Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji at start of Brahmotsavam – June 16, 2013 – SDVT Mysore
Today is an auspicious day. Today we are celebrating the 14th Brahmotsavam festivities. You all have come here withstanding all your difficulties. Truly you are my relatives. You must attend Brahmotsavam festivities of Datta Venkataramana Swami with the feeling that it is a festivity of your house. You should not be of the opinion that there is some Peetham, some mutt, some Guru, some temple, some Brahmotsavam festivities, shall we go? It seems that we get some merit etc. This is a family function. How can we not attend Datta Venkataramana Swami Brahmotsavam festivities? Tell me? Normally when your relatives invite you for a marriage function and you are unable to go, how bad you feel and moreover you are scared that those relatives may not attend the functions in your house. At least for the above reason you want to go or at least send an appropriate message to the relatives reasoning your absence for the function. If you are not respectfully scared of your Saduguru, then is your live worthful? You are scared of not attending the function of useless relatives, but why are you not scared to attend the useful Saduguru birthday or Datta Venkataramana Swami Brahmotsavam festivities? You highlight useless relatives, but the Saduguru Who is useful for you in your perilous states in life, physical or mental problems, Who you worship as Godhead is kept away. Why? I don’t understand. It is a very big mistake. Many say Saduguru is in my heart. If this is true, then why you don’t say the same to your relatives?. You can witness the marriage from the heart only. Saying Saduguru is in your heart, you eat idly and drink coffee.
You want to live in the society in a specific way. When you are a part of the society , to make such part worthful or purposeful, you must approach and surrender to Saduguru. If you want to be well placed in the society, then you need Saduguru blessings and energy. Without your Saduguru blessings, all your efforts will be futile for eg: no matter how many arrangements you make in marriage function, the relatives or the invitees show their dissatisfaction and go home. They complain that they were not treated properly, not given appropriate chairs, that their hips were not properly massaged. Is it possible to massage all hips of the people attending the function? Such arguments are made by the relatives or invitees. You don’t know all these things. They say I was not comfortable to sitting down and I was not provided a mattress. Someone is getting married and someone is getting them married. Look how the relatives react. After eating the sugar sweets the relatives say “It would have been nice if you had used sugar free to make the sweets as I am diabetic.” They get this doubt after eating the sugary sweets. What did they think when they were eating then? Relatives speak like this.
Leave alone relatives. Even the children don’t exempt you at home. They complain that you have not taken care of them properly. You says “I have given birth to you in this world. Look at this illusion in this world. To give you a body which would help you to finish of your karma I had to take pain.” Children also ask “why you gave me birth?” Speaking truly, parents should answer ” O wretched fellow, just because you would be born to me I became like this. Look how I am because of you. You were destined to be born to me because of many boons you gathered in past births. To give birth to you, I had to be tied to the samsara. ” With this answer the child will keep his mouth shut and not speak further. You don’t speak like this, because of fear that he may desert you and he will not be present in the last moments of your life. To let him go, what happens? Having many sons, also many of the parents died as orphans. Tell me now: Dasharatha said: “Rama is my life.” Then why did Dasharatha die in the absence of Rama? We must ponder over all these things. Nobody stays or belongs to anybody in this world. As long as you live among the millions of people in the world, we must live friendly, with a smiling face. We must live with a realization that anything may happens to us in next 2 minutes. Unnecessarily making huge sacrifices, you keep repeatedly pondering on the person who has quit you. You do not think a bit about the person who is in your presence. This is a very big mistake we do. We brag and cry about the person who had died and don’t care about the living persons. It is a mistake.
In the Jnana bodha sabhas (satsang group), you keep bragging about the person who did not come and not care about the person who did come. This will send a wrong message to the people who have come. They will be of the opinion that only the absentees will be talked about. They will not come for the next session. Let the people who come be welcome and don’t worry about the people who did not come. We are not having a habit of respecting the people who have come. Joyfully sing Saduguru bhajans with those people and joyfully going back home. Not caring much about the absentees will make them come to the next session. You keep saying that the absentees don’t now about the sri swamiji’s value.
