Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji – September 3, 2016 – Mysore
Compiled by Archana Penukonda
As you keep digging a well, you get good water. Like that, as you keep singing, you will sing well. All of them (who sang today) at one point did not know anything. They did not know how to sing bhajans, they did not know to sit in one place and sing. Now, they are singing as well as musicians do. Second, you need dedication. You must practice singing every day. You must not skip even a single day. Some people may think, “Oh, how can I do this? I do not know how to do all this.” If they think that way, they definitely cannot do it. You must sing. You must try, you must persist. Then the knots will unravel themselves and the voice will express itself and flow. But you do not even sing. You feel shy. I have been listening to several bhajan groups. Some are pleasing to listen to. Some are a bit difficult to listen to. Some I listen to, sitting inside. Everyone sings very well. A group came from Warangal. They know nothing. But they sing so well. Andhra devotees are determined to sing in front of Swamiji. Such stubborn determination is required. It is very difficult to hold the right key and sing in tune. If you get the right key and sing the first bhajan well, you will feel like singing a second bhajan. Like that, whether it is bhajan or traditional music or even a song, as you keep singing, you will want to go to the second lesson.
Similarly, when you study a subject, as you progress, you feel like learning more. When you memorize the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, you will develop the interest to learn the second chapter. After learning the second, you will want to learn the third chapter. Like that, you will want to learn until the 18th chapter. After that, it will all look easy. Those who learn the Bhagavad Gita will find it easy to learn anything else in Sanskrit in the future. There are so many different syllables/sounds in the Bhagavad Gita. Someone found out that there are 20,000 Sanskrit sounds/syllables in the Bhagavad Gita. Some people say there are 7000 sounds, some say there are 20,000 sounds. That controversy aside, we quickly learn all those words. So when someone gives us an easy quote in Sanskrit, we understand it. When you have time later on, you can learn the meaning. If you learn the meaning for every bhajan, you will find a story in it. But you are not affected by the stories also.
Swamiji writes many different kinds of bhajans for Saptahas (week-long discourses) and other situations and once it takes on a meaning, he gives it to others to complete it. He takes on a lot of trouble. There is no bhajan that doesn’t go through so much effort. The lines written by others may not be right, so I give them corrections and suggestions for those lines. When they add another line to what I wrote, I review and let them know if it does not fit correctly.
The lyrics in Appaji’s compositions are such. Sometimes they are very simple and very amenable to singing in one of the spoken languages. Even translation is like that. Those who translate the bhajans are able to do so easily. They translate into all languages thinking, “Swamiji has made it so easy, it is so beautiful. This should be translated to all languages”. That is why Swamiji uses such language that makes it easy for translation. Some languages and sentences are very difficult to translate. Compositions from Telugu are difficult to translate into English. There are many examples. A composition in Kannada is difficult to translate into Telugu. Swamiji thinks about that a lot and removes those difficult sentences. Someone like Kuppa Krishna Murthy or Pujya Bala Swamiji or another scholar says that some words may be difficult for translation and suggest different words to make translation easy. The bhajans are very easy to sing. They also improve your devotion. Also, whether it is Sanskrit or Telugu or Kannada, the pronunciation in those compositions is easy. People have different languages and accents. That is why we have bhajans in different languages. There is also a story behind each composition. We are not affected by the story either.
So like that, Swamiji’s compositions are very difficult to compose. They are not easy compositions. The tunes are also catchy. Even renowned musicians and classical music singers want to sing these compositions. This is neither light music, nor film music, nor strictly classical music. It walks the path between all of these. It can belong to any of these genres. You can consider it light music or classical music. If you relate them back to the lines and svaras (musical notes) of classical music, they are wonderful. The tunes/ragas are catchy and quite rare. No one else attempts these tunes. Some of the tunes never existed before.
Swamiji has given such compositions to society to inspire morality, devotion, and social service. Some recognize and understand this, and some do not. He composes them in rare ragas also. If you pick up the Bhajans book, you will know. But no one does that. That is why we have the Bhajans app now, it makes it easy.
