Aug 29: Friday Satsangs – Prayer sessions indeed
The satsang on the 29th of August was a great one, in many respects. It was held during the Brahmotsav celebrations in India, while everyone was enjoying the bliss of the Utsav through the videos on the Nama Dwaar website.
The satsang started with Mahamantra Prayers, led by Shivam and Dayaji from Houston. During introduction, we heard new members join from states like Pennsylvania. Then Sriram from Houston gave a 12-minute satsang on the importance of a Guru.
We see that for every mundane skill and art, one needs to go to a teacher. A lawyer goes to an apprentice. If this is the case for worldly skills (‘vidhya’), then why nurture any doubt about requiring a Guru for the supreme knowledge of the Self?
What is the necessity of the Guru? A person might have had grave sorrows in life. His mind might have been shaken by the various miseries that he has been facing. When a person with a tumultuous mind comes to the sanctum of a Guru, he gets peace of mind. This is one of the greatest benefits that one acquires in the Guru’s presence. Then the Guru slowly cultures him and makes him fit for the Supreme Knowledge.
The glory of the Guru is explained in the Bhagavatam, by Lord Krishna Himself. We all know that Sudama was verily a synonym of abject poverty. He lived his life in penury. On the other hand, Lord Krishna was the richest of the rich, the goddess of wealth Mahalakshmi herself, caressing His feet. The story goes that Krishna and Sudama were thickest of friends.
After a long gap, Sudama comes to Dwaraka to meet his beloved friend Krishna. Krishna washes the feet of Sudama and the two friends embrace each other. Krishna is extremely happy to meet his good old friend. He says, ‘Oh! Sudama! The very fact that you have not come to me for so long requesting for anything, says that you are a happy and contented man! Although I possess so much wealth, I am contented. A manifestation of destitution that you are, you are contented too, my friend. Do you know the reason behind this?’‘Do you remember the times when we both studied at the feet of our Master Sandeepani, and one day, our Guru heartily blessed us ? It is that blessings of the Guru that is keeping us happy, dear friend!’
‘Guror Anugrahenaiva pumaan purna prashaantaye’It is only the Guru that can give the contentment in life!
The beautiful words of Sriram set the context for discussion. Paul Brunton felt that transcendental peace of mind when in the sanctum of Ramana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai, whom he met after being directed by Kanchi Mahaswamiji. The moment he saw his Master, the long list of questions that he had prepared to be posed to Ramana Maharshi were all answered in silence, and he just exclaimed, ‘No more questions!’
A couple of weeks ago, during one of the satsangs, at the behest of one of the satsang members, we performed prayers for a little child, who was hospitalized. The father of the child was on the satsang today to narrate his Nama Anubhava:
‘Our son, Krishna was not feeling well for some time. We have been going to the hospital almost everyday that week; however the doctors could not diagnose the problem. It was a Friday evening and our friend called me and asked if we could perform prayers in the evening telecom satsang. I happily agreed. We were in the hospital when the prayers were on, that Friday evening. All the Bhagavatas on the call sincerely prayed with Mahamantra for my son. In less than a few minutes of the prayers, to our great surprise, the doctors got the diagnosis! They discovered the problem to be a unique syndrome and started medication for the same. Since then my son has been doing very well. I thank all the Bhagavatas for their prayers.’
It was moving to listen to him speaking about the anubhava with great excitement. Indeed, this was no time-pass on a Friday evening. It is a prayer meeting every Friday, and prayers do get answered with Mahamantra! Can the power of Nama be explained any better?
Aravind from Orlando described how powerful the Rama Nama was, by describing the incident in Sri Bodendra Swamiji’s charitram where the Rama Nama purified a fallen woman.
Then it was time for some quick news sharing. Chicago Janmashtami function went on very well! Announcements were made about the Houston Janmashtami fair. Sankarji informed the members about the Radha Kalyanam that was to be performed in Bay area that Sunday.
It was decided that the next week’s Nama will be led by Ms. Suja Sankar and satsang talk by Sri Ramani.
