Sri Swamiji in Canada, Datta Vani, 20 - 23 Jul 2006
Datta Vaani – Pujya Sri Swamiji’s Divine Discourses
Toronto, Canada, July 20-23/2006
Datta Yoga Center, Brampton - Thursday, July 20, 2006:
Swamiji focused on one’s sacred duties in life.
You must continue to perform your duties in the usual manner even after you come under the umbrella of Swamiji. Many people neglect their duties and totally depend on Swamiji saying He would take care of everything. It is not good. You must continue your good habits like chanting mantras, doing poojas, visiting temples, etc. You must continue to observe your daily spiritual practices. You should not assume that if you telephone Swamiji with your problems everything would be taken care of. Also, you have your duties towards your parents, family, and Guru which must be observed.
Swamiji wants to tell you the story of a Panduranga devotee, who sincerely performed his duties towards his parents. One day Lord Panduranga came and knocked on the door of this devotee announcing His arrival with the intention of taking the devotee to Vaikuntha. The devotee asked Panduranga to wait for a while as he still had some unfinished tasks of seva to his parents, and only after finishing those tasks he would talk to the God. Sage Narada noticing this said to the devotee that he should be a fool to make Lord Vishnu wait for him at the doorstep. The devotee replied that Narada Himself could ask Lord Vishnu to come inside and wait until he was ready. Lord Vishnu said He did not want to give darsan to the devotee’s parents as they did not deserve it. The devotee insisted he was not concerned of his parents’ karma and that it was his sacred duty to perform seva to them.
Here is a story to indicate the status of one’s Guru. When Guru and Lord Govinda stood in front of a devotee, the devotee prostrated to the Guru first and then only to the Lord. After all, it was the Guru who introduced the God to the devotee and without the Guru he would not have known about the very existence of the God. So it was quite appropriate that he greeted and served his Guru first and only then the God.
These two stories stress the importance of observing and performing one’s sacred duties in life towards parents and Guru.
Before coming under the fold of Swamiji, many of you were performing poojas, chanting mantras, and practicing meditation. It was the constant and faithful observance of these spiritual practices that brought you closer to your Sadguru. So you should continue with these practices. To leave all your duties and obligations and to depend on Swamiji for everything is not good. You can pray Swamiji to give you any needed support and energy.
Jai Guru Datta!
Datta Yoga Center- Friday, July 21, 2006:
Swamiji talked about reaching within ourselves to find who we are.
Swamiji has given so much energy, so many mantras, stories from Bhagavad Gita, Guru Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata to guide your spiritual life. But you need to practice what all Swamiji said. You do not want to practice, you want quick results like ‘tideer idli’ and ‘tideer saambaar’. You are lazy. You do not study, you do not meditate. If Swamiji tells you ten words you follow one and sometimes not even one. Swamiji has always spoken about sravanam, mananam, and mathanam. You need to do mathanam and find out for yourselves.
Swamiji speaks for two hours, and you sit in front of Swamiji but your mind is wandering somewhere. You do not understand, and think aadhyaatmika is a difficult subject. You do not practice, and you have no satisfaction in life and always you are depressed. You spend all your life eating and sleeping. Sitting in front of Swamiji and thinking about something else, and letting your mind wander, it is waste of time and waste of money. So many people say “I know Swamiji for 25 years, 30years, …”, but of what use? You do not practice and you ask questions all the time and want an answer immediately. You do not spend your time meditating and try to find within yourselves answers. The more Swamiji gives you answers and solve your problems you need more. This year you want a male baby and next year a female baby. There is no end to your desires and no end to your questions. I do all these for you because that is my avataara. I try doing all these to attract you towards spirituality so I can train you in your spiritual life. Of course, Swamiji has taken a different avataara and Swamiji is very happy, but do not try to get all your answers and do not depend on Swamiji for all your problems. Swamiji directly and indirectly gives you so many lessons. But you are not ready to take. My duty is to give you support and energy. How many of you understand this relationship and make use of it? Even when Swamiji gives you interviews, you ask one question, two questions, three questions, and so on. You do not try to understand, ‘what is my relationship with Swamiji’ and how to approach Him. He is my Guru, my father, my brother, etc. You do not understand that even without talking to Swamiji you can strengthen your relationship with Swamiji. Take my devotees in Mysore Asrama. They are in thousands. I do not have time to talk to each and everyone of them. But still they remain my devotees and have heart to heart conversations with Swamiji and try to find their answers within themselves. They take energy from me and have good understanding.
