharma. “Better for each man is his swadharma, however faulty his performance, than the task of another, though he could do it easily.” That thing which faces me and frightens
