Sep 12: Onam & The Nava Vidha Bhakti

The satsang started on 12th September with Mrs. Anusha and Mrs. Booma from Dallas leading the Nama Kirtan.   All of us got to listen and sing the Mahamantra in a different raga today.  As always, it was soothing to the ears and the mind.

It was widely expected that the hurricane Ike will play havoc in the gulf coast and Houston area in a few hours after the satsang.  Our Mahamantra Kirtan was focused on prayers for the safety of the residents of the area.

The Kirtan ended with ‘Satguru Natha Maharaj ki Jai!’ and we started off with introductions.  About 32 people joined the satsang this day and we had representations from the east coast, the mid-west and the west, with considerably more people joining from the west-coast.

Shri Narayanaswamy of Seattle then gave a wonderful 15 minute discourse on Bhakti, a gist of which is below….

What is the unique aspect of Hindu Religion?  According to Kanchi Mahaperiyava – Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswati Swamiji, it is that there are infinite paths to reach the Supreme.
Out of the various paths, ‘Bhakti Marga’ is one of the easiest.  What is Bhakti.  Getting closer to the Guru or Bhagavan through devotion and love – that is Bhakti.

When it comes to Bhakti, it is broadly stated that there are nine different ways to perform Bhakti. They are the ‘Nava vidha Bhakti’.   Let us see the nine different ways, one after another.

The first among them is, “Shravanam” – listening to the Divine Names and glories of God.  How long can one listen to the glories of the Lord? Not for a long time.  We get bored too soon.  But there was a great illustration of this kind of Bhakti – it was verily Hanuman.  Hanuman had unflinching devotion for the Lord and always listened to nothing but Rama Nama and Rama Katha.

Another form of Bhakti is ‘Archanam’ – peforming pooja to the Lord by offering flowers.  How long can a common man spend in performing pooja? May be an hour, two, or a little more.  But there was a great devotee who performed Archana Bhakti and reached Lord through this. ‘Kannapan’ was the name of this person.  By virtue of performing ‘Archanam’ to Lord Siva, He eventually attained His feet, and came to be called ‘Kannappa Naayanaar’.

‘Smaranam’ – thinking about the Lord always.  Sita Devi was an exemplary illustration of this Smarana Bhakti.  She kept thinking of Lord Rama every moment.

‘Vandanam’ is a form of Bhakti which is about prostrating to the Lord.  We are supposed to do ‘Namaskaram’ to the Lord by falling at His feet.  But what do we do today? We wave our hand, when we go to temples! There was one great soul who attained the Divine by Vandana Bhakti – Vibheeshana.

A distinctive example of ‘Padasevanam’ is that of Bharata, who sacrificed his whole kingdom and served at the feet of Lord Rama.  It is said that Bharata’s sacrifice is greater than that of Rama, for, Rama sacrificed the kingdom only for 14 years, but Bharata sacrificed it forever, letting the Padhuka of the Lord rule!

‘Sakhyam’ is friendship.  By considering the Lord as your friend, you can get closer to Him.  One can see in the Mylapore temple in Chennai, where people tell out their woes to the Divine Mother there, thinking of her as their closest friend.  How often do we consider the Lord as our true friend? Who can equal Guha, the hunter, who became Rama’s friend, and attained Him?  ‘…Aivar anom’, says Kambar (we were four brothers, now with Guha, we have become 5 brothers, says Rama, in Kamba Ramayana).

‘Dasyam’ is the Bhakti to offer seva to the Lord.  Lakshmana performed Dasya Bhakti to the Lord.  He woke up before Rama and went to bed after Rama did.  At any point in time, Lakshmana was always ready with whatever was needed for Rama.  This is Daasya Bhakti.

One of the most difficult forms of Bhakti is ‘Aatma Nivedanam’, offering oneself to the Lord.  A superlative example of this kind of Bhakti was that of the bird Jatayu, who gave his life to protect Sita and indicated to Rama, the direction in which Ravana took Sita.  Bound by the offering of Jatayu, the Lord Himself performed the last rites for Jatayu!

The final form of  Bhakti that we will discuss now is ‘Kirthanam’ – singing the Divine Names of the Lord.  This is the simplest of all Bhakti forms.   Great saints like Valmiki, Thiyagaraja etc. have attained the Lord by just chanting the Rama Nama.  All the sages, down to our Swamiji, have shown us this glorious path.

When Kali Yuga started, a panicked Narada, asked Brahma what the solution to the ills of Kali Yuga was.  Brahma gave the great Mantra
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare  as the one cure for all the ills in this Yuga.  By just chanting this Mantra continuously, one can cross this ocean of Samsara in this Kali yuga  and reach the Divine Feet of the Lord, with utmost ease.

Radhe Krishna!’

Karthik from Cincinnati, on listening to the Jatayu episode – of Rama performing the last rites for the bird, narrated this wonderful piece of experience:

In a place called Cheyyar in Tamil Nadu, Nama Kirtan happens regularly.  An old woman travels all the way from a far away town every week to attend the Nama Kirtan in Cheyyar.  On one such occasion, Sri Sri Swamiji paid a surprise visit to Cheyyar.  On that particular day, no one else had turned up for the Kirtan except for this woman and the hosts.  Sri Sri Swamiji was surprised learning that this elderly woman travels such a distance every week for Nama sake.  He asked her, ‘What do you wish for?’  The woman replied, ‘I don’t wish for anything great. I just want to have Nama in my lips, at my last breath.’   Sri Sri Swamiji just smiled.

Just a few days later, this woman found herself in a party that set out on a trip to Gaya in North India.  During the pilgrimage, one day, she complained of chest pain and when she was in her final stages of her life, she was right at ‘Vishnu Pada’, chanting the Mahamantra.   Indeed her prayer was fulfilled!

Ms. Priya from Seattle talked about how the strength of her weekly satsang grew from 4-5 people to a 45 member group within a little over a year.  A few take-away ideas for satsang:

• Start the satsang with Mahamantra and end with Mahamantra
• Bhajans and Kirtans
• Slokas, like Vishnu Sahasranama and the like
• A separate children’s satsang time that includes programs based on specific themes (eg. Ganesha during Ganesh Chaturti and so on).
• A short discourse/ lecture on greatness of Rama Nama.

For the news/events section, it was announced that the VanPurushottaman temple Samprokshanam was held in Sri Swamiji’s presence on the 11th of September.  A brief about the activities at Smt. Jayanthi Janakiraman Memorial Aagama Prabandha Patashala at Thirunangoor and the Samprokshanams at other temples in Thirunangoor was also given.

If you happen to visit the Kumbakonam / Tanjavur belt or visit Tamil Nadu, do take a day off to visit the 13+ Divya Desams in Tirunangur.  It will stay in your memory forever!

Sri Ramaswamy mentioned that this day was auspicious! Yes. It was ‘Onam’ festival  (Sravana star) when the Lord took birth as Vamana / Upendra to take King Bali unto Himself.  It is indeed an auspicious occasion and everyone felt blessed to be in the satsang on this auspicious occasion, chanting Nama.

With prayers for the safety of Texas residents and other personal prayers, Anushaji and Boomaji closed the satsang with Mahamantra Prayers.

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.