Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji – Navarātri Series – Day 6, Shashti – Goddess Vishālākshi – Namasankeertana & discourse in the evening – October 20, 2023 – Mysore
For the next three days the Puja and restrictions are going to be strict because we must be careful in this Navarātri. All of you must observe madi (restrained interaction). Women who have their monthly cycle must not shower and come for Puja thinking it is ok, it will not be good for you. Even men and women must have head bath once a day. It is advisable to eat only once a day. Be careful and worship Mother with great devotion. Write Lalitā Sahasranāma well. Download all old Bhajans and sing for yourself. It is advisable to observe certain rules of abstinence with devotion. Do not come to Nada Mandapa as per your will and do not come up to Mother’s worship altar unless Appaji permits, it is not good for you. The staff and musicians here are appointed by Swamiji, you can strive to earn that permission. A slight lapse in observing these rules occurred yesterday, that will have an effect on me. We should not do as we please. I told you yesterday what Sage Vyasa said to Janamejaya – observe rules, have devotion and shraddha (keen interest). Only then your wishes will be fulfilled. These rules are necessary to inculcate devotion in you. We must wash our feet after easing ourselves and should not enter the sacred area without doing so.
Tomorrow is Saraswati Puja. And thereafter it is Mahadurgi worship. Next 3 days Puja procedure is wonderful and rare. You all had the great fortune this year to witness it. You may have it in the years to come as well, but since you have it now, make good use of it. These sacred days won’t come again. We will come back to Ashram, but this day won’t come back. Navarātri is the most superior of all Vratas. It requires greater discipline than others, that is why fasting is recommended. We are asked to eat only once a day so that the body is able. If you ask why, then ask yourself why do we wear uniform? Uniform gives a command to the body to follow a certain set of actions. That is the same reason why we wear Puja clothes to observe discipline and restrained interaction.
Discourse:
We spoke last 5 days about the Vrata, the fruit, the rules, which great souls did the Vrata and so on. Today is day 6:
kātyāyani mahāmāyē bhavāni bhuvaneśvari |
samsārasāgarē magnam mām uddhara kṛpāmayē ||
brahma viṣṇu śivārādhyē prasādaṃ jagadambikē |
manōbhilaṣitam dēvi varam dēhi namostutē ||
Chant this shloka daily. That is why I am having you repeat it everyday.
It seems as if Janamejaya asked questions for our sake. What is Dharma? How to get liberated from samsara? Sage Vyasa was talking about the stories of Mother Goddess when the king raised these questions. Questions arise when Upadesha is being given. Questions improve our understanding. That is why, everyday, we must allocate one hour for spirituality. As work load decreases and we get closer to retirement, we should increase that time to 2-3 hours a day. That’ll do good for you. We must do it in this birth because we don’t know what’s our next birth going to be. This wisdom is revealed to us by chance; we somehow got a Sadguru in this life. Don’t use Him just for worldly pleasures and profits and losses, use Him for spirituality. Bala Swamiji is giving so many discourses, Swamiji did so many in the past, how many of you have heard and are putting them into practice? Just listening is not enough, we must put to practice. We are getting drawn more and more towards grief and sorrows despite doing a lot of seva and tapas (penance). A small difficulty is enough to upset us, we forget everything. All that we learnt and practiced is forgotten and we wallow in the grief. That grief becomes everything. How strange is this?