Everyone can give bhaashana but what Swamiji gives you is anugraha bhaashana. Swamiji gives you blessings, energy. I know your past janma, and your future. If you stand in front of Swamiji, Swamiji like a scanner knows all the secrets of your past, present, and future janmas.Swamiji sometimes tells you directly and sometimes indirectly. But Swamiji now realizes it is dangerous to tell you directly, because when Swamiji tells you directly, you say: “OK, Swamiji! Now that you told me the problem, you fix it yourself!” This is not good. You should ask Swamiji directions as to what you should do to fix the problems and not ask for solutions to problems. Take it easy. Surrender yourself. You have to face your karma. Do not ask Swamiji to remove your karma. Ask for energy, ask for directions. If I take all your karmas, then I have to eat yourkarmas. I am not going to do that. I will give you energy and strength.
OK, today you come and tell me, “Oh Swamiji! Forgive my sins!” I say OK and remove your sins, karma. It is not the end of it. Tomorrow you come back with new sins, karma. This will keep repeating day by day. Swamiji knows to whom to give and what to give. Swamiji also knows to whom not to give. If I take the responsibility, you need to pay me something, some fees. I do not mean money, dollars.
So all I need you to do is to practice for your spiritual upliftment and pray Swamiji for strength and support.
Jai Guru Datta!
Datta Yoga Center, Brampton Friday, July 22, 2006:
Swamiji touched base on drishti paata, sparsa paata, and control of indriyas. Main focus was on our duty to our children and giving moral education to our children. He also stressed the need for proper balance in life.
Many devotees feel that Swamiji did not talk to them personally. “He spent 10 minutes with so and so and half hour with so and so.” But many of the devotees do not realize it is not necessary for Swamiji to sit and chat with you. Just the fact Swamiji looked at you is enough. Swamiji’s blessings come from drishti paata (by looks) or sparsa paata (by touch). Swamiji can transmit His powers and blessings merely by His looks. He can pass on energy to devotees by just a glance or making a quick eye contact. Even if Swamiji did not look at you directly, the fact that you got a glimpse of Swamiji should be enough for you to gain your inner strength.
You can control your karmendriyas by constant naama sankeertana. Swamiji was elaborating on the song, “O Rama nee naamam-enta ruchiraa”. You waste 2 ½ hours watching cinema, and when you sit back and think, what have you learnt from these cinemas? How does that help you for your spiritual upliftment? Instead if you spend those 2 ½ hours listening to music, reading books, meditating, every atom of your body will vibrate with Rama naama. Swamiji can hear every nerve, hair particles on his body saying ‘datta … datta …’ constantly. When you do Rama naama japa repeatedly, even your saliva becomes sweeter and you can feel the sweetness when you swallow your own saliva. Do not spit out that saliva that is charged with Rama naama. Even when you go to sleep after the Rama naama japa, you can feel the ecstasy in your sleep. Some people argue or quarrel before they go to bed, which results in disturbed sleep and make them tired physically and mentally.
It really pains in Swamiji’s heart to see the upbringing of the children nowadays. Parents do not teach children moral education. They are proud that their children study in school so well, get 1st rank, dance in public, and play sports, etc. But Swamiji’s question is what about moral education? We do not teach children discipline, spirituality and customs. Parents themselves think, “not now!” From birth to 5 years we say it is too early for spiritual lessons, 5-25 children are busy with school education and worldly and physical temptations. Then busy with job and marriage. At the age of 30-35, now with the initial attractions to each other subsiding, deciding to go their own way, ending up in divorces. Misunderstandings result in loss of love, family, children, etc. All this is because of lack of moral and spiritual education. In Indian culture, once you are married, until death you remain as husband and wife and good friends.
People go through so many confusions in this life. We are born again and again. Each time we are suffering for 9 months in mother’s womb taking birth and waste our life once we are born. Human life is the only one that depends on others at every stage of our life. I have watched Discovery Channel and seen baby animals within 2 seconds of their birth get up and run. Only human children depend on their parents for 2 years from birth to walk and do their own stuff. What is this maaya? Same human beings with karma indriyas receive communications from all planets.
Swamiji recollects His speech on Valmiki Ramayana where Dasaratha tells Viswamitra how Rama goes to sleep at sunset. In Valmiki Ramayana you can learn so much about the connections between planets and body. Today being the Sani Trayodasi day, I wanted to tell you the connection between planets and human body. Because you are all sitting with Swamiji in satsang, the bad time, bad effect that Sani on Trayodasi day will have on humans will pass away. You all will fall in good righteous path. Do not be afraid of Sani. Sani is a yoga purusha. Sani gives energy to indriyas. If Sani is in your star, you are a lucky fellow and will receive yoga sampattu.You will get different vibrations and will get different experience. Sani is now in good house.
