Sep 15 evening
Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji during Evening Bhajan Program - Birmingham - September 15, 2012
How many Kannada, Telugu, and Hindi devotees are here? Please raise your hands. Silent language devotees?
No one knows. Only practice. Explanation about silence in books is very nice. So many books. But no practice. Like fasting for Ekadashi. Many books. Very little practice. Upavasa means remaining near God. Very close association with God is Upavasa. In India so many people talk about fasting and doing the vow of silence. People do not like to practice silence. They keep talking to themselves inside. The mind has to be silenced. Think about yourself. Know yourself. All that you see is “I”. Things that are invisible; do not think about those. Even those are “I”. Whatever is in the world is transitory. You think a lot about these. None of these remains. Contemplate about God. He is hard to obtain. When you seek God, choose a very easy path. Be contented. Try to be very contented. Whatever you may get or not get in life, be happy and contented. You should not grieve. You should be satisfied. This is like a play. Like a child’s toy.
Children create their own city, their own papa, mama, city, and dog. After the play is finished, they destroy the scene completely. They do not want to keep it. They want a new construction for tomorrow, like Brahma. We retain old knickknacks, out of sentiment for elders and friends. We should throw them out. Even our body is going to be thrown out. Next birth we take a different body, like a child creates a different play tomorrow, different buildings. It goes on like this day and night. How to get out of this illusion? We have to understand the illusion. We try so hard to recover from our diseases. We take so many medicines. First find out where the disease came from. Mind is powerful. For cancer cure, some take 10-20 times chemotherapy. They recover. They have mental strength to endure. Cancer cells die and immunity also suffers. Do not fear disease. This body, this house, this temple is His. It is not ours.
The child when it destroys its play scene, still keeps the materials safely. Even when you renounce, you still have to be careful. The body is filled with diseases. The world has sorrow and discontent always. You are anxious that this boy has become like this. This girl is not married. There are loans. All this grief you think is yours. That is why you have such sorrow. When you speak philosophically with your spouse, she gets angry. Do not worry. What is the use of worrying? No use. Try to find a remedy for it. Get away from dangerous situations. Even Adi Shankara, in the end sang, Govindam Bhaja. Praise God. Maharashtrians have discovered an easy path. They sing and dance chanting the name of Vithala, when they wake up, bathe, when they eat, sit, or stand, and when they go to bed. We all should practice that. We must place our faith in God; like how we place trust in our breath. There is an invisible power that you must trust. When you leave your faith, breath stops. With that the body leaves. In Kali Yuga life is dependent on breath. Once you lose faith, breath stops. When there is no air, the body dies. In Krita Yuga the body remained as long as bones remained in the body. In the Treta Yuga the life in the body remained as long as flesh remained. When we think about it, Kartaveeryarjuna and Rama lived so long because of this principle. In the end they placed their faith in devotion. They surrendered everything to God.
When you offer everything to God and praise Him and meditate upon Him, you benefit. Many demand salvation in this lifetime. They want all worldly things, marriage, children, home, wealth, and also salvation. Give us a yantra, a mantra, they demand. What you need is the feeling that every limb and every organ in this body belongs to God. You must have that feeling. In each limb the names of God, the Keshava namas are identified, each as a different part.
Adi Shankara told us to follow Divya Nama Sankeertana, singing the praises of God. As you obtain more knowledge, more arguments and debates ensue. Grammar, explanations, and commentary are important for scholars. They have no faith in God. They see an image of God as only a beautiful sculpture, a carving. They miss the beauty of divinity. We do not appreciate Nature. We go to temple with devotion. Then we think how many crores were spent to build this? How much have the people involved taken home? We comment that it could have been built better. There are also many true devotees who give what they can. Do what you want. The trustees with a sense of surrender give their services and themselves for the convenience of God and devotees. We give free suggestions, comments and criticism. When we go to a wedding, we enjoy the feast and then criticize the bride and the food.
Such people forget that they too have unmarried children and loans. Many give advice on spiritual things. But they do not practice. Today we are very lucky to be in the presence, the sannidhi of Lord Venkateshwara/Balaji.
We want to chant some names of God. It is our duty. Practice with your breath, Narayana, Hare, Govinda, Om Namassivaya. Daily you are upset and saying bad words. Not good. Take it easy. Now, symbolically I want to sing 2 or 3 songs only. Precious Gita Yajna conference is in progress. Bhagavad Gita is like our daily diary. Daily take one verse, stanza. Each letter gives liberation, knowledge. Mind/intellect conversation. Who is the mind and who is the intellect? You can understand. Our body is the battlefield Kurukshetra.
