Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji – Sri Chakra Puja – Homa – July 13, 2024 – Hanuman Datta Yoga Center, Houston, TX, USA
Do not immediately yell at children when they make a mistake. Children make a lot of mistakes. They are beginning to just know the world; they do not know enough. But when they make mistakes after gaining enough intelligence, you may punish them appropriately. Initially shower them with more love than knowledge. Without anger, speak sweetly and tenderly in a way they will like and they will be pacified. This is part of Chutuka Sahityam (small verses that communicate great wisdom).
Swamiji wrote some of these verses based on Vedanta Dindhima. These have also been translated into Kannada. A big poet also translated Neeti Mala written by Swamiji into Sanskrit into Telugu. Normally, we can identify some flaws in people merely by looking at them. Some flaws are immediately visible to the eye.
The moon looks peaceful and cool and pleasing. It is not ice or snow. Yet, its cooling influence removes our passions and heat. Ganga removes our sins. Guru removes our sins and passions, both. Lord Rama is called Rama Chandra because He always bestows peaceful radiance on us.
If with a troubled and irked mind, you go stand in the moonlight, you will forget your difficulties. It will cool down the mind. You must have Chandra Darshana every day. Only then will you be worthy of Sahasrachandra Darshana. Each month, we have some kind of Dosha/fault/sin, those are driven away by Chandra Darshana. Those Doshas are also divided into weeks and days and even into hours and minutes. Each of these time units have some Doshas. The moon removes all these Doshas.
Why are we sitting in the Guru’s presence? Of course, there may be some worldly wants, but first we have an inexplicable love and friendship and a feeling of family with our Guru. No family member can speak the way the Guru does. We see the moon, we benefit from it and cool down. After you gain all the benefit, you continue looking at the moon, and over time, you find faults… you will see the stains in the color of the moon. The moon gives you immediate relief and cooling. For instance, a devotee from here moved a little closer to the air-conditioning since it is a little cooler there. But after you get there, you should not find faults with the way it is placed there. You eat a bellyful of tamarind rice and then complain it was spicy. So, there are more people in the world who find faults more than they find virtues.
I gave that child a Vastram that was here. She was overjoyed. Sometimes children make some sketch or art work and show it to Tataji. They say, “Look at this, Tataji!” They talk to Me like they talk to their own Grandpa… from their hearts! Not like talking to a saint, at all! That shows how much they love Swamiji! The art the child claims is a peacock barely looks like a rooster. Swamiji then appreciates the artwork and says… this peacock looks like one that does not live in this country, it is probably in Papua New Guinea. The child is happy. Then, Swamiji will call the child back and ask him/her to draw a peacock that looks like the one in this country. So, you must fill the child with enthusiasm and not dismiss their effort. Then, slowly those children will improve. There are children now who do amazing artwork, do artwork based on Bhagavad Gita, based on Swamiji’s sayings, sing amazingly, etc. They all started small. We eat various food items from the kitchen…same ingredients, multiple recipes.
These days, we have elected leaders, but in the old days, we used to have kings and dynasties. They too used to levy taxes and would distribute those funds to the underprivileged. So, a king was necessary to take care of a kingdom. A king once a Guru. Every week, the King would have Darshan of the Guru. The Universal Mother Raja Rajeshwari and Hanuman showed each other the cosmic form in the sky. The Guru used to worship the cosmic forms of the two deities. He was a good, scholarly man. The King got such a good Guru. The King would go to the Guru’s Ashrama every week. Once, in a large field, Guru took off his clothes and was laughing hysterically and rolling. The disciples too were looking as mad… some scratching heads, some laughing, some jumping. The King, who saw this, wondered what was wrong. He used to always get great Vedanta lessons in the past, what happened today, he wondered? It looked like the laughing session that we occasionally have. Everyone was laughing hysterically. The King saw this and wondered, “What happened to my Guru, what happened to these disciples? They do not even regard my presence here”
It was a ridiculous sight. The Guru’s body was old and skinny too; he looked like thin skin stretched over two bamboo poles. I was like that when I had Dengue. They came to give me an injection, but I became so skinny that they could not find the muscle to inject. I asked him if he could find it in his own body, and he said yes, so I told him to put that injection there and be gone!
Back to the story; the King shouted at all of them to stop. The Guru asked everyone to stop. Then, slowly, the King asked the Guru what had happened. He asked: Did anything wrong happen in my Kingdom, did anyone harm or hurt you? Did my retinue not do something right, or not give you what you needed? What happened?
The Guru said: You always walk around with bow and arrow and quivers. Why? Are you walking around in fear? You are wearing weapons like Sri Rama and Lakshmana. The most powerful Hanuman has no weapons on Him. Is it not a burden to always carry those around? The King said: I have to aim and shoot at my enemies at any instance, so I always hold on to these weapons.
The Guru asked him about the bow string. The King said that the string of the bow was made from animal parts, like sinews. The King also said he oiled and twanged the string once in a while to keep it strong, flexible, and sharp. The Guru said: You are King; you wield these weapons. We are sanyasis/monks. Do we not need happiness? When we are happy, we get more energy. You are always carrying weapons, you are worried about pleasing your queens, you are always mindful of the bow string. But the mind needs happiness. So, we keep the mind happy so it gives us the ability to do anything.
I gave you the shorter version of the story. There was a lot of discussions and arguments that happened there. I just bypassed them all. We should always be happy. Happiness gives energy. We should not grieve and complain. A woman who lost her husband may have come to terms with it, but others go and weep in front of her and reminder of the loss, indirectly forcing her to cry. I told my Datta devotees to just revolt when such people come to them.
Losing a dear one is not injustice meted out by God. Everyone has to go. No one is here forever, we just have to go when it is time for us to leave. The King criticizes the Guru, let us not go into it. We should take note of virtues, not of flaws. We should not focus on small flaws. It is your bad fortune that you only see faults because your nature is not a happy one. If you are happy, you will see virtues. There is a lot of Vedanta in the middle of this, but I skipped all of that.
As soon as the hurricane in Houston subsided a little bit, I came running to Houston. I cannot travel in cars for that long, but I came out of love for you. Your devotion and your love for me brought me here. If I saw your flaws, I would not have come, but I see only your virtues and your love. I came running for everyone in Houston and neighboring cities that are here. We want to build a small temple here. A very special stone that lies beyond Gandhamadana mountain has been used for this Moorti. This is near Pakistan border. It is an impressive large red Moorti. It looks naturally red, like Sindhoora, as if you can swipe the color off that stone and apply on your forehead.
Sita Mata turns into Kalika in the sky. Hanuman carries Mother on His shoulders. So, that Moorti in that color has Mother’s aspect in it. Many are now hankering after that Moorti, but I kept it safely in the underground chamber. I want to bring that Moorti to Houston. I am not saying hurricanes will decline, it might also go up, but we want to avoid loss of life. So, we will build a small temple first. We will build a small temple with Hanuman and therefore Ram Parivar, Mother Goddess, Prashna Ganapati, so we can have Mother’s grace flow on us. So, regardless of back pain or any other issue – I do not have any back pain now – Swamiji wants to do everything while the incarnation is still here. We do not know what it means, but we want to do this quickly.
The temple should have been here by now. We would have had Hanuman Pujas by now. We have plenty of parking space too. Houston devotees are very fortunate. We can build a big temple here later because we have the space. But with the small temple, we can carry out all the activities we need.