Rama Naama Mitaayi....

I'd like to share a beautiful song composed by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba about the greatness of Rama Nama. (Raga - Dhanyasi , Thalam - Adhi)

Lyrics:

Raama Naamamanu mitaayi idhigo randi bhakthulaara

Bhoomilo Doruku Ee mitaayi koni thini Paamarulai Chedi pOvaku randi

Raama Naamamanu mitaayi idhigo randi bhakthulaara

Veda Saaramanu Godhuma pindilo Veda vaakyamanu ksheeramey pOsi

Andhamaina Peddha baanduva theesi Aadhi munulu deeni baaguga kalipiri

Raama Naamamanu mitaayi idhigo randi bhakthulaara

Nibaddhi yanu kanda chekkara thecchi Subuddhi anu aavu neyyey vesi

Apaddhamani yeti malinamu theesi Aadhi munulu deeni baaguga kalipiri

Raama Naamamanu mitaayi idhigo randi bhakthulaara

Randi Bhakthulaara Konandi Bhakthulaara !

Meanings:

Come O devotees! Take the sweet of Raama Naama ! This sweet is available on this earth, get it and eat it. Don’t waste your time as ignorant people. Be aware!

Swami explains how this Sweet of “Rama Nama” was prepared. The Essence of all Vedas are added as Wheat flour, the Veda vakyams such as “thathwamasi” and “aham brahmaasmi” are added as Milk in huge vessel and thoroughly mixed by sages like Valmiki ! Adding Discipline as rock candy and Intelligence as cow ghee, removing all the impurities (sins and evil qualities), this sweet of Rama Nama has been prepared. Come Devotees, Take this sweet of Rama Nama!

Sri Sathya Sai Geethamulu - Rama Namamanu Mitaayi by Bhavadhaarini

Every other mantra in Hindu scriptures have their own names. Rama Nama is the only Mantra that is called ‘Taraka Mantra’. The word ‘taraka’ means the one that helps us cross. It helps us cross the ocean of ‘samsara’. It helps us cross the cycles of birth and death. If it is chanted as 'Rama', then it is a Nama. If it is chanted 'Ram', then it is a Mantra. 

Our ancient Sages and Rishis have also glorified the Rama Nama. Rama Nama gets exactly the same importance in Saguna Upasana (worshipping the Absolute Truth as a Being with a form) as does the Pranava ('Om') Mantra in Nirguna Upasana (worshipping the Absolute Truth as formless). 

Rishi Manu shows that the Rama Nama has links to all the other mantras that ever exist. In Syavana Smriti (Syavana is the name of a rishi), Syavana says that the Rama Nama is the essence of all the Vedas, Shastras, Itihasas and Puranas. Sage Vasishta meditated on the Rama Nama for quite a long time. Hence he wanted to name the Almighty with the same Mantra that he had chanted. In the philosophy of the Yoga, 'Ra' is considered the 'Mooladhara' (the point of origin of the power of Kundalini) and 'Ma' is the 'Sahasrara' (the destination). Hence, when the Rama Nama is chanted in the right tone and manner, the serpent power rises and hits the head or the 'kapala' Thus, by merely chanting the Rama Nama, one can become a Yogi.  

Sri Bodendra Saraswati Swamigal, Kabir, Samartha Ramadas, Thiyagaraja, Bhadrachala Ramadas, Papa Ramdas, Bhagavan Yogiramsuratkumar and innumerable saints in the recent past have advocated the Rama Nama and also showed how the Rama Nama can perform miracles. Sri Ramakrishna initiated Swami Vivekananda into the holy 'Rama' Nama. It is the power of that Divine Name that made him establish this Universal Religion of Brotherhood all over the world.

Let us have this holy Rama Nama in our tongue always ! Jai Sitaram ! Jai Sairam!

My loving teacher...

From my childhood I have been a part of my guru’s family. My mother Nalini Anantaraman was her student previously and I used to visit Pattamma amma’s home for classes and listened to the classes. During one such lucky visits on a Sunday afternoon, my mother was learning the Kalyani Nava varna krithi of Mutthuswami Dikshithar ’Kamalaambaam bhajare’, I had been listening to it with rapt attention. It seems I repeated the sangathis and the whole Pallavi in a few minutes. D.K.Pattammal Amma hugged me and said ‘Indha Kuzhandhaikku nan daan guru’and with those words began my musical journey. That was the age of 5.

