TV Channel

Sanskrit and Hindi terms include: prāṇa, kuṇḍalinī, ātmā, sattva, dhyāna, jīva, paramātmā, saṃskāra, tamas, Mahāprabhujī, bhajan. Kṛpā karo Gurudeva Gajānanda Hṛdayakaro Nivāsa. Anbhava varnī prakta kījā, Anbhava varnī prakta kījā. Jaisā bhānā prakāśa, Paḍharo mere ghanapati deva kurasa. Paḍharo mere ghanapati deva kurasa. Śaraṇ āye ko sadā sukha dī, choh kī choh sarv dukha nāśa. Kāla jala sab kubhūta talajo, Kāla jala sab kubhūta talajo. Beto yam ki trāsa, Padāro mere kanapaṭṭi deva, O Rānsa, Padāro mere kanapaṭṭi deva. Chara Chari Māyāpā Birajā Vyāpā Kajese Ākāśa. Gaṇapati Dhyādi Sadā Sukha Pāde Iyāśa Padhāro Mere Gaṇapati Deva Gorānsa. Palaka palaka merī yahī arajāye, Palaka palaka merī yahī arajāye. Rākho caraṇam e dāsa, Paḍhāro mere kaṇpati deva kurānsa. Śirīpu jaḍipadāyālo ghananāmī sumāro svāsa uśvāsa. Śrī Mādhāvan Jinītā yāra cakaratāye, Mādhāvan Jinītā yāra cakaratāye. Maidāra Śāṅkhī Pyāsa Paḍhāro Mere Gaṇapati Deva Kurānsa. Padharo mere Ganapati deva, Kuransa. Siri puja di paadayaan ja, koi dhyana dare nija manse. Bhaagi bharma janjaan. If you can go back to your childhood for a moment, to when you were in primary school—I don’t know how it was in other people’s schools, but in my school, there were always lots of pictures and paintings on the walls that everyone in the class had done, which the teacher was displaying. When you’re in kindergarten or in first or second class, it was always beautiful to see that your picture also would be on the wall. It was always my dream to do this in school, but for many years I was trying and trying. It just doesn’t seem to be in the culture for the teachers, for me, and I think for many who had come from different countries to work in the school. The classrooms always looked so boring. I tried many times to encourage different teachers to put these children’s pictures up, to get them to make something and display it, but it just would never happen. So somehow I gave up and decided to try a different way. Last week we put a lot of boards in the office which I have in the school, and we’re putting up all the children’s pictures, as I said the other night. The walls are completely covered in pictures. But I now have a problem: every day there are coming so many pictures. Before, the children weren’t drawing, but now everybody’s an artist. It was very strange for me that children didn’t seem to have that urge to draw and make pictures in school. From one side, it’s beautiful to see the discipline which they have and the way that they’re studying the theory. But it always worried me a little bit: where was that self-expression? Where was that willingness to show what was inside? Lately, it just seems that it was waiting for a place to put it, a place for it to be seen. Some of the pictures are quite fantastic. Actually, I felt forced to do it by the children in Strylki. Somehow, I’ll explain that. Because when we had the seminar in Strylki, the children were always bringing so many pictures, and some of them were so beautiful. I felt that I had no choice but to come back, that they had to go somewhere where people could see them. They couldn’t just lie in the box or in the cupboard. So now those pictures from Strylky and from Jardin and everything are sitting there together. It’s becoming just like a massive color, and the walls are just so colorful. But for me, the special part is that just now they’re drawing, and drawing, and drawing. Every day they’re coming. Some children are making pictures so big, I just don’t know where to put them; they don’t fit in the room. In the first one or two days, they were somehow like almost nervous pictures, where they were all of the same thing or something very stylistic. But now you can see they are not just copying from a picture which they saw, but they are actually making their own picture. This leads me to think on to something which is more for us, because I often feel that everybody is spiritual, but often we don’t give a place to display those spiritual qualities that we have. Not to stick them on a wall or say, "Look, I do this or I do that," or whatever, but just to acknowledge to ourselves that they are there. To acknowledge to ourselves that we have a special quality. And also to recognize those qualities