First you go to the people who know about Sri Swamiji’s value, do namaskram to them and learn about Sri Swamiji. There are many people around who have known Sri Swamiji. You go, enquire and learn from them. Don’t brag about how foolish absentee’s people are. What is this? If you brag too much, then you are more foolish than the absentee’s. You share information about Sri Swamiji with those who don’t know about Sri Swamiji and learn from the people who know about Sri Swamiji. Leaving this, you think about the absentees.
What is the big deal if your elder son does not come to Sri Swamji? It is his destiny. How many people take dips in The Ganga? Only 1 or 2 get liberated. Why are you taking strain? One who eats in mad marriage, is lucky. This world is a mad marriage and full of mad people. We have come here for real food. That is spiritual food. One who has eaten this spiritual food, is a blessed soul. Instead you brag about persons who did not come. Some different madness has inflicted upon the absentees. It is their karma. That is it. Kauravas are 100 and Pandavas 5. All of them being brothers. How is it that Kauravas turned to be demons and Pandavas suffered so much? These all are our lessons. If we can understand who we symbolize in them, we will not think about others.
A son says to his mother “Mother, you are going to Sri Swamiji. Won’t you care for me ?
Then if you say ” I am going to Sri Swamiji. If you come along, I will take care of you.” If you say so, he will surely come with you. If your son repeatedly complains to you that you are not taking care of him, then what should you do? Take his mucus and massage to yourself?
Mother says: “What more should I care for you? Now your intellect is good. You can come by yourself. So many reasons for not coming, but then can you go to movie, do theft, tell lies, and see television till 12 am in the morning? But you don’t have time to come to Sri Swamiji for darshan?” Son: “I don’t know all this.” Then does he know all the afore said things? Does he know how to go on a motor bike with friends? These are the things that are going on in our society. When we really ponder over these things, we will understand who foolish or mad people are. The people who have come here are mad or foolish and not the one who are absent. The people who have come here are fools because they come here and think about the absentees. Coming here, also you are not able to receive the vibrations of Sri Swamiji because you are thinking about the absentees. You think he did not ring me up yet? Why come here and ponder over the absentees? You must be catching them. Hang on to them in the house. You should come here, leaving behind all the attachments. You come to the ashram, sleep nicely, eat more than once even without knowing what is being served. Sri Swamiji will not object. Normally at home, when you put a drop of cold water on yourself, you get cold. Here you can take a bath with 4 buckets of cold water and yet not suffer from cold. If you get a bed, it is ok. If you don’t get a bed, it is ok. At least you get the floor to sleep. You sleep here a day or two and you get rid of your sins.
Rama and his brothers have slept on the floor during the education period. One year after education, when they went to home, the palace, then also in the name of some vows and discipline they faced hard circumstances. Then they went to the forest. Did they sleep on the bed? Tell? Why don’t you speak? When we evaluate these circumstances, they are lessons for us. They are kings but suffered such adverse circumstances. What to do ? It is their karma.
What about Satya Harishchandra? Seeing in this way, all the great saints from all religions went through many hardship. Do you know? At least do you know how many hardship your Sri Swamiji has borne in His childhood days? You don’t want any of these lessons? You must take these examples and when you practice these lessons with discipline, then you will get lot of energy.
We won’t take all these. Instead, we question what did He give me? What did He give me? Then I will answer why did you come here? Why did you come here? This is my work from tomorrow. Who asked you to come here? Who asked you to come here? Did I make a phone call and ask you to come here? You came willingly and going back sadly. Sometimes I say you are going back with losses. What losses? Your sins are what your are losing here. As soon as you entered the ashram, bad evils that inhabited you body and mind are now having difficulties and are abandoning you. As soon as you remember (do smarana to) Lord Dattatreya, all your problems will get uncomfortable and leave you. Until then, they happily reside in your body and mind.
Sri Guru Datta