There are different evil forces in our body. This body is always demanding sleep, thirst, and is troubled by the six inner enemies. Krishna Arjuna dialog is the dialog between the buddhi and the manas, the intellect and the mind. Our body is the walking Bhagavad Gita. It has everything. We must try to understand it. This is not for Hindus. It is for humanity that the universal master has given this. Arjuna is compared to the body. Krishna is giving order for us to know our own breath. God pervades all creation. He is infinite. There is no beginning and no end. He fills the cosmos. The only way to know Him is to surrender totally. King Pareekshith did just that. In 7 days, it means 7 chakras.
You are very lucky, Pareekshith. You know the secret, the value of life. It is not a curse. It is compassion shown towards you.
In Kali Yuga, the time is not given. We do not know when our life ends. No telephone call, no notice. No alert emails.
When we leave, we do not know. You, Pareekshith, were at least guaranteed 7 days. Try to know me. Leave everything else. Use this time to know me. He was given an alert. No one else is given that. People show their palm to palmists to know how long they will live. They consult parrots and donkeys. Even get kicked by donkeys to increase their life span.
What is the purpose of life? You do not find out. You want only to live long. The easiest path to forget your body is to praise God. Using liquor like *** takes you closer to death, when you use it to forget the troubles.
You do this with alertness. Liquor destroys your alertness and discretion.
Unmatta, the word came from one who eats the ummetta leaf and becomes mad. Real madness for God we must acquire. Lord Venkateshwara has shown us that He is with us. He is a witness residing on Tirumala, Venkatadri.
Time has to come, even to sing about God. Why is Swamiji not singing, why is he talking? You may wonder. The time has to come. When I sing, it is only when it is the right time for me. I do not sing for you. I sing for my own happiness. You are with me. You are my friends. We are all one family. Please. join me.
We have to follow the tradition for Divya Nama Sankeertana. We must fix the mind and the sound system also. We should not sing in a haphazard way. Sri Jayalakshmi Mata’s compositions, thousands were there. Only a few were recovered. They appeal to everyone. Like folk tunes. They appeal to scholars also. They have a style of their own. From the birth of Krishna, right up to Dwaraka she had covered. We are still searching to find more of her composition. She has composed the teachings of Bhagavad Gita as Sri Krishna Jaya. Now only 200-300 are available. Only 4 stanzas each, but they are very meaningful. This is a Tora Bandha bhajan. Sometimes it takes a diamond shape, not a drawing, but the formation of the letters and the meaning. The syllables taken vertically from the middle of each line make a different bhajan. Syllables from the beginning of each line taken vertically, makes a different bhajan. Syllables read in the reverse order also make another bhajan. Om Namo Narayana Krishna. If you take the last syllables alone of each line, it forms a different bhajan. Each line reminds you of a different chapter in the Bhagavatam.
Now we will only sing the first part. They are like garlands, or decorative streamers, in shapes like a square, a triangle. We cannot even call it a bhajan.
4 or 5 days ago, 13 crores or 130 million people had viewed Shatashloki Ramayana in 178 countries, include Oman, China, North and South Korea.
Number 1 USA, Number 2 India, Number 3 UK. Regularly people have viewed, in all households. UK devotees have worked very hard. 3600 comments were written. We are going to make a booklet. Go to vimeo.com or puttugam.com and you also can write till December. Then you will know why people are viewing, the secret of this eagerness to view. It is a spiritual website. You are all Hindus and you do not watch. You will watch lottery shows, how to become a millionaire- those kinds of shows. Or you say you don’t have the Internet. But you have a huge TV screen for the children, you say. Still, more views are being registered every day. Happy with that, a 70 foot Hanuman murti or idol is going to be consecrated at the Mysore ashrama. It was in London that the Shatashloki Ramayana, the 28 minute, 100 verses Ramayana was uploaded on the Internet for the first time.
Wherever God is praised, Rama is praised, Hanuman will be seated there. So we will sing a concluding song in His honor.
Bhajans:
Gam Gam Ganapati, Adi Shakti Parameshwari Durge, Datta nama sukha dayi, Om Namo Narayana Krishna, Palaya Govinda, Re mana, Krishnam Vishnum, Muruga Muruga Muddu Kumarane, Arunakirana Kanti Maruti
Sri Guru Datta