Karthik from Cincinnati led the closing prayers with Mahamantra Kirtan.
Aug 22: Janmashtami Satsang
The telecon satsang on 22nd August was special because it was the eve of Sri Krishna Janmashtami. The initial Nama Kirtan was lead by Zivan Prakash, Yaamini and the little Kishori. It was wonderful to hear Kishori chant the Hare Rama Mahamantra in her sweet voice.
We had the regular introductions which indicated that there were more than 20 people on the call. As it was a special satsang, in the interest of having everyone talk the greatness of Nama Kirtan, we decided to dedicate the following twenty minutes to sharing experiences with Nama.
Ms. Yaamini of Chicago went first. She narrated a beautiful incident wherein the prayers with Mahamantra answered her prayers for marriage for a close relative of hers. What was important was that even though the relative chanted the Mahamantra without knowing about it, it gave the desired fruit, just like the medicine that is taken without knowing its power/ingredients cures the illness.
Zivan went next, narrating an experience Nama taught him that your prayers however trivial they may be, are destined to fetch results, when performed with Mahamantra.
The young Shivam narrated the power of satsang and Nama by saying how his family could abstain from watching the idiot-box for months together after the Ramayana Navaha was performed in their house.
Karthik, who has been associated with Sri Swamiji for over 14 years, spoke about his divine experience where He believed in the supreme nature of Sri Swamiji’s divinity and how his prayers about making it known to the world came true.
Latha from New York shared her experience of grace and bliss, when she was blessed with a Bhagavata (a devotee who had been reading Bhagavata for a long time) as her audience during her first Bhagavata discourse in their regular New York satsangs.
Narayan Dave spoke about his experience where the divine grace and power of Nama, helped them attend a 24-hour Mahamantra Kirtan (something unheard of in the history of Houston) that coincided with their marriage anniversary as well as the surgery day of his wife.
Madhan Ramakrishnan spoke about how the grace of the Lord and the association with Sri Swamiji helped in relocating to Hyderabad, and how he has been blessed to be associated with Satsang in his home even in his current place of stay, Chicago.
It seemed like we could go on and on with our experiences. But as time was limited (and we had already exceeded the stipulated time), we decided to share at least one experience during every satsang.
Yaamini announced about the satsang at her residence in view of Janmashtami. Sriram from Texas spoke of the Janmashtami fair where a booth was being planned.
For the following week, it was decided that Shivam and his family from Houston would lead the Nama and Sriram, Texas would give the satsang talk. We ended with Nama prayers, only with the hope to meet again next week.
Until then, Radhe Radhe!
Independence Day Sankirtan
The Satsang on the evening of the Indian Independence day went great with about 26 people on the call.
All of us love to go to temples and have had it as a daily or weekly routine at some point in their life. Blessed are those who continue that practice. Many of us don’t get enough time to dedicate for a temple visit during the week due to various other commitments. Where Nama is chanted the sanctity grows. A temple is a place of sanctity. So our Friday evening satsang verily becomes our prayer-time. Does it matter if we still miss out on a temple visit due to other obligations? Not really! As long as we dial into our regular Friday evening satsangs!
With that note, we started off a prayer-session with Mahamantra for the first ten minutes. Sriram and his family led the Nama session for the week. After a 10 minute Nama Chanting and special prayers, we went through a round of introduction. It was nice to hear more devotees participate from New York and the Bay area.
After preliminary introductions, Jagan from Chicago gave a nice talk on the greatness of Nama Sankirtan. In the 20 minute long discourse, he delved in detail on how the Nama Kirtan was stressed in Srimad Bhagavatam.
“Kali Kalochittam dharmam Nama sankirtanatmakam…” went the prayers to the Master, in the beginning of the talk. A gist of the talk is given below:
Bhagavatam ends with a sloka says that Nama Sankirtan cleanses of all our papas and takes us to the highest state. Singing and praising the Lord without any hesitation, slowly our hearts get purified and we attain a state where he starts dancing, and gets truly excited about his stories – to the world he might be a madman, but he enjoys bliss. He sees homogeneity in the cosmos. He realizes the True Self (Paramatma). Food satiates one’s hunger, pleases his tastebuds as well as gives energy. In the same way, chanting the Nama gives Bhakti (Devotion), dispassion and God Realization.