in other people. It can be the most simple thing. Spirituality is not dressed in special clothes or living in a special place. Spirituality is expressed by our actions and our reactions, by our compassion and love and those spiritual qualities. In Swamiji’s Yoga in Daily Life system, in the Self-Inquiry Meditations in Part 5, there are two practices where you recognize all of your good qualities and recognize all of your bad qualities. I think that we are pretty good at revising those negative qualities that we practice, perhaps, well in daily life. But it’s also important to do that practice where it recognizes your positive qualities, your spiritual qualities. That’s such a beautiful meditation where you look and also see whether those things which you think are good, are they really good for you, are they really positive for you? And then, when you recognize those good qualities, cultivate them and find ways to make them grow. One time recently, when I was back in Australia visiting my parents, they have young grandchildren. One of their grandchildren was about three at that time. My mother was a teacher all of her life, so somehow, as a teacher, she also had some plan of what she would like him to do to help his development. My nephew was coming; someone was bringing him there, my brother perhaps. My mother was going around the house, and in certain places, even at the front door, she was putting things. For instance, just outside the front door, there is a table, and there she was putting paints, paintbrushes, and some paper. I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "It would be really good if you would do some painting." When he came, of course, as children are observing everything as they’re going around, there in one corner was something, a toy with letters, that was put out and was lying around a little bit, fallen apart. The painting was in one corner. What I want to say is, there were many things there that my mother wanted him to do. But she didn’t tell him or ask him to do any of them. He was walking around and looking at everything, and then after five minutes or so, he is saying, "Nana, I want to do a painting." My mother is going, really? Look, it’s there, ready. So everything came from him, but actually everything was, you know, it was also at the same time what she wanted that he do for his well-being. The wish came from him, but the plan came from her. It was so beautiful to watch, and any time she would try and tell him, "Why don’t we do this?" he’d go, "No." Now, when you’re going through your spiritual practice, and you know when you’re trying to force your little child mind to do something, it often goes, "No." Spiritual practice, then the child’s mind always says no. But somehow, in that same way, like my mother put the paints there and the paper and everything ready, when you arrange your life so that those spiritual prompts are always around you, you often find you’re just doing them because they’re there. It’s the most beautiful experience for me when we have Navarātri. Two times per year, there is this special festival, and for nine days it is going. Part of the practice in that is that you put one light, one candle, that burns for the nine days continuously. I have a key lamp burning in my room, and it just changes the atmosphere of the room completely. After four or five days, you come into the room after a lot of work going on. You come in and just think, "Oh, I’m so glad to see you again," to that light, because it’s just shining there like it was when you left. It’s so simple, but it’s so beautiful, and it’s so pure, and it’s just there, silently going on and on. For me, when I come in and see it there, I just find it drawing me towards it, that okay, I’ll just sit for ten minutes. I don’t really have to go out again so quick. No, it’s somehow just like a small thing that draws me towards this Arjuna, towards the practice. There’s no force, there’s nothing compelling me to do it, but I just cannot resist spending some time with that. It’s just a small way of prompting you to continue with your spirituality, to enhance it. At the other extreme, if you think about how hard it is to go into a room where the television’s on and not get stuck sitting on the sofa