From then on, it was a ‘Chakkani raja maargam’ for my musical learning process. I was guided every little step in spite of Pattamma’s ill health or busy schedules. It’s now a 24 year young love story that I share with Amma. When in school I had classes on weekends and later on it was three or even four day classes in a week. She would encourage me to go to competitions and hear concerts regularly.

Every minute in her presence is a lesson. It was indeed a gift to learn from ‘The Kaalidas Samman, Sangeetha Kalanidhi, Gana Saraswathi’ who never showed that she was a very great person. She remains a loving grandmother to me and to many other students. It’s just like any other music class when I sit cross-legged before Pattamma, keeping time with her hand, while we both sing in a slow cadence many numerous beautiful Krithis. With eyes closed Pattamma listens to every sangathi, every syllable and moulded to more perfection. I only wonder how much of ‘punyam’ should I have done to be in Her Musical Divine folds?

To me ‘Amma’ always appears as Gaana Saraswathi, a Goddess of so much of musical knowledge and a teacher who constantly wants to give more and more. D.K.Pattammal Amma is an extra-ordinary teacher…After every song a discussion about the composer, the raga, the nuances, the variations, the mood of the song, How to sing it on stage, How to effectively present, Where to stop How to end… She would explain every bit, she would connect us to the old memoirs of her performances adding more anecdotes to the song she just taught and made every other krithi special.

She would encourage us to hear more and more, learn more and more. She would often say these words, “nAn munne laam oru naaL ku oru Kruthi manappaadam paNNuven”, “nerayya kekkanum, katthukaNum”, “anubhavicchu paadaNum”, “sruthi matha laya pitha”.

I was never encouraged to write songs on sheets of paper, it was by listening to her and repeating her, everything she would bring back from her memory; often I have asked her “what computer chip is inside Patta?” She would smile with her peace-personified face, and that was enough of a blessing, answer everything together. I later wrote sangathis back at home and maintained note of lessons learnt. I was never allowed to tape-record the classes; this made me more attentive and conscious of every syllable every line every detail.

I was not able to learn more frequently for the past 4 years due to Pattamma’s health, but would go, see her, sing all the old lessons once or twice. She would hear them, smile and correct if there are mistakes. It is just amazing the way she explained every little bit of her musical nuances and entrusts her most precious treasure with so much care and guidance to me and all her lucky students.

She was one teacher who could make even a foreigner student feel and learn at ease. She was so confident in her skill and magnanimous enough to pass it on to the future. Her baritone voice and her command over thalam has always astonished me.

For the past few months, Daily mornings, She would move from her bed, go to the wheel chair with the help of Mary (maid who looked after her) and would go to the Hall where she would pray to Ganesha whispering slowly all the names of her kith and kin, students touch the statues belly and his hands with so much love.

If someone coming home offered her some flowers, she would look at me and I will be ready with the scissor to cut a portion for this Ganesha statue. After cutting she would signal to keep them first to the statue and I would meekly obey. She will finish distributing the flowers equally among all those present there. She would then hold the flowers in her hands take them to both her eyes and would leave it in her hair and smile.

After every class, Patta would signal me to bring the small kumkum box to her and she would volunteer to put it on the forehead. She would make sure the kumkum is alright and then she would kiss my hands to say “bye”. After doing the Namaskaarams, she would recite this long blessing that echoes every minute in my heart - “nee dheergaayusa dheergha sumangaliaa nOyatra vaazhvu vaazhndhudndu ashta aishwaryatthOda nanna irukkaNum mma… she would add nannaa paadu, pramaadhama varanum mmaa…” Every other person who did a namaskaram to this legend would have been blessed by this long verse from the “Paripoorna Saraswathi”.

I can never get such an affectionate easily approachable GURU again in my life. It is an unimaginable irreversible personal loss to me and my family. All I wish and pray is that I sing as worthy as she aspires me to be.

