At the yoga conference Richard became good friends with Bhikku Vivekananda, a spiritual leader from Thailand, who had thousands of students at his monastery. They attended a lecture of J.Krishnamurthi, a world renowned author and orator. Born in South India in 1895, he was educated in England and at the age of twenty seven formally accepted the role of the enlightened master, and was worshipped by over 60,000 members. But seven years later, in 1929, he rejected his position and dissolved his religious movement. In his fiery speech, he enthusiastically called for all to reject ashrams, for they are simply concentration camps for the mind. He also declared spiritual gurus to be dictators, and meditation systems to be futile. Richard thought of his friend Bhikku, and wondered how he would react to this call for revolution. Bhikku accepted Krishnamurti’s words as true, and joked, “I will reject the teachings of the teacher who teaches us to reject teachers and teachings.”
Richard felt that although Krishnamurti was a great debater, on a personal level he was gentle, kind and humorous. He then pondered on his teachings: “Eastern literature was filled with histories of enlightened saints who carefully followed their religion or their particular Guru. How could I disregard them all on the basis of one man’s realizations? However, Krishnamurti had impressed upon me that superficiality had no place in spiritual life. We must take personal responsibility. If we become overly attached to the externals, we may forget their very purpose: to purify the heart.”
Radhanath Swami balances the need for rituals with an awareness of its purpose. He emphasizes that Rituals are certain practices- unique to each religious tradition- that prescribe procedures for worshipping God. A religious person, through a set pattern of behaviour, regularly performs these ceremonies. However, today these customs have earned a negative connotation and have been misunderstood by many. This is due to the rituals being used to serve different purposes (other than service to God); they often help a person express his loyalty to a religion, or helps gain acceptance within a community. These practices-obliging a person from birth to death- also consume substantial time, money and energy of the practitioner. Thus the rituals which are in essence positive facilitators to remember and serve God, get diluted, and are reduced to mechanical, repetitive acts. Not surprisingly intelligent people like J. Krishnamurti are put off by these blind rituals.
The purpose of rituals is to reawaken the divine love of God that’s within every living entity. This love, although natural, is presently covered by the thick layer of material consciousness. A set of rituals are thus offered by the founders and teachers of each faith, to help the followers gradually purify their consciousness of material contamination. For example, in the Indian culture, we perform the aarati ceremony where a devotee offers fragrant incense, fire lamp, and water to God. These rituals are intended to help the devotee realize that God is the source of fragrance (corresponds to the incense offered), heat (connected to the fire lamp), and all other elements in this material creation. A devotee acknowledges God’s proprietorship and our dependence on Him for basic amenities. Through the aarati ceremony, we offer the elements back to God, reciprocating with His kindness and expressing our intention to love Him.
Radhanath Swami urges us to always remember this goal of rituals, “When we forget this divine purpose of rituals- connecting our consciousness with the Supreme consciousness, God- and instead get distracted by the loud and grandiose externals, the rituals become an end in themselves. The traffic laws have a purpose; to help the driver reach his destination smoothly. If a motorist is unsure of his destination, he’s eventually lost despite his strict following of the traffic rules. Similarly, if the follower of a religious faith is unaware of the goal of spiritual enlightenment, he’s lost in the material world, even in the garb of a religious conviction. Then the rituals have the opposite effect of what they’re supposed to achieve-they keep a person bound in material consciousness.”
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Founder-acharya of the International Society For Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)
“Go to India” a sweet but commanding voice; spoke up in the heart of young Richard (later Radhanath Swami) who was immersed in meditation, his search for meaning in life has brought him to the Isle of Crete. Today he was ordered to go to India. Born and raised in the middle class suburbs of Chicago, Radhanath swami grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s era when popular musicians protested war, prejudice and social injustice. Radhanath swami would listen to these songs again and again, but their lyrics referring to God stirred his soul. Peter, Paul and Mary- the folk trio from Greenswich village sang in their debut album
“Early in the morning, about the break of day
I ask the Lord, to help me find my way”
This simple prayer was to guide Radhanath swami in the coming years of his life........
This is indeed the best spiritual adventure book that I have ever read.
Recomend to all
View CommentInteresting. Thanks for sharing.
View CommentThat is the sorry state of religion in the world today – just a set of rituals and practices. It is for the first time in my life that I heard from Radhanath Swami that one can love God and it seems very believable for anyone who listens to him once or even looks at him once !!!. He seems to me a man soaked in the love of God.
View CommentReligion now a days become a bussiness of so called sahdus. real sadhus like HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj are really rare to find.
View CommentReal religion is Love of Godhead. Radhanath Maharaj is showing this path to all.
View CommentThank You so much Guru Maharaj
View CommentThis is the reason why most people turn to atheism.For most, religion means only a set of ritualistic practices or a kind of blind faith with no higher pure purpose.Radhanath swami in this article has put forth a solution for this problem. Not to reject the rituals but to practice them by knowing the purpose behind them.Thus the problem of blind following and absurd rejection is solved.
View CommentNow a days there is lot of cheating in the name of religion. Even people are getting confused since they don’t know the real essence behind the rituals. This article throw light on the true understanding on performing rituals by which one can be liberated from this cycle of birth and death.
View CommentFighting in the name of religion is the proof that that for which they are fighting is not religion at all. Beautiful narration.
View CommentThanks for enlightening ..dear gurudev
View Commentto teach real religion is an absolute necessacity.
Not to reject the rituals but to practice them by knowing the purpose behind them.
View CommentHH Radhanath Swami Maharaj teaches this very wonderfully
Today religion around the world has become just a price earning instrument. Conflicts are fought in the world on the basis of religious sentiments…..
Why this is happening is beautifully explained by Radhanath Maharaj. If we start following religion and religious activities as a service to God then all these unfortunate events in this world will stop.