watching it. It’s just drawing you into that tamas somehow, sucking. They are both just things that are emitting light, but one is so sattvic and so pure, and one is the exact opposite. There are many good things to be seen on the television, but it’s not necessarily what’s on when it’s drawing you there. Swamiji also often comments in the satsaṅg to be careful which pictures you put on the wall in the room, and especially in the children’s rooms, because the qualities that are inherent in those pictures also affect you and affect the atmosphere of the room. It just reminds me to be so careful of the environment that we create for ourselves, and every once in a while to look at it again and think, "Is that really creating the atmosphere that I want to have? Is it really promoting that spirituality that I want to express?" So, the things which I have in that living space, do they make it easier for me to practice, or are they an obstacle to my practice? They may be an obstacle to practice, but they may also be necessary for the work you do or what you have to do in the day. But still, the question should be there: can we reduce that, or can we change that, or can we make it better? Because the practice is hard enough without having an environment that makes it more difficult. We may not be able to control the bigger atmosphere that is around us, but there are certain elements of our local area, or our room, or our sleeping area that we can. And also, look within ourselves at promoting those things which are really spiritual about us and recognizing them. Sometimes during our practice, we’ve had special spiritual moments; everybody has. It’s so important not to forget them and not to forget those moments with Famājī, not to forget the special contact that we had at times when everything was open. It’s so easy to get lost in the other, the things of our daily life, the things that draw us with the negativity or with the difficulty, and lose the focus on those moments, which are what life is really about. When I was thinking about the children and then putting the pictures on the wall, it reminded me of one line from the bhajan. It says to open the curtain which is covering your heart, and you find that the swan is playing there, is dancing there. Somehow, just by putting those pictures on the wall, it opened for those children the chance that they could express the artist which is within all of them. And in the same way, we have to give that display there, that we can remember that beauty, that spirituality which is within every one of us. Spirituality is there in everything. Darśana milanā ho to aisā ho, kuvā Gurudevakā darśana milanā ho to aisā ho. Śaraṇa meṁ jā rahā unakī jagānā ho to aisā ho. Śaraṇa meṁ jā rahā unkī jagānā ho to aisā ho. He dayā patā kolā karā deko anśvaha? Kelā kartā he samundara. O ocean, may you be a great tyrant. Uvva Guru Devaka Darśana Milana O Tov Esvāho. Heron kā raṅg rahe niyārake, Koī sant jan piyārā. Dhūnī kā dhyāna he bārī garanā hoto esāho. Dhūnī kā dhyāna he bārī garanā hoto esāho. O Guru, if you can unite me with the Darśana of the Deva, then so be it. Bāgakī chobāye bhātavahā pūshpa-guljāri, Bhāgakī chobāye bhātavahā pūshpa-guljāri. O Tavaha, Pushpa Guljāri, Sinchati, Aisurata Pyāri, Sinchana. Sinchati, Aisurata Pyāri, Sinchana, O Tohe Sao. O Guru Devakā, darśan milānā oto esā ho. O Guru Devakā, darśan milānā oto esā ho. Keval kar brahma se yārī va dekhali sārī. Keval kar brahma se yārī, sārī divā dekhali sārī śabda va. Goñjatā pārī goñjanā ho to eśā ho. Śabdabhā goñjatā bārī goñjanā hoto eśā ho. Udevaka darśana milanā hoto eśā ho. Nirantara dekalo eśabrahma kī jyotāhe bārī eśātāhe bārī jyotāhe bārī. Rāmeva āpa vinaśīramaṇa o tohe sahā o rāmbheva. Apa vināśī ramaṇa o tohe sahā o hū, Gurū Devakā darśana milanā o to aisā ho. Hū, Gurū Devakā darśana milanā o to aisā ho. Agam kī kul rā’ī bhārī, Brahm kī hai tārī. Agam kī kul rā’ī bhārī, Brahm. Tuttagāī Tārī Brahma, Tuttagāī Tārī Brahma... Tuttagāī Tārī Bra... God bless you. Aum bole Śrī Dīt Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī je. Śrī Śrī Dev Puruṣa Mahādeva kī je. Dharam Samrat Paramahaṁsri Swami Madhavanand Puri Maharaj ki je. Deshpa Guru Mahamandaleshwar Paramahaṁsri Swami Maheshwaram Puri Satguru Dev ki je.