Prayers Prem and Aum
Bhavadhaarini Anantaraman

Our steps ahead...

The Search within...

Our path is basically the path of the heart and not the path of the mind. This does not mean that we are criticising the path of the mind. Far from it. We just feel that the path of the heart leads us faster towards our goal. Suppose I want to go to a place 500 miles away. I can reach my destination either by walking or by flying.

Undoubtedly, I shall reach my destination considerably faster if I fly in a jet plane. Similarly, if we use the aspiring heart and not the doubting mind, we shall reach our goal much faster. The heart is all love. The mind is quite often all confusion. When we say the heart, we mean the spiritual heart, which is flooded with divine love.

The heart is strikingly significant because inside it is the living presence of the soul. True, the consciousness of the soul permeates the entire body, but the actual location of the soul is inside the heart. The soul has everything: Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure. We get these divine qualities inside the heart directly from the soul. And from the heart, we can bring them to the mind, to the vital and to the physical proper.

God is extremely simple. It is we who think of Him as someone complicated. God speaks the simplest language, only we don't understand Him. We are all deaf. We have been deaf for millennia. Poor God, He has been talking constantly, tirelessly, but we do not have time to listen to Him.

Our path is the path of simplicity. A child is simple; he loves his mother. He does not have to love anybody else: his mother is his whole world. He devotes himself to his mother. If his mother asks him to do something, he listens to his mother. A child is so simple that he tries to do everything to please his mother; and in pleasing his mother, he is doing the right thing and reaching his highest goal.
In the ordinary life, if someone loves another individual, then he spends most of his time with that particular person. He devotes his precious time to that person. If it is real human love-not divine love, but human love-then he sometimes surrenders to the other's whims even if they are absurd. He surrenders because the two of them have formed an inner and outer bond on the strength of their love. So if one loves another person, then one is ready even to sacrifice one's precious wisdom.

In the spiritual life it is totally different. Divine love never binds us. On the contrary, it expands us and liberates us. When we see and feel that we are being liberated, we feel inwardly a divine obligation to do something for our Inner Pilot. How can we remain aloof from the One who has given us everything, who has brought us the message of divine Love and Compassion? Will it be possible for us not to offer Him something in return? If we remain in the outer life, we only try to grab and possess everything, even what belongs to others. But if we live in the soul, we try to constantly give all that we have and all that we are to the Inner Pilot.


Divine love means self giving.

But just giving something, just offering something, is not enough. It has to be done with enthusiasm and an intense inner urge. We give to the Inner Pilot in ourselves and in others. While we are giving to someone else, we have to feel that we are giving to the divine in the other person, to the Supreme within him, who now needs this help from us. When we offer divine love to someone, we must do it gladly and soulfully. But while giving, we must not feel that we are doing the other person a great favour, that because we are in a position to help him, we are superior. No! We have to feel that God has given us a great opportunity to be of service to Him and we should be grateful to the person who has put us in a position to help or serve the Supreme in him. We have to feel grateful that we have become His chosen instruments when He could just as well have chosen others. We have to show constant gratitude for the very fact that He has employed us. This kind of devotion is our dedicated service.Then comes surrender.

This surrender is not the surrender of a slave to a master. An ordinary master will find fault with the slave, while feeling that he himself is always perfect. But in the case of the Supreme, it is not like that. When He deals with us, He feels that our imperfections are His imperfections. When he finds mistakes in our nature, He feels that these are all His mistakes. Unless and until we are perfect, God never feels that He is perfect. God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent; it is true. But when it is a matter of perfection manifested on earth, God feels that He is still imperfect in me, in you, in everybody. The message of perfect perfection has not yet dawned on earth. We surrender to God wholeheartedly, knowing perfectly well that what we have is next to nothing and what we are is next to nothing. If we give our nothingness to Him, we become a chosen instrument of the Supreme and permit His Perfection to grow in us.

