Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji – Datta Kshetra Yatra 2025 – Swagata Sabha – Deva Deva Datta Kshetram, SGS Ashrama, Nuzivid, AP – December 28, 2024
Until we have breath, we must uninterruptedly chant God’s name. We are only experiencing the karma from past lives. If we do good now, at least in the future, we will have good births.
We must start from the beginning (of the cycle of births) if we don’t do good deeds now. That must not happen. We should keep moving forward, especially when we have a Guru and we have a refuge, and a temple, a Satsang. Even those who cannot pronounce properly are chanting the Gita. You can stand in front of the mirror and wonder to yourself “How did I become so fortunate?”. When there is no one at home, close the door and speak to the mirror. My Lord taught me this, how come I learned the Gita? I am someone that’s always immersed in devices and TV, always ready to fight, watch movies, sing film songs, it’s so surprising that I am chanting the Gita. Where did I come from, where am I going?”
Those who are attempting to learn the Gita: if you can take a break from watching TV and other recreation for about 6 months, you will see the change for yourself.
1000 people came from America to Kurukshetra, on their own expenses. Is it a child’s play? No. We need money to travel, their jobs should not be affected, children need to have holidays. The children hanker after Swamiji saying “Tataji Tataji Tataji Tataji”. Your parents may hold you back, but you must break through that and chase after Swamiji.
Once, in America, 18 children were chasing after Swamiji. They did well in their studies too. I asked them what they could give Me. They said they would do anything. I asked them to learn the Bhagavad Gita. They were ready to learn the Gita. A teacher called Srikanth Challa was ready to sacrifice everything for Swamiji. Now, there are 2000 people like him in the US. Overall, there are about 3000-4000 around the world. They only want Swamiji, they don’t even watch movies. They don’t want to ever let go of Swamiji.
You know those children are born in the US, they do not even speak Telugu well, even though it’s their mother tongue. Their English is also strange. Now, they have such spiritual madness, it is incredible. Not one or two, but one lakh people are overcome with this spiritual madness.
Those 18 children memorized the entire Gita in one year. Academics – they reign supreme. They are getting admissions to the most prestigious schools they want. They were interviewed and asked to chant something from India. They chanted the Gita, and were admitted. They didn’t even have to pay the fees.
They are all in college now. Some have graduated and have started working. They offer their first salary to Tataji. They offer a part of their monthly salary to Tataji. Thousands have become this way. I have a madness that this should happen in India too. Make this happen.
If you memorize the Gita Dhyana shlokas, you will be surprised. Krishna’s Bhagavad Gita was verily given by the Lord Himself. There were no middle men. Bhagavad Gita alone was given directly by Paramatma. Sage Vyasa compiled them and blessed us with those scriptures. If we do Parayana for such a Gita, your progress in this world – education, job, marriage, children etc. – will be certain. Some are becoming scientists; some are becoming pilots (there are 4 of them waiting to fly Appaji. 2 of them are girls). Some became NASA scientists. Some did exceedingly well in Mathematics and won President’s awards too. I visited their homes.
You do not believe all this. They used to be afraid of Bhagavad Gita, afraid of memorizing it, now they have become teachers. When you do Gita and teach to one person, you get the merit of donating 1 crore cows. But we are teaching so many people already. Some teachers will not give up until the student chants perfectly.
Some of the students go to Sringeri and win the contest and come give the prize money to Me. I tell them to keep it, but they tell Me their transformation was all due to Swamiji. They were addicted to devices, they were disobeying parents, etc., but now they are set right. They are keen on learning the meanings of the Gita. That is the next step. They want to understand what Kurukshetra is, why Arjuna went through those emotions, why Krishna had to give that Upadesha.
The Bhagavad Gita happened only 6000 years ago, so it’s not very far in the past. After this were born other faiths.
Ours was the first Dharma (Sanatana Dharma) that was born. We should nourish our Dharma, if not, our numbers will diminish. That must not happen. Do not stop at one child or two. Have more kids. We need this progress. You are married anyway, have 2-3 children at least.
You must go to the doctor, take the right medicines, eat healthy food and give birth to children. Why not? This is your time to give birth. You think your health will be affected, or you care too much for the shape of your body. Why should you hesitate when girls are born? It is the girl child that will help us and take care of us. Of course, boys will take care of parents too, but the girls have more love.
Propagate the Gita, do not think it’s not your job. Do not think you should not do it because you eat non-veg food. Do it regardless. You will slowly turn vegetarian. You will become the teacher and the doctor for your mind. It’s up to you, no one can force you. You must choose to be disciplined, why not? You are not abandoning everything and walking away like a priest or a monk; you are not giving up everything. You are in samsara, you are doing everything at home, you are taking care of everyone. Why not progress spiritually? It gives peace of mind.
You developed friendship with this Ashrama, you participate in the Pujas. This gives peace of mind. We should go back to the ancient times. When you do seva here, you are building a bank balance. You must not just leave it to others to serve. You too must participate. Offer some small help. You may not be able to give Rs.1000; give Rs.100. Give one fistful of rice or millets. Or, set aside one fistful of rice grains every day before cooking. I will be in every grain of rice. Take a look at the grains as you pour them into a container you are setting aside for charity, you’ll see Swamiji in those grains. Whatever grains you use at home, you can set aside some, for charity.