A perfect Bhagavata (Bhagavatottama) is one who sees the Lord everywhere. He distinguishes not that the Lord is present in the temple and not in another place. The heart becomes the temple. He sees equanimity everywhere and in everything. Eventually, by virtue of his pure and devoted heart, the Lord resides in his heart eternally and He manifests himself to the Bhagavata.
Nammazhwar was such a Bhagavatottama who resided in a small hole in the tamarind tree. All the deities from the 108 divya desams gave darshan to Nammazhwar right in the tamarind tree hole.
So Nama Sankirtan is the Dharma, especially in Kali Yuga, just like dhyana was the Dharma in the Kritha Yuga, Yagna in Tretha and Archana in Dwapara. There are no chances for mistakes, for there are no rules. So even the outcast can attain the same supreme state as anyone else through Nama Kirtan. Because this is an easy way to the Ultimate the great souls long to be born to Kali Yuga, whereas in other Yugas, it is extremely difficult (like Kardhama Prajapathi’s tapas).
Gandhiji was a standing example to show that Rama Nama Kirtan was the way out.The independence we enjoy is thanks to the Hari Nama Kirtan!
Let me end with a prayer to the Almighty that all of us get the opportunity to chant Hari Nama for ever.
Srimad Bhagavatam Idam bhAgavatam nAma purANam brahma samhitam |
(…such is the Purana by name Bhagavatam, a text which is verily the essence of all the Vedas…)
Mahans have interpreted it as:
|dam bhAgavatam nAma purANam brahma samhitam |
(…such is Bhagavatam, which is verily a Purana of Nama, and also the essence of all the Vedas…)
Quoting Bhagavatam extensively, Jagan had indeed proved this, and given us the essence of Bhagavatam – Nama!
Any sloka that we chant, read or recite gives a result. This is called ‘Phalasruti’. Having heard the greatness of Bhagavatam, it was time to listen to the results. Aravind from Florida came forward to talk about his experience with Nama.
It was indeed a very moving experience – to write it in his own words:
‘When I was young, I could not pronounce the word ‘Ra’ very well. I would pronounce it as ‘Tha’ instead. This became a serious problem and I started feeling low in front of others for my inability. My mother encouraged me and asked me to chant the Rama Nama constantly. But do you see the paradox? Rama Nama itself has ‘Ra’! and that was where my problem was! Mom told me not to worry about it, and chant as was possible by me. I continued to chant the Rama Nama regularly, but as ‘thaama’! and It was indeed a miracle that in due course I was able to pronounce Rama!
Even when I could not pronounce Rama correctly, the Lord out of His sheer compassion answered my prayers. I am sure that it is that Rama Nama that gave me darshan of great Avatara Purushas like Maha Swamiji of Kanchi Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Swamigal, Bhagavan Yogiramsuratkumar and now, our Swamiji.’
It was well beyond our time limits when we had reached this point. However no one felt that we were running late. We only wanted more!
On a quick announcement session, it was announced that like last year, we would have Swamiji’s disciples from India visiting us during this Fall!
We closed our satsang with prayers with Mahamantra Kirtan for about 5 minutes.
Week 2 : Olympics began, and so did our satsang!
Like the Olympics in Beijing, our Friday Satsang too started off on 8/8/8 very well.
But unlike the Miaoke scandal, there was no lip-sync/ voice substitution in our satsang! It was a 100% original one! Sriram and his family from Houston led the Mahamantra Kirtan at 9:30 pm ET and everyone who were already on the line and those who joined a little late chanted along!
In ten minutes, the Mahamantra Sankirtan came to a close and we had a round of introductions. It was exciting to see increased participation from Orlando, Dallas and California. We had about 23 people on the satsang that evening.