At home, the mother who cooks everyday gets yelled at when there is too much salt in the food that day. One small mistake and you are quick to dismiss her entire character! How can it be perfect everyday? Humans make mistakes. It is the mistake of the one who made and the one who found fault, both. So, whatever you have praised her all these years is futile, is it? Is all that praise false/untrue? She was a beautiful Apsara to you once, and now because there’s wee bit extra salt in the food, everything she has done is forgotten. We tend to forget all that has happened when faced with a small mistake. That is human tendency. In order to not forget, the mind must be made strong and tough. Strengthen your resolve and your Vrata rules. You must not yield to small mistakes. Let it go, everyone is human. You must realise that you are also one of the reasons for that mistake to happen. You must not spoil the peace at home that is like Nandagokula. God gives us the family and pets for a reason, we should be happy and chirpy. We should not shed tears in our home. We should not make anyone else shed tears either. If we do, the Goddess of poverty enters your home. Problems come one after another. If you want peace, this advice of Swamiji will always be with you, you must bear it on your mind. Your yelling about the salt is not due to the salt per se, it’s your true nature that is springing forth. Your inner demons are flaring up. Some people are like the tiger that wears a cow’s mask (Violent inside but display a peaceful demeanour) It does not make the tiger a cow. Our inner demonic nature becomes evident when we act in that rash manner. But, if we help each other at home and be supportive, then our good nature will spring forth, the house will become Nandagokula. Otherwise everything is futile.
If you behave that way, it means you haven’t learnt anything from all that you heard from me. You did not understand it. All the Gita study is a waste. All the spiritual lessons are only a drama in your life. You are deceiving yourself and later the society as well. It means you are just bringing the mass of flesh called your body, placing it here for 3-4 hours, listening to Swamiji, singing Bhajans and going back. You have no Chaitanya or Paramātma in you. Have God in you. Use this opportunity and fulfil your life.
Moksha takes a split second to attain. We have days and years of association with Swamiji. Listening to one bhajan is at par with listening to crores of mantras. But your mind is in desires, at home, at work, in other adjustments and not here. Your body is here, but mind is absent. This means you are also deceiving the Guru, but I wont deem it that way, don’t worry. The Guru may think – you are sitting here since morning, you must have so much devotion. It is a lie. You are sitting here but mind has gone on a tour, it has already exited the gate of the Ashrama, you must yank it back to here. While chanting a mantra, mind goes elsewhere before even half the chant is complete. While chanting Gita shloka, another thought comes to mind, you must bring the mind back to shloka. Instead, you keep entertaining that thought forgetting the shloka. From there you enter a fantasy world, that is a cancer of the mind. The entire chanting is corrupted. That is why you must have better environment at home (so that its easy to bring mind back to the Divine).
Have big portraits and photos of the divine, a small idol and so on at home. Have good smelling incense, photos everywhere, good music that’s ready to play, a bedsheet with birds’ images on it. As soon as you enter the house, the environment must be positive. That guidelines for good environment at home is called Vāstu. Some homes are like graveyards – Very dingy with just some benches and a sofa. The walls are empty. What is the use of such dirty walls, why don’t you paint them? The kitchen must have the utensils neatly stacked, and not scattered all over the place. If you cook and eat in a messy kitchen and leave it in further mess, how would that food nourish your body and mind? Will you be healthy that way? The kitchen must be well organised like Bhima’s kitchen. It should look like Pandavas kitchen. The utensils must be organised in designated places. Then, you feel like entering the kitchen and cooking well. We are used to a disorganised kitchen because you leave everything to the domestic help or the cook. You can have the cook prepare meals but we should all learn to cook even if we have a cook at home. Cooking our own food is a really healthy practice. I wouldn’t say fire the cook, but you must learn to cook and offer Naivedya to the Lord. Food must be clean and pure. The bed should be so clean that Devatas must want to come and lie down. But your bed scares away even the devils. The pillows stink after years of usage without wash – your dogs and even your poultry sleep there, and you along with them! You must completely cover the bed with a clean sheet on top, but you don’t. You rush into the bed to sleep and rush out as you’re getting late, and you eat like a glutton. How will your life be good? There is no system at home. One must feel like talking to Appaji’s photo at your home. The house should be so good that it must be feel like heaven even if it is very small. People should want to visit your place. Coffee cups sit unwashed for days, flies buzzing on them, you rinse it lightly and use it again to drink coffee. Trash must be disposed off regularly. Both men and women must clean the house. There are no rules anywhere that only women have to clean the house. These are new rules created by us out of our wickedness. The sages in ancient times would all do household duties. They used to clean after Yajna was performed ..you can refer to the scriptures and find out.