Many of you eat rice at home. When you take out rice for cooking, extract a fistful of rice and set aside for donating at the temple. That is akin to offering a meal to Appaji. The children must remind the mothers about setting aside some rice. Because you do not offer, I do not eat. I am barely drinking buttermilk and very few morsels of rice.
All of you make it a habit to donate the rice set aside each day, once a week or once a month. Here (in the Ashram), they will use that rice and cook the food for everyone. If we give one fistful of rice, we are getting served four fistfuls to eat.
Lot of paddy grows here, why not donate half a bag, when you are buying 2-3 bags of rice? Sure you paid money for the bags, but money is only fleeting. How many bags of rice do you eat per month? You must remember what I am saying every time you eat rice. May this happen, God is witness.
You may forget spirituality, but why do you forget this? Just half a bag of rice, you can donate to the temple. How do you eat without offering to Swamiji? I feel insulted! I will be embarrassed if I did what you are doing. I am saying all this to increase your charitable nature. I swear by Shiva. I only want you to develop a charitable nature.
A story from Mahabharata comes to mind. A couple had two children, they lived in dire poverty. They were simple Brahmins, they found no job to support their livelihood. They used to do “uncha vrtti”, that means, they would only eat the grains picked from the ground during harvesting. During monsoons, they would not get any grains, they would simply starve.
God knows why He gave them so much punishment. To test them, Indra came in the guise of a poor Brahmin to their house. They had made some roti after grinding the grains. They were neither able to die, nor live comfortably. Why God did that, we don’t know. We feel pity. There are many in the world like this. Still, they live honorably and do not beg for food or ask for help.
In the past, rice, bricks, etc., were all sent by some devotees, but now they are not sending more, and have fallen into troubles. We used to get truckloads of rice from Nujiveedu to Mysuru. The truck must come to Mysuru for birthday. I can buy rice there, but I like the rice to come from Nujiveedu.
Back to the story from Mahabharata: Indra went to their house in the guise of an old man with excessive starvation. The family brought him inside and sat him down. He clamored for immediate food. They brought a big roti and some water for him. That was the man’s share of food. The old Brahmin ate that and said he was still very hungry. The wife and husband consulted each other; and the wife said: You are my God; your will is my will. Donate my share to him.
Indra, in the guise of that man, ate that and again clamored for more food. We would have scolded him and dismissed him off, but they did not.
The older child then said to parents: Do not cry, please offer my share of one roti. The man ate that roti too and drank water and again clamored for food. The only person left in the house was a little girl. She told her mother to give her share too to the man. The mother was concerned the child would die of starvation, but the child was insistent on giving her meal away.
So, the man ate the final roti and again said he was hungry. He then washed his hands. A few squirrels came by and ate the remainder of the floor that was washed off from the hands. As soon as they ate, they attained divine bodies. Indra appeared as himself and granted divine worlds to the parents and the children. The celestial plane came, and Indra took them to higher worlds. This is the power of Dāna or charity.
Someone asked how it could be considered Annadana if we are all eating our own food. Annadana is prana dāna – we are giving prana/life through food. This doesn’t have to be rice, whatever sattvic food you eat, that is all worthy of charity. We cannot be alive if we do not eat. We should at least eat fruit to stay alive.
Every one of you should set aside some rice at home every day. You must not use that rice again. Some people set aside money for Venkataramana Swamy and use that during difficult times or use that as loan and pay interest on it. I do not approve of it.
When you decide, you must give, you must not again use it, that is a sin. Do not postpone charity if you have money on hand. We should not be indebted due to procrastination. That is very wrong.
Tomorrow is re-consecration. The shrines are built with marble even more beautifully. What do we do with that money? The couple (who donated) felt they were spending on Shiva what they would spend on another son, if they had one.
It’s amazing that we are building temples for Shiva, for Datta, for Hanuman. It’s amazing that these days, people are chanting Hanuman Chalisa 108 times.
The fact that I am sitting here and talking is because of your good fortune. When I was in Gannavaram, I wanted to go to Vijayawada to take care of My health. When you take on someone else’s ailments, you have to suffer for it. Your devotion brought Me here.
You were okay with Me for not talking, not doing bhajans or anything. You just wanted Darshan of Swamiji. Otherwise, the mind was ready to go to Vijayawada…but I came here out of love for you. Prasad fought with Me, saying I can get rest here too. So, I said okay and came here.
All old and new people, keep your devotion intact.
Jaya Guru Datta.
Swamiji instructs that rice trucks inevitably reach Mysuru Ashrama
Because you stopped doing that, you are struggling. You must send rice trucks for Shivaratri, Swamiji’s birthday and Navaratri. Why did you stop sending the rice bags? It’s okay if you send only 20, not necessary that you send 100 bags. May you all never have a shortage of food for 7 births.