Love, fulfilment and God always go together. God will never be satisfied with something incomplete, unrealised, unfulfilled and unmanifested. He wants from us realisation, revelation, manifestation and perfection. If these things don't take place in this lifetime, then we shall have to take many more incarnations. But God will never allow anybody to remain unrealised and unfulfilled. Today it is time for you to realise God. Tomorrow it will be the time for your friend to realise God. The day after tomorrow it will be the time for somebody else to realise God. There is for each person an hour, which we call "God's chosen Hour." At God's chosen Hour a person is bound to realise God. We feel that our path is easier and more effective in the sense that we don't have to read millions of books to know what the Truth is. We don't have to exercise our mind day in and day out to know what the Truth looks like. No! Truth is inside us, and it is crying to come to the fore. But unfortunately, we have kept the door shut and we are not allowing the Truth to come out.

How how can we bring the Truth out of its prison cell? Again, I have to say it is through love. Love for whom? Love for God. And who is God? God is the highest illumined part in us. God is nothing and nobody else. I have a head and two feet. Let us say that my head represents the highest in me and my feet represent the lowest in me, my ignorance. I know that the highest and the lowest are both mine. The lowest has to enter into the highest in order to be transformed, liberated and fulfilled. The highest has to enter into the lowest in order to be revealed and manifested.

In our path, the sense of identification is absolutely necessary. The highest has to feel its total oneness with the lowest. The lowest has to feel its total oneness with the highest. Needless to say, the highest always feels its oneness with the lowest. It is the lowest that finds it extremely difficult to be one with the highest because of its fear, doubt, jealousy and so forth.

What kind of commitment is necessary to follow our path? It is not the kind of commitment that you have to make in other spiritual or cultural organisations. For these organisations, you may have to give a regular fee. But when I ask you to make a commitment, it is different. I say that if you see something in me, if you see or feel light inside me, then if you want to follow our path, you can. There will be no monetary demands. You do not have to give me five dollars or ten dollars or anything like that. No! Here it is a matter of your own aspiration-how sincere and regular you can be in your spiritual life. If you are not sincere, then you will not be able to run fast. But if you are sincere and dedicated, then you will run very fast. The commitment I ask for in our path is regularity in your meditation and aspiration, a sincere inner cry. I ask nothing else from any student.

Our path, the path of the heart, is also the path of acceptance. We have to accept the world. If we enter into a Himalayan cave or sit on a mountain top and cry for our personal achievement and satisfaction, then we are not going to do anything for the world. It will be like this: I shall eat food to my heart's content and let my brothers remain unfed and starving. That is not good. If I am a real human being, I have to see that my brothers also eat along with me. If we eat together, then only we shall get real satisfaction.

Similarly, in the spiritual life, real spiritual Masters feel that it is their bounden duty to eat in front of humanity and share the spiritual food with humanity. Now, if humanity as a whole does not want to eat as it should, if many are still sleeping and have not yet felt the spiritual hunger, then what can the spiritual Master do? But if there are a few sincerely hungry seekers, the spiritual Master tells them, "The meal is ready. Let us eat together."

In our path of acceptance, we have to know that the earth is far from perfection. But unless we accept the earth consciousness, how are we going to perfect it? If someone has some pain, I have to massage him. Then only his pain will go. Similarly, if the earth is imperfect at a particular place, I have to touch it with my aspiration and concern. Then only can I transform it. As long as the earth consciousness is not fully realised, I will try to remain on earth to be of service to mankind with my inner consciousness.

Speak through Music....

Man and God are one another’s supreme necessity. Man needs God for his highest transcendental realisation and God needs man for His absolute earthly manifestation.
We are all seekers, and our goal is the same: to achieve inner peace, light, and joy, to become inseparably one with our Source, and to lead lives full of true satisfaction.

God’s Will in an individual is progressive, like a muscle developing—strong, stronger, strongest. God’s Will is to make an individual feel that there is something abiding, lasting, everlasting.

Through music God can be seen. He can be felt. He can be realised. When He is seen, He is Existence. When He is felt, He is Consciousness. When He is realised, He is Delight.

To live in joy is to live the inner life. This is the life that leads to self-realisation. Self-realisation is God-realisation, for God is nothing other than the Divinity that is deep inside each one of us, waiting to be discovered and revealed. We may also refer to God as the Inner Pilot or the Supreