222 ISSUE#39 October,2014 SAMASTHA LOKA SUKHINO BHAVANTU From Team Venugaanam We are delighted to bring to you to the 39 th edition of Venugaanam. In this edition, we have our beloved SWAMI s discourse about the Inner reality of oneself. Baba exhorts that dedicated activity, IN THIS ISSUE We 1. are From delighted Team Venugaanam.. P1 to bring you the 35th edition 2. Swami's of Venugaanam discourse..p2 this July. 3. SKM Updates...P3 4. Atma Jyoti...P9 5. Music....P11 6. The Elements of Controlling Oneself........P12 devotion and wisdom all combine in a balanced individual. The SKM updates brings to you some pics from the recent happenings at Sai Krushna Mandir. We share with you pictures from the school examinations of the children. In Atmajyothi, we further continue sharing the knowledge on devotion as indicated in Naradha Bhakti Sutras. Here we discuss the various aspects of the devotion. Abhijeet shares his insights on the crucial role that music plays in personality development. Prakash S shares his thoughts on how important it is to control oneself. We are happy to have your feedback on how to make Venugaanam a better communication tool. Please mail us at contactus@saikrushnamandir.org. Do feel free to share with us your articles, thoughts and ideas. 1
We pray to Swami to bless all the children and inmates so that they may all come up to His expectations. May Swami turn our lives into a celebration of His message of love, sharing and caring. With All our Prema, Team Venugaanam Thou art That (Thath-twam-asi) Excerpts from Prema Vaahini This is the highest and holiest spiritual maxim (mahavakya); you are the indestructible Atmic principle ( Atma- thathwa). It is for the sake of the Atmic principle that you have this body, so, in the attempt to realise the supreme Lord ( Parameswara ) here and now, you must be prepared to offer this body as a sacrifice, at any moment. Utilise your authority over this body to foster the welfare of the world. This body is but an instrument, an implement given by God. Let it serve its purpose. Until the realisation of the purpose for which the implement is given, it is your duty to watch over it vigilantly and protect it from injury and disablement. During winter, woollen clothes are worn to withstand the rigour of the cold gales, but when the cold subsides, they are discarded. So too, when the cold gales of material life don t affect us in the least, the material body is no longer essential. One is conscious of only the incorporeal body. Consecrate every act as worship of the Lord When the rains come, earth and sky are one in the sheety downpour. It is indeed a beautiful inspiring scene, a scene by which creation itself is teaching you to become one, in unison with it. Three lessons can be learned: the impermanence of created things, the role of a person as the servant, and God as the master. This creation is the wherewithal of the worship ( puja), the person is the worshiper, and God is the worshiped. The game called life is played with these. People must be happy that the highest Lord (Purushothama) has placed around them newer and newer materials for serving Him and gets the worship of Him done in various forms. People must pray for newer and newer opportunities and exult in the chance that their hands receive. This attitude gives immeasurable joy. To lead a life suffused with this joy is indeed bliss. Whatever is done from sunrise to sunset must be consecrated, as if it is the worship of the Lord. Just as care is taken to pluck only fresh flowers and to keep them clean and unfaded, so too, ceaseless effort should be made to do deeds that are pure and unsullied. If this vision is kept before the mind s eye every day and life is lived accordingly, then it becomes one long unbroken service of the Lord. The feeling of I and You will soon disappear; all trace of self will be destroyed. Life then transmutes itself into a veritable devotion to the Lord ( Hariparayana). I am the worshiper ( Sevak ). The world is the offering. God is the master who is worshiped. When one attains this stage of thought, feeling, and action and all difference between mine and thine disappear. Fill every deed with service, devotion, wisdom 2
There is no distinction between devotion to God (bhakthi) and spiritual wisdom (jnana). Just as materialization ( sa-guna) becomes formless (nir-guna), devotion becomes spiritual wisdom. I don t agree that dedicated action (karma), devotion, and spiritual isdom are separate. I don t even like to classify one of these as first, the other as the second, and the next as the third. I don t accept a mixture of all three, or even a merger of the three. Dedicated activity is devotion and devotion is spiritual wisdom. SKM Updates September was the month of examinations for all the children. The children prepared well for their semester examinations and most of them have fared very well. Special care was taken by the teachers and the management to ensure that the students were well prepared and confident. Stress was laid on honestly attempting all questions. The teachers had arranged seating so that School Examinations in progress children of each other. different classes sat next to The children have performed well and are now away for a vacation. The school re-opens on October 29 th. 3
Teachers and students in action during the exams 4