People have all these false conceptions. People are afraid of Sani. People have different notions about our deities also. I know people saying that they do not want to worship Hanumanta as He is a brahmachari and they will also remain single if they worship Him. People used to say the same about Dattatreya. So only Swamiji added Anagha Lakshmi with Dattatreya and now every one is happy. People say they do not want to worship Rama as they may suffer like Rama in getting separated. They do not want to worship Krishna, and so on. They do not want to worship Siva as He lives in graveyard, He does not have a house or wealth and riches. But everybody likes to worship Venkata Ramana as He gives money. Likewise people find all kinds of excuses to escape from pooja, meditation, etc. People are saying they have not taken a bath so they did not do pooja, some child is born in the family so no pooja until naamakaranam, and the monthly 3 days stay away period when they do not pray. Swamiji’s question is, if you are in trouble or if you get stomach ache and telephone Swamiji, can Swamiji put down the phone saying I cannot help you now because you did not take bath? Why do you think ‘samaya-asamaya’ applies to you to do your duties and why it does not apply to Swamiji and God to come to your rescue? Nowadays, people do not even have time to give ‘asru tarpana’ to their own parents when they die. People are hiring others to cry for them, saying they have an important meeting to attend to. To me these are all just excuses, escapes for not doing your duties. People do not have balance in their life. People sometimes laugh a lot and sometimes go into depression and forget to laugh even. People eat a lot at times or totally stay from food and starve sometimes. This is not good. You should have balance in life. Do not find excuses to escape from your duties. To keep balance in life we should receive good communications from the planets, navagraha. So on this Sani Trayodasi day, I pray to Sani: “Please forgive us and give us good energy. So we are offering you special homa and pooja.”
Jai Guru Datta!
Royal Banquet Hall, Brampton - Sunday, July 23, 2006:
Swamiji said there is no better time for spiritual saadhana than NOW and advised devotees to use Him NOW for guidance, support, and energy.
Although Swamiji is Vaidyeswara, in this avataara - like Rama avataara, Krishna avataara,and Nrisimha avataara - having taken a physical body, He is getting older day by day. Flying for so many hours with no food, no sleep, standing in lines all takes toll on this physical body. All my senior devotees, world committee members, and doctors tell Swamiji, “Enough is enough! You should not travel like this!” Even those who tell me not to travel and give public speeches that Swamiji should not travel, tell me in private, “You just come to my house and stay with us, give blessings to my family and to my relatives.” I do not understand this. But I do this because of my love to you all. I am coming here, not because I need your money or name or fame. Your love, devotion, and good karma brings Swamiji to you. May be after 5 years I will stop traveling. You will not have the physical presence of Swamiji. Only photograph. So when I am here make use of me. People are saying, “Oh, we have no time! We will worry about spirituality after we retire.” But remember this - after you retire, in your old age, you may not be able to practice spirituality. You will have problem seeing, hearing, knee pain, etc., all connected to your old age. Then you will not have time. No Sadguru. No proper guidance. So I repeat, “Use me NOW!”
I told Canada devotees to take a bigger place, so I can spend 7-10 days in Canada. Even my US devotees can make use of this opportunity, not going from place to place, and spend with Swamiji 7-10 days. Swamiji can offer different kinds of courses, different yoga, pooja classes, training for kids, adults, etc. Maybe we will have one Guru Poornima celebration in Canada. We had the celebrations in US, Europe, Trinidad, and West Indies. Swamiji is now thinking, “Why not in Canada?”
You are all lucky that you get the opportunity to serve Swamiji here. In India, it may not be possible. You may not have the opportunity (avakaasa) to do seva in India. Even if you have the opportunity, you may not be doing it. Here you consider me your family member and pour love and affection on me and think, “What can I do for Swamiji and how can I serve Swamiji?”
This reminds me of a story. There was a king, who had the wildest dream of taking bath in milk. He built a huge tank with silver and told all the people in his kingdom, “I know all of you have 10-20 cows in your household. So each one of you bring a bucket of milk and pour the milk in the tank.” The tank was positioned in such a height that they had to climb on a ladder to pour the milk. Even if they are on the top of the ladder they cannot see inside the tank. So the people started thinking, because no body can see inside the tank, who will find out if I pour water instead of milk. Because everyone started thinking like that, at the end when the king went to take a bath, he found the tank was filled with water and not a drop of milk! Likewise, so many Indian devotees who are capable of doing seva, think: “Oh! Swamiji has so many foreign devotees, so why should I doseva or offer anything?”
So now, here, you have the opportunity to serve your Sadguru, make use of it. Hurry! Urgent! No use of waiting! I am here to guide you. Take my guidance! Get support and energy from Swamiji!
Jai Guru Datta!