Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji after Sri Chakra Puja – Ugadi & Rama Navami festivities – April 10, 2024 – Dundigal Ashrama, Hyderabad
Yesterday, very few bought the condensed Bhagavad Gita books. Everyone must buy it, it will not be reprinted. To compile that content, there was intense tapas. For two years, during Covid, there were a lot of discussions on the content. There were so many struggles.
I went to the house of a senior devotee of 40 years. There are so many books in the house, but not a single book of Swamiji. How will your children get Swamiji’s books if you don’t have any? You say Swamiji is your life, you say Swamiji has named your children, got them married, and only due to Swamiji’s blessings the children had children too, and they were also named by Swamiji.
Swamiji is Himself telling you, but you are still not buying the book. You have no time. The books are also priced very low, there is no profit on the books. Business houses want to publish these books. But I want you, devotees, to have it first. We just want everyone to have the book with them, so you benefit from them.
A Guru, while speaking, said: Today at 6pm, I will scatter the nine precious gems, you can pick them up. Hearing that, huge crowds showed up. The Guru then spoke beautifully about the Upanishads. It was a very good speech. When the Guru was done, one devotee got up and asked about the gems, Where are they, You said you would scatter them for us. That devotee thought that the Guru meant stones! Then the Guru said – I have scattered them for two hours and the interested ones picked them up already.
If we had the actual precious stones or gems, we would lock them, and may be in difficult time sell them for relief from troubles. Sadguru’s words are more precious than Navaratnas (nine precious gem stones). We should store the Guru’s
words in our Buddhi/intellect. That is the bank account.
Usually in life, mental difficulties are greater than physical difficulties. Every minute, we face unknown grief and unknown enemies and sorrows. We feel like relatives and family members are a burden, or that we are a burden on them. These are all signs of mental diseases. No contentment, no peace. Happiness flashes for just a second, but we are mostly submerged in grief because we are drawn to unnecessary talks, thoughts, and experiences.
The happy people don’t get caught in such experiences. We should be like the drop of water on the lotus leaf. The lotus leaf grows in marshes, in water. It cannot survive without water, but it never gets wet. That is how we should live. We grew up in sorrow and afflictions. But they should not stick to us. That is the state we should develop.
We are all in grief, the percentage of happiness in our life is very small. It’s barely 5%. 95% is grief and dissatisfaction of lack of contentment. You always want more.
Some aged devotees come to Swamiji, they are close to the end of life, but they are still submerged in worries about their children’ marriage and other family issues. They don’t even think about God. I chide them and direct them to stop worrying about children and grandchildren.
We should not get old people bound to our grief either. Don’t keep relating your grief to them. We should manage on our own. Many of us pour out all our sorrows to aged mothers and fathers. Why do you want to give them trouble? They are close to the end of life. Sorrow is cause of rebirth. Disease is the result of past lives’ sins.
You think you committed no sin, why are you suffering? Past lives’ sins cannot be escaped. We must happily face them. We are hearing about and experiencing the greatness of God, yet we foolishly grieve and have no contentment. One day we leave all this and go.
We must be patient and content. We have life today, we are alive. To decrease the 95% grief, you must increase your goodness. You are only 5% good, you must increase that, then the bad qualities and selfishness will wane. You heard all this, but you will go home and grieve again. Your human nature gets the better of you. You will not change. Sri Rama too said the same thing. Before entering Sarayu river, He cautioned Hanuman: These people will not change, be careful. Sri Rama said the same to Lava and Kusha.
Your mind must change, you must give up grief. We are catching on to grief and giving up goodness. You must do the opposite. Give up sin and greed. Give up anger and jealousy and envy.
When we give up selfishness, life is happy. We should perhaps not even remember anything. That is a wonderful state, you will know if you experience. That does not mean you just eat and enjoy. You must be useful to yourself, your family, and to others. That is the life of sacrifice we should lead.
All this is tapas. All of us gathering here is also tapas. Swamiji is in town, you must not miss the program. You must make it a habit to at least have Darshana. Excuses of traffic, pollution, time, etc., will not stand in the face of strong devotion.
You can test for yourself if you wish. If you stay home, while Swamiji is here, your mind will not be at peace. You will repent not being here, and making use of this opportunity, but this same moment will not come again.
Each moment and each breath is valuable. Do not waste it. I keep reminding you to practice chanting divine names with your breath. We should make use of all our energy to do the right thing. If not, it is a sin, and we are deceiving the mind.
How many more times should Swamiji tell you…your mind is elsewhere and you don’t pay attention. So, you think Swamiji didn’t tell you. That is why we have books and when you study the books, you’ll feel like Swamiji is teaching to you. It is so nice when you have Swamiji’s books and you pick one up and read it once in a while.
We were approached by agencies who sell the books for a commission, but that is not what I want. This is not for profit, it’s for your benefit. I want you to experience first, later we can give them the books. We used to print 3000 copies before, then, we printed 1000 and now we print about 500. This should not be the case. You must get the books.
Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita full volumes are available, but the condensed versions are also available and you can study them easily. Many of you are learning the Gita, you can take this book. The meanings are given in brief in these books.