Then the young Tejas stepped up to give a 10 minute satsang on the greatness of Nama Sankirtan. In a twelve minute interval, Tejas wonderfully carved out the greatness of Nama Kirtan. A few excerpts from his talk is below:
“In this age of Kali Yuga, what can be more simple a way to attain the Almighty, than Nama Kirtan. One can do mechanically or otherwise. It produces the desired effect and also blesses us with the supreme state, just like a lantern that is lit for light also gives us heat.
In Bhagavat Gita, Lord Krishna shows four broad means of attaining Him – Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti and Jnana Yoga. In this Kali Yuga, do human beings possess the time and capacity to practice any of these paths sincerely and devoutly? Certainly not! Then what is the means to attain Him in this Age? It is verily Nama Kirtan. No rules, no regulations, no stipulations, no special requirements, no expenditure is involved but then it gives the same fruit as any other path taken to attain Him.‘Om Nama Shivaya’ is the Panchakshara – the Supreme Mantra for the Shaivaites and ‘Om Namo Narayanaya’ is the Supreme Mantra for the Vaishnavites. When ‘ra’ , the life-giving word of the Ashtakshara and ‘Ma’ the auspiciousness-providing word of the Shiva Mantra are chanted as the ‘Rama’ Nama, it gives the effect of chanting both Panchakshara and Ashtakshara. While other forms of worship like meditation, yagna, and archana may be relevant in other Yugas, the scriptures clearly underline that the Nama Kirtan is the most appropriate path for Kali Yuga. Not only scriptures, but innumerable Mahans including Thiyagaraja, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu down to Sri Swamiji have shown this path.
As Guru Nanak says, when you start chanting the Mahamantra, you are already on the jurney on a ship that goes towards Mukti or liberation. The captain of the ship is Lord Krishna Himself, who belongs to the destination. So why worry when your lips chant?”
When Tejas completed his talk with “Hare Rama…”, it was hard to believe that 12 minutes had passed. One would wonder if the essence of Nama can be condensed into a 10 minute talk in a better fashion at all!
The forum was open for discussion when Ramani from Cerritos, CA gave a suggestion that we could bring out chanting boxes that keeps chanting Mahamantra day in and day out. Sankar announced that Nama Kirtan satsangs were regularly held at Freemont Hindu Temple every weekend and invited any members / friends of the satsang members to join.
Listing the US Nama Kirtan centers on the Nama Dwaar / Godivinity.org website was discussed.
An announcement was made that the Nama Dwaar e-newsletter was going to be released soon by the US Satsang bringing out the beauty of Sanathana Dharma, especially Bhagavata Dharma.
By then, we were already running out of time, and hence we started off seeking volunteers for the next week Nama Kirtan and satsang.
Ramani volunteered to lead the Nama Kirtan next week. Jagan, from Chicago, who was happy to take part in the Nama Kirtan and do Namaamruta Shravanam volunteered to speak about his experiences of Nama Kirtan during the special Independence Day satsang on coming Friday.
Madhura, Sriram, Nisha and Ms Suchitra (Nisha’s aunt) led the Nama Kirtan to mark the end of the satsang, and the week.
I am sure everyone felt the same as one of the new participants of the satsang: ‘I can’t believe we chanted for 10 minutes in the start! Time flew by and it felt as if it was only for 10 seconds!’
Lets meet again on 8/15 at 6:30 PT / 8:30 CT / 9:30 ET for yet another exhilarating satsang evening.
Satsang wired! Week-1
The telephone satsang on August 1st started off on a wonderful note.
At about 9:29 pm EST, an introduction to the satsang was given. Aravind and Geetha from Orlando started off the satsang on an auspicious note – aka. with Mahamantra.
All of them chanted along with Aravind and soon we heard him slow down and give the ‘Pundareekam’ – ‘Satguru nath maharaj ki! Jai!’ That was when we realized that 600 seconds had gone by!