Even men should cook but these days all those practices are long forgotten and we eat with our legs dangling from the chair. Unhealthy practice! We must not eat that way. We must sit on the floor cross legged and eat, even if it is a struggle to do so. If you have knee surgery, may be you cannot, but everyone else must sit on the floor cross legged and lean forward to eat. That will prevent you from overeating and your tummy growing. But instead, you sit straight on a chair and eat while speaking on the phone. What is this? You have no idea what you’re eating. You will even eat cockroach dipped in honey because you are not paying attention to what you are putting in your mouth. You think its a new dish. Put your phone away while eating. How long will you eat? May be 30 mins max. People can leave messages during the time, even if you don’t answer their calls. You must eat neatly with your hands. It’s good for your arms and nerves. All the vital organs are represented on the palms (eating with hand nourishes them when you mix food with hands and eat)
These days, many are learning to eat with spoons and forks. Remember you are using spoons used by other people (even if washed). Swamiji mimics people eating meat with forks. How many mouths has that spoon and fork been in? But your hand belongs to you alone. It is so nice when you use your own finger and lick them up after eating. This might sound funny to you but try it and see, it is blissful, it is so yummy. Why do you think many children suck their thumb? They feel like there’s nectar oozing. Don’t know if nectar really oozes but surely the children will have protruding teeth if they suck thumb. We must tend to the child carefully. When the child cries, the parents shove the child’s thumb in its mouth. Child obsesses over it, teeth become protruding and the need for braces arise to set it right. Why do you need to go through all that trouble? You must deter such behaviour. If you apply some neem or fish oil on the thumb, the child will stop sucking it forever. It is because of the stench in those oils. We are using rubber these days to deter them from sucking thumb, which is alright too. But if they suck, teeth will surely protrude spoiling their beautiful face. We cause a permanent damage to our children just to not let them cry. It is simple to deter them from sucking thumb.
Our fingers have nectar in them, so when we eat with hand, it nourishes us. The respective body parts represented by those fingers will lose their weakness when you mix food and eat. You must use your hands to mix food well and eat. Kabir Das said that – wife and husband are like big and small tongue. Nama (Lord’s names) we chant are like relatives. When you sing Lords names along with your children, Lord will come and reside at your home like a relative. The parts of the body are so amazing – they have great utility in pleasing the Divine.
When we enter our house, we should feel like we entered Vaikuntha. You must always keep it clean. You must use the vacuum cleaner to immediately clean. If you delay cleaning by days and weeks and months, it is not healthy. Even a small house should always be kept clean. Lakshmi will walk around and even She doesn’t, I will surely walk around such a house. I can hear your talk through Appaji’s photo. Please remove photo from your bedrooms, I cannot bear all that gossip, fights and the sinful talk. Remove my photos first and then do as you please. My head aches when you have silly arguments in front of my photo. Swamiji has put a lot of energy in some photos. The moment you see those photos, you feel like talking to Swamiji. But you don’t realise that aspect and placed them as mere show pieces. That is why, ADPT is going to select photos for a website where you will have to pay for downloading. These are rare photos of Swamiji which I had specially clicked for this purpose, you would not have access to them unless you pay and download. They are not available on social media. You may place those photos at home, they contain Swamiji’s energy. We will inaugurate that website on Durgashtami. These photos will be under the header ‘1000 photos’. Swamiji’s photos speak to you when you enter the house. There is a life size photo that was taken in London, which has so much energy in it. Swamiji can hear you when you speak in front of it. The vibration reaches here to Mysore. Draw a curtain over my photo when you speak badly or argue or when you eat meat. Swamiji is pained to see and hear all that.
Janamejaya had a great doubt and asked Sage Vyasa: O sage, what is Dharma and what is Adharma? Whom should we trust? Whom should we follow as an example? This samsara is a big sinful pit and it’s hard to escape from it. Many Devatas too appear to be swerving from dharma sometimes. In Kurukshetra battle too, many greats swerved from Dharma.