If you heard these people sing before, donkeys grazing nearby would have run away from their singing. If I made them sing, we didn’t even need guards with sticks. The donkeys would raise their tail and run away. The water flowing in faucets would stop. Or the faucets would break and water would gush out. Such people are now singing so well, as if they are singing on TV. Everyone must try to sing. If you sing collectively, it sounds so much nicer. Think about it. Everyone must attempt. You should not be afraid, thinking you are incapable. How is it going to work if you are afraid? You must not say you are incapable. You must attempt with the faith that you can do it. Some people’s voice may be strange and the voice may never get out of their voice box. But even they can sing well with practice and they will be able to project their voice with practice. Even such voices will sing in tune with practice. Therefore, you must sing without being afraid. That is what they did today. The children sang very well. Very good. All masters sang well.
They sang the Tamil Hanuman Chalisa. In the Batu Caves in Malaysia, we are doing the Hanuman Chalisa Yajna on April 29. They are very interested in doing the Yajna in Tamil. That is why, get the script for the Tamil Hanuman Chalisa, write it in your own language script, and learn to sing for the success of the Yajna. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you book your ticket now, you can get it for Rs. 4000. But if you wait till the last minute after dilly-dallying about your visit, you will need to spend about Rs. 15,000. If you buy the ticket 3 months in advance, you will get it for just Rs. 5000. The devotees of Malaysia keep visiting 7-8 times each year. I was surprised. People cannot go to Delhi or Mumbai that often, how can they come so often? It is because they book their travel in advance. You can get tickets on Air Asia for cheap. Our devotees fly that airline often to come here. It is a good airline, everyone comes here alive and goes back alive. Nothing happens to them. That is what kept happening, devotees from Malaysia kept flying that airline. Devotees from Malaysia come in big groups. I would ask them how they flew in. They said it was only Rs 2000 per ticket and they would comfortably fly in to India. That is why, if you book your travel early, you can all sing along with Swamiji in Batu Caves.
All of you memorize the Tamil Hanuman Chalisa. Whether you are going to Malaysia or not, learn to sing it. If you are lucky, you will go. It is only for 4-5 days. It is like making a trip to Chennai. Malaysia is not even that far away.
There are daily paintings of Hanuman moortis on the Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji Facebook page. The paintings do not happen just like that, remember that. We need to pay money. We need to pay something for his effort. He needs to purchase the paints. It is difficult work. He has to work day and night, and he has to do it in accordance with Swamiji’s position. The paintings are my vision. He has to understand my vision. I explain to him for hours what my vision is. He gets many corrections from Swamiji. Swamiji has to do 4-5 iterations with Somu (the artist) to get it right. We printed these paintings. We did not print too many, we only printed 1 or 2 sets. You can place them in every home. We will place them here, and you can order the one you like. It only costs as much as a Homa sponsorship. Normally, such paintings cost thousands of rupees. The painting looks like a photo. It is not possible to say this is a painting. Taking a photo of the original painting, looks like this, look. The painting itself is like a photo. You can buy an entire set. It does not cost Rs. 20,000 or Rs. 30,000 or Rs. 40,000. The number of likes, comments and share (from Facebook) have also been printed at the bottom of each photo. These numbers are surging like a revolution. Even if I post a simple cloth, the number of likes pour in. Within a few hours, we get over 100,000 likes. Never less than that.
That is why, I printed some now. Tomorrow, when we have Shivaratri, the Andhra devotees will take them all away. They will not leave any. The money will go to the extremely poor. I already gave them money, now do I not need the money? Everyone must compulsorily get one or 1, 2 3 or 4 copies. Take the photo you like. Volunteers will bring this to Nada Mantapa tomorrow and you can buy them.
Prasad announced the programs for the next day including announcement about the Svarna (gold) Gowri Vrata.
Devotees offered many gold bangles during the recent birthday celebrations. I was very happy that there were so many gold bangles. I wondered how many kilograms worth they were. When they were examined, it was found that all bangles were just made of iron and coated in gold. Next time, we’ll note down the names of everyone offering gold bangles and take pictures, so that we can return the fake bangles to them. It is wrong to offer such bangles. They may have been duped by the seller, but they cannot dupe Guru by offering those. They must only offer the gold bangles that come with guarantee and authenticity. They must not offer fake gold like that. It is a great sin. Offering gold removes all sins. But, if we offer fake gold, we will incur more sin.
Sri Guru Datta