Thank you for this post.
View CommentHow true that rituals without actual prayer makes us mechanical.
View CommentVery True! Often times we find that we get caught up in the details and loose out on the essence.This leads to a gradual erosion of values ,beliefs and faith. Thus the current generation does not find so much value in Religion due to Religious rituals without being gudied on its essence and thus seem disconnected.
View CommentThus as mentioned by Radhanath Swami it is essetial to go beyond Suprficial rituals and shallow religious practices
kaliyuga which is a age of hypocrasy & quarel,maharaj always preaches to be away from them
View Commentto convert the ritual into spiritual , we just have to prefix SPI and that is nothing but Shrila Prabhupada’s Instructions to our life and see how it becomes truly spiritual, HH Radhanath maharaj is a living example and sincere desciple of shrila prabhupada
View CommentTill now we used to follow rituals as for the name sake. But here I came to through Radhanath Swami’s book that the purpose of rituals is to connecting our consciousness with the Supreme God. Thank you very much for clearing the doubt.
View CommentAll Glories to H.H Radhanath Swami Maharaj.
The Modern day society should understand from these musings that rituals are just not mechanical exercises to please your elders but our eternal responsibility and duty to be exercised in order to express our gratitude towards the Lordshp.
View Commentour primitive understanding of religion and god is shallow.
View Commentradhanathswami teaches us to love god and accept all situations as HIS SUPREME WILL.
This is very true how through rituals we can invoke our inner hearts with prayers and devotion.
View CommentThe article is very true as it applies to todays age and world.
View CommentThank u 4 posting it.
Today many people lost the knowledge of why we are following rituals. In FOI 2010 I heard that if you add Srila Prabhupad’s Instructions to ritual it becomes (SPI)ritual.
View CommentThank you so much for bringing this topic.
Very nice, knowing the reason behind the action.
View CommentRadhanath Swami is making all efforts in helping us connect to the Supreme Lord. Without his spiritual guidance, we would be left totally confused by the myriad of religions & sects that exists in today’s society
View Commenti always know why the ganges was offered to itself now i know the reasons for the aarti.Thank you
View CommentIt would be so nice to transform the RITUAL activity into SPIritual activity. It is well stated the importance of ritual to re-awaken our dormant love for the Supreme Lord.
View CommentIf we follow superficial rituals without any basis, our spiritual progress will be hampered. We need to take shelter of a genuine guru like Radhanath Swami who is not only knowledgeable, but also practices what he preaches to the hilt.
View CommentThe book is quite inspiring and one must read in the life time.
View Commentall glories to my guru maharaj, the title and the subject brings to me one lesson to be understood that during school days some students may trick the teachers by escaping from their prescribed home works or studies to be completed but ultimately it is that students who suffer in their future career endeavours than the teacher who selflessly try to help the students to progress in their life, thanks to srila prabhupada and to my krishna for giving us our wonderful guru maharaj, hari bol
View CommentMere performance of rituals without understanding the essence and the spirit behind the rituals is like presenting an empty envelope to God. It would be insulting to give someone a gift wrap without a present in it.
View CommentThank you for such a convincing reason behind following rituals. Now, I know what HH Radhanath Swami is teaching is not based on the hollow sentiments.
View CommentIn this age even though one tries to perform rituals, one can’t give any reasoning of why they are doing this; if someone enquires about it. And so, at last they come to a conclusion of rejecting it which leads to atheism.
But due to this reasoning of H.H.Radhanath Swami Maharaj, one comes to know that performing rituals is the way of showing our love to Krishna and getting back our real consciousness of our relationship with God by purifying ourselves
View CommentSome how it seems we are so much covered by rituals be it on family, community, religious or even on national level without understanding spirit or lessons behind them.
My gratitude to Radhanath Swami for this clear understanding on rituals.
View CommentBy Going beyond superficial rituals and shallow religion, we will attain love of Godhead.
View Commentthank you very much gurgmaharaj.
View Commentthank you very much maharaj..
View CommentRadhanath Swami Maharaj has taught us the meaning of prayers and the way to connect to God without having to perform rituals mechanically. Thank you Maharaj.
View CommentNice website
View CommentIt is so inspiring to read about how we can go deeper into the essense of sprituality rather than harping on the superficial ritualistic practices. Thank you very much Radhanath swami.
View CommentVery nice to have the insight into what actually Ritual means. Thanks to Radhanath Swami for making us understand what is ritual and how it is important to for a practitioner.
View CommentWhile substance is important, it is form that contains, protects and helps propagate the substance. Thanks to knowledgeable saints such as Radhanath Swami that we haven’t thrown away all our traditions.
View CommentSuperficiality has no place in spiritual life. whatever we do should be straight from the heart.
View CommentThank you for this post.
View CommentRadhanath maharaj ki jai
Very well said,’always remember this goal of rituals’. Many a times people forget the real purpose and end up in the frustration. Thank you Radhanath Swami for focussing this point.
View CommentI remember one quote from Radhamnath swami maharaj that rituals is “I” centered and spirituality is “God” centered
View CommentI heard from one of the follower of Radhanath Swami, that Spiritual (act) minus Spirit turns to ritual.
View CommentThis is really awakening…
View CommentRadhanath Swami is a true seeker of the “ESSENCE”….He has shown us by his example….we can find this in his Journey home Book…..Truly…!!!
View CommentThis is a wonderful insight on how we have to always thrive to go beyond the rituals. Though the rituals are most important to get to the substance
View CommentFinding the deepest reasons of why we do what we do is a very crucial point in our lives. This is what will help us look deep in our heart and correct – will take life to levels we never expected to.
We have to find the essence of everything – what is the essence of my life?
Radhanath Swami seems to be quite ahead on this path, better to take advantage and learn from him!
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