Bhajan ID 329 – Girija viraja Shankara dayita
Everyone knows samsara is devoid of essence. Yet, everyone swerved from Dharma in the battle, even the great souls did so. That is wrong. Abhimanyu was slaughtered deceitfully. Everyone deceived another. When we hear such stories, we start doubting Dharma. We even lose interest in following Dharma. So, please tell me what is Dharma, its nature, what is the benchmark for Dharma? How the beings can be freed from this samsara that is full of sins and merits? Who should be that trusted one we can follow as the benchmark for Dharma? Who is worthy to be considered as trusted one? All the embodied beings are drawn to material aspects and have self interest. They are interested in comforts and they have affinity too, then how can we trust anyone as a benchmark?
Sage Vyasa said – Where there is love, there is hatred – they are two sides of the coin. If you have great love for one, you’re bound to have hatred for another. Love is born when things work in our favor. And hatred emerges when they don’t. When we are hurt even a little by the ones we love a lot, immediately all that love is gone. Hatred also gives birth to lies. Lying becomes inevitable for a selfish person. This is the reason why even some great souls have wronged. Dharma has 4 legs. Remember carefully. The first is truth. We worship the cow because one leg is Truth, second is Purity/cleanliness, third is compassion, fourth is Charity. These are the four legs of Dharma. We should follow these four in our life. But we follow them in parts, or we crush all four. Without these four legs, Dharma does not stand. Satyam (truth), Shoucham (purity/cleanliness), Daya (compassion), Daanam (charity) are the four virtuous practices that we MUST have. Only then is it considered Dharma. We spoke about the 10 qualities of Dharma before, but we are talking about 4 now. Actions (karma) devoid of these 4 practices will yield no fruit. Actions devoid of these practices is like punching air. We have no determination and interest in following these four practices.
Janamejaya then asked: Emperor Bali was a great and charitable king. Maha Vishnu sent him to the nether worlds, so who won? Vishnu or Bali? Bali was ruling dharmically, but he was pressed into nether world by Maha Vishnu who is an elder. Who is the victor here? The one who pressed or the one who got pressed? Janamejaya seems to be very sharp, he had all the right doubts back then while we are just getting started.
Sage Vyasa said: Son, Bali is greater, he is superior. That is why Vishnu became a security guard at Bali’s abode in Patala Loka. Did the Lord do that for anyone else? Who else got such a blessing? Satyam (truth) is the root for all Dharmas. But it is hard to observe for the embodied. Everyone lies to some extent. Raise your hands if you never lied. I will have you sit on the altar and worship you. I don’t need Mother’s idol, I will worship you. I will do Abhishekam to you with milk and honey for 16 hours. We all have uttered lies. Do not lie everyday. Be careful. If you lie once, you’ll have to lie again and again to keep up that lie.
Story: A day before Kaliyuga began, a man borrowed some money from another under a banyan tree. The lender asked back the money after a few days in Kali Yuga, and the borrower claimed he never took the money. The court case ran for a very long time. The judge was finally about to retire and tried to resolve all cases, except this one case (some honest judges still exist and they yearn to resolve all cases before retirement. Even if they are not so rich they still adhere to the truth). In the end, the judge got vexed and thought up an idea and asked the donor where the money was loaned. He said he gave it under a banyan tree. By now the lender lost his wealth and became poor and was in need of money. He wanted some money back, at least the principle amount, if not interest. The clerk went to give a notice to the tree at the behest of the judge. The judge made the lender and the borrower continue standing in court until the clerk returned. It was hours and days but the clerk didn’t return. The borrower finally blurted our of frustration – I don’t know how far the clerk has gone, it’s just the fourth tree on the third street. Thus, the truth came out finally after so many years. He was denying taking loan all this while but now when he blurted about the banyan tree, the truth was unveiled. That is why Gandhiji said to be extra careful when you lie because truth will eventually come out.
