Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji – Sri Devi Navaratri Festival – Day 8 – Bhagyanagaram, Hyderabad – Ashtami – October 10, 2024
We are already on Day 8.
O Mother! Sri Mata! When we seek refuge at Your feet, all these following will come on their own – fame, poetic abilities, prosperity, and utter peace. Noble people will be freed from bondages.
My salutations at Your feet. We are mired in bondages. we call ourselves satpurushas…noble people. We claim “we are good devotees, we keep going to Ashrama, we go to Tirupati”, etc. Yes, you are good devotees, but bondages have you in their grip.
We think Chandi has anger. No one has the amount of peace She has. She has no anger. She is always blessing devotees with peace.
But we wonder why She has the name Chandi then, given Chandi means anger.
Mother’s anger is only for those who are demonic, not for the saintly.
When you speak recklessly in anger and forget who you are talking to, then Mother shows anger. When we pray to Mother, She reduces our demonic treasures and enhances our divine treasures.
Befriend good people so you will only have good nature. A story illustrates this.
A bird couple was living with their kids on a tree. They would fly out often to fetch food for their young ones. One day, before they returned, a hunter captured the little ones. The hunter sold one little bird to a Vedic Brahmin and the other one to a blacksmith.
The parrot that was at the Brahmin’s would learn the Vedic chants and good words. The other parrot would speak the things that the blacksmith would…the blacksmith would speak to customers and that’s what the parrot picked up “You can stab with this knife, you can crush with this axe…” and so on.
The two older parrots spent most of their life searching for their young ones. They finally found the parrot at the Brahmin’s; the parrot spoke beautifully and politely. That parrot invited people into the house and talked about Atma Tattva.
The Brahmin saw the older parrots and realized that they are the parents of the little one. He gave the parrot away to its parents. He also offered to find the other parrot per the request of the parent parrots.
The Brahmin spots the other parrot at the blacksmith, buys it back and brings it to the older parrots. This blacksmith parrot kept saying, “I’ll kill you, I’ll crush you”.
This is very strange, isn’t it? After some time, the parent parrots died. The two parrots could not get along with each other due to their widely differing natures. We see this happen within the same family too. A devotee’s spouse or sibling keeps mocking or preventing the devotee from following their practices.
They decide to go their own ways. One day, a Brahmin was on his way to Kasi. He slept under a tree that the second parrot was on. The bird said, “kill him, crush him with a boulder”, etc. The Brahmin ran away in fear and found another tree to rest under. He heard the first parrot say, “How are you? Are you hungry? Can I offer you some fruit?”
This Brahmin was very happy. He ran for dear life from the first tree and was happy under the second tree. He understood the story of the parrots and offered to pray to Shiva for them. He said Shiva would bless them.
See the extent to whic bad company influences you! Know your company, monitor and counsel your kids, check the messages on their phones. Curb unhealthy messages early on.
Do not buy your children expensive phones, buy them very basic phones that will limit what they can do on the phone. Only listen to good things, only keep good company. It is very hard to get noble company. We should maintain good satsang. Practice good habits and restraint. Then, we will stay away from evil and get the blessing of Chandi Mata. May Chandi Mata bless you all.
(Bhajan of the day)
I was asked not to speak at all, but it’s okay.
HH Sri Datta Vijayananda Teertha Swamiji adds: Despite a bad throat Swamiji, sang bhajan out of love for us.