Then it was introduction time. We found that about 18 satsang members representing different states viz. California, Florida, North Carolina, Chicago, Texas and Massachusetts were on the call. It was nice to get to know the names of all the satsang friends from the country.
Following this, Ms. Yamini from Chicago, gave a beautiful talk. The summary of the talk is below:
It is indeed rare to get the human birth. We are all fortunate to be blessed with this human birth. What is the purpose of our living? To seek eternal happiness, and this happiness is certainly not in bodily comforts. How fleeting is this human body? If we take a palm tree, right from the stem, leaves and to the shell, all of them are of utility value. But of what value is this human body after it stops breathing? So should we not strive to attain the ultimate purpose of life when we are still breathing?
How do we attain that ultimate goal? Our Guru Maharaj and various Mahans have shown the simple, yet great path of Nama Kirtan. All we should do is, catch the ‘Rama’ Nama and never let go of it.
Let me narrate a beautiful episode from Kabirdas’ life. Kabirdas loved Rama Nama above anything else. He loved to perform Rama Nama Kirtan as a congregation – satsang and often conducted such satsang, invited Sadhus and fed them. Being in state of abject penury, he did not have enough money to conduct one such satsang. That was when Kabirdas and his son Kamaal decided that they would break into a rich person’s house and steal, for the sake of conducting satsang. Unfortunately, when they were half-way stealing, the householders sensed the break-in. While Kabirdas escaped, his son was caught inside the house. Immediately Kamaal said, ‘Oh dad! The satsang should go on! And it should go on undisturbed. There is no way that I can escape from here. So cut my head off and take it with you, so that they don’t identify who I am.’ Kabir did as bid by his son, and the Rama Nama Satsang went on joyfully.
The torso of the dead Kamaal was hung on a tree by the river and there was no one to lay claim on it. A couple of days later, a group of Bhagavatas passed by performing Nama Kirtan. When they reached this tree, to their utter dismay, the headless torso clapped its hand blissfully to the Nama Kirtan!
The whole body was soaked in Rama Nama and hence, even a lifeless torso could clap and dance to Rama Nama.
So let’s keep chanting. We are certain to attain bliss and happiness.
It was really wonderful to listen to the talk. Such a strong and clear message delivered in a quick 12 minute succession!
August 1st was a day of Solar Eclipse in many eastern countries. Eclipse is a sign of auspiciousness. Mahaprabhu was born on a lunar eclipse day!
Its fun that we are starting this on such a day!!
Then there were some announcements:
- Yamini, Zivan and Kishori perform Nama Kirtan every Thursday. Recently, they had Nama Kirtan in one of their friend’s houses (a non-hindu) on the occasion of ‘Gruhapravesh’. ‘The Lord entering the house is indeed Gruhapravesh!’ it was told. And by chanting Mahamnatra, the Lord is very much present there. That is truly Gruhapravesh, is it not?
- Houston satsang briefed us about the 108 hanuman chalisa program to be performed on Saturday. They conduct Nama 2 hours every Sunday – 4-6 pm.
- Ramani from Los Angeles put forth a couple of interesting points: ‘Ramana Paatti’ is one elderly person who attends the Nama Kirtan satsang at his home in the Cerritos, LA area. The reason behind her name is that, she has seen and lived with Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi! A tidbit Ramani shared here – Ramana was very comfortable understanding Telugu, which was Paatti’s mother tongue. So she never had a reason to learn Tamil! Ramani assured that he will get pictures of Paatti and share more of her experiences in the subsequent satsangs. Ramani talked about the ‘Ninda Stuthi’ experience! - One in which he had Swamiji get the telephone connection to listen to satsangs on Guru Poornima day (which seemed close to impossible), by Nindha Stuthi! You should ask him for more details!
Sriram and Nisha from Texas volunteered to lead the next week’s Nama. While the slot for the satsang talk was still open, young Tejas volunteered.
We were running 5 minutes late, so we had to close (sadly!). We closed with Mahamantra Kirtan.
What a wonderful satsang it was! Hmmm.. How many hours to pass until the next Friday evening?
Until then…..