A crow dips in various waters, but it gets no benefit. Similarly, if you speak untruth, and dip in many sacred waters of Teerthas, you may lose your hair colour but not your sins. All your charity is futile if you don’t speak the truth. Without truth, your Yajnas or wars are futile. Even if you do noble deeds with wealth earned through deceitful means, they yield no merit. A small deed done adhering to truth will yield great benefit.
The world is made up of powerful Maya that is composed of Sattva Rajas and Tamas attributes. It has many faces/forms and it permeates the entire world. Due to Maya, truth appears like deceit and vice versa, in this Kali Yuga. We easily fall for betrayal. We see the attractive packaging and believe it’s contents are also as great. It is very hard for someone who is immersed in Samsara to see through this Maya. We must understand this Maya is divine will.
In that case, Who can achieve Satya?
Vaikhānasa sages had no attachment, they did not accept anything in charity, they sought refuge in truth and had given up likes and dislikes and delusion, they conquered indriyas (senses). They have achieved Satyam (truth). Only great sages can observe Satya & Dharma. That is why we should seek refuge with great souls, then, we too would get used to observing Satya & dharma and get rid of our sins, understand the nature of Maya and get liberated from it. If humans do not seek refuge with Sadgurus, the samsara enveloped in colourful maya cannot be transcended. Man will be stuck in it forever. Deceit becomes unavoidable for a person who is of the world. And he is sure to amass demerit. One who is adharmic will keep chasing sensory pleasures. He looks for pleasing each of the senses. Desire, anger, greed, infatuation, arrogance and jealousy are the vices that destroy your discernment of right and wrong. Moreover, wealth brings arrogance and delusion. The root of all this is Moha – delusion. All these vices trap the being in samsara. He cannot come out of it. Succumbing to it, he is stuck in the cycle of rebirths. It is very difficult for a person of the world. What must he do? The answer therefore is, the mind must be purified. That is the antidote to Maya.
Earn money morally, win over the vices. Otherwise, the noble needs bring no merit. So the scholars say, anyone who wishes to accomplish any task, should have a pure body, his earnings should be pure in order for the actions to bring merit. If not, the results will be the opposite of expected. One who wishes for betterment of self and downfall to enemies must be vigilant of his tendencies, then their karma will yield good fruit. Time, space, actions, doer, materials, priest etc should all be pure for the Yajna to be fulfilled.
Why is there enmity between beings? Because we are all born with various gunas (tendencies). Why is the being behaving with Ahamkara? (Sense of ‘I’) It is because this samsara was born from Ahankara. Hence everyone in this samsara has likes and dislikes, in all yugas. If a great soul takes birth in any Yuga, it is solely because of the merit of his past lives. A good souls sees everyone as noble, sees Satya Yuga everywhere, as his heart is pure. He trusts everyone. The mediocre see a mix of good and bad. The inferior ones always see Kali Yuga everywhere. This is why we should speak, do and think only good. We must seek refuge with the noble. Only then we will find the way to transcend Maya and the necessary Shakti to accomplish it. This is the Upadesha of Devi who is the form of Guru, said Sage Vyasa. So, seek refuge with Mother. May She bless you fully.
New Bhajan…
Bhajan ID 8570 – Rahasyameta Tripurā devyā
Tripura Devi’s secret becomes clear only with Her compassion. Ha Ra, E – syllables make up Hreem – Mother’s Bījākshara. This seed letter is her manifestation. Earth, space and heaven; past present and future; dream, deep sleep and awake; gross, subtle, causal; sattva, rajas, tamas; seen, seer, sight; iron, copper, silver; moham, maha moham, andhatāmisram – all triads of all kinds are all ruled by the Mother; She is the foundation for them, but is beyond them and also help us transcend them. She is Tripura Devi. She is the One with Sat Chit Ananda. She is jnāna. To know Mother is possible only by her grace.
Bhajan ID 8566