We invite all of you to come and visit Sai Krushna Mandir whenever you can. You could choose to volunteer your time teaching the children and playing with them. Atmajyothi by Shri Lakshminarayan Aithal Lakshminarayan Aithal has served for over 3 decades in Swami s institution and is the former Principal of the Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Institutions at Muddenahalli. Inspired by Swami s direct message to study the Upanishads, he first learnt Sanskrit and then studied the direct works of Adi Shankaracharya and Swami. Sincere perseverance led him to the reality of Aham Brahmasmi and He realized and experienced Swami s words: I am God and so are you. He shares the import of the Upanishadic teachings with us in this series of articles. Krushna says: O अर ज न, though I have repeatedly told to you many a time, once again, I narrate the Supremely Secret Preaching, listen to this. This itself is My final words : Keep your mind in Me alone, have devotion in Me alone, perform worship, etc. only for My sake; and salute Me alone. I have told this to you because you are the most beloved one to Me. If you follow this, you obtain Me alone, I promise that this the truth. The Lord has told this again and again. Due to this reason alone, न रद has determined that only offering of one s all practices to God is the Main Mark of a Devotee. The one who performs all actions for the sake of obtaining devotion, his mind is not fluctuated. For this an example may be given : Suppose, a father in a village sends his son to a nearby town to purchase something from a shop. If the son runs to the town and brings the worst object or tells that such an object is not available there; the father feels distressed; the tired son, whether the work of going to the town is fruitful or not, feels satisfied that he has done his duty; isn t it? Similarly, those who are attached to the action obtain distress if they don t get the expected fruit; and, those who perform action for the sake of devotion, don t have fluctuation in their mind whether the fruit is accomplished or not; they obtain bliss because they serve God. In this manner, those who engage themselves in the activities like : giving, charity, doing good to others, etc. in order to obtain either happiness or fame; their mind becomes active according to the accomplishment of the fruit; therefore, as the result they may have either happiness or distress. But, the one who performs the same actions to please God, all of his actions are transformed in to devotion itself. Therefore, he remains satisfied in all the states. 44 तद व स मरण परमव य कज लत 48. There is a secret, if all actions are offered to God, that becomes devotion which gives happiness. It is explained : Whatever we do, without our knowledge that is offered to God. When we are active in conducting actions, when we take rest after the work and again when we act if we observe the state 5
of our mind, there appears a special condition : While engaged in an action we have a notion that I am doing this work and I should obtain a certain fruit ; after experiencing the result of the action and again engaged in the same action or the other one, we hope that the work should be successfully completed without any obstacle and thereby we would be happy by that. When the one has elation after the successful accomplishment of one work, then he obtains satisfaction while experiencing the result of it. He feels certainly sorry when there is failure; he agitates himself by remembering the satisfaction that he had the success; and that agitation itself is the cause for his distress. When we have satisfaction then only we are comfortable without having either ascent of happiness or descent of distress. Those observe that condition of the mind carefully understand that I feeling is absent. Those who engage themselves in working, enjoying satisfaction and again working they don t have the decision about the nature of satisfaction. Generally, people use the word satisfaction without knowing its real nature. For, when there is satisfaction I notion is absent and in the presence of I notion, there is no satisfaction. During the intervals of one s busy schedules, in the presence of I notion, he experiences either happiness or distress as the result of his actions. One should intelligently examine himself that in that sound state the mind is freed from conditions like : happiness, distress and I notion, etc. The one who carefully analyses his experience of the deep sleep, he understands that there is only Bliss freed from worldly experiences like : I feeling and mine notion, etc. This is the satisfaction in which everyone has merged in God thus the scripture declares. The Happiness itself obtained after eradicating the egoism is the Devotion of the Form of Supreme Love as narrated in the 2 nd aphorism; those who remember this naturally obtain a will to experience the Happiness by remembering continuously God. That is why न रद when he forgets God. has decided that the Supreme Devotee experiences a great perplexity (परमव य कज लत ) Music By Abhijeet Singh Get a liking for music- It s not only fun but also beneficial Albert Einstein was reported to a slow learner and had speech difficulty in his childhood. He was considered to be a stupid and was suggested by his school for take up manual labour because of his apparent disability. However, his mother didn t think that he was a stupid and bought him a violin against school s advice. Einstein got a liking for the instrument and over time, became an adept violin instrumentalist. Today, the scientific world opines that Albert Einstein was one of the smartest brains of the century. While the mystery behind the great man s genius still remains unravelled, few scientific studies do suggest that his brain show signs of better inter connection between various brain centres and two lobes. Could we say that it was his musical activity that 6
assisted a slow leaner to convert into a mega genius like Einstein? Well, that s still remains a speculation but yes, music and ability to play an instruments do appear to have significant positive impact on one s brain and activity. Music has a great connection with us and impacts us all, either an 80 year old adult to 6 months baby; studies show that babies respond more to music and songs than to any other sound. As a result, it is hardly a wonder why Swami puts so much emphasis on music and encourages students and devotees to learn music. So, I thought of putting some interesting and useful ways in which music impacts us without us realizing it. 1. Emotions impacted by music- Our brain reflects to the kind of music we listen and moods change based on the kind of music. One study showed that after hearing a short piece of music, participants were more likely to interpret a neutral event as happy or sad, to match the tone of the music they heard. 2. Moderate noise for creativity- Research suggests that moderate noise level with particular frequency creates conducive environment for brain s processing capacity. However, the same is impaired in extreme noise environment. So, not a bad idea to play soft music or vedic chants to enhance the processing and learning environment for kids in school. 3. Choice of music reflects - This is really interesting! Study shows that our choice of music reflects out choice of music. At the same time, we can transform our personality by listening to particular music. For example, classical music tends to reflect or create high self-esteem, creativity, and peace, while rock/ hard metal tends to reflect chaotic but passionate and hard working environment. You will find that the sets of people that like the above two kind of music is typically exclusive. 4. Music training can significantly improve our motor and reasoning skills (sounds very interesting) - Study has shown that children who had three or more years of training of musical instrument were generally found to perform better on memory, analysing visual information and reasoning skills than those who didn t have it. Medically, stroke patients were found to respond positively to classical music. Well, overall it sounds that interest for music is a great thing to be developed in kids. Why only for kids, we can develop a liking for it at any age. Pick up any instrument of your choice and start playing it. At least, I am going for it. 7
222 ISSUE#39 THE ELEMENTS OF CONTROLLING ONESELF By Prakash S This post is related to an earlier one I had written about Lessons from Life. I am no expert in human psychology but I believe the lessons we learn from life are probably more powerful as they can last us through many lifetimes. Life is the best teacher is definitely a cliché but those teachings are the most profound as they arise out of our own experiences and they can never be forgotten by us. We have heard about the adage that the greatest man is the one who masters himself but this is easier said than done. Every day of our life is filled with situations where if we just hold on to our reins and do not succumb, we would have had a small victory which will boost our self-satisfaction. Only very great people can claim to have exercised self-control when it mattered, the rest of us mortals have to learn from our own experiences. But this is probably destined and will stand us in good stead later in life. The two main things to control are temptations (towards food/foregoing enjoyment for doing something important) and anger. Both are equally challenging and require practice and many unpleasant experiences to master. I say unpleasant because we need to go through fire to learn self-control but as long as we achieve the goal it s worth it! The irony of life is that in many cases the final blissful state of self-mastery is attained after a lot of trials and tribulations. My own experiences with anger is that it s something very lethal. If we can control anger, we will be doing a lot of good to ourselves. At the same time, this does not mean that we need to bottle it up, it should be vented in the most appropriate situation only. I have had many experiences that provoke anger but I have learnt from my experiences and I do not flare up at every instance. It s easier said than done and each of us have to find our own thresholds and this is something very subjective. For e.g when I am speaking to a customer care official, I am firm and assertive and I do not need to become angry to get my job done. I am also slowly begun to realize the (hidden) benefits of this self-control. I feel very balanced and have a sense of fulfillment and calm now. When you are happy and have a sense of balance, then only then can you make others happy. One of the best satisfactions in life is to alleviate others misery and make them feel good about life. So, all the hard work is worth the effort. The greatest lesson for me has been that, when we are mentally happy and charged then we get double satisfaction of feeling good and making others feel good too. So, self-motivation should be like breathing and we must channelize all our energies to keep our cool and sense of balance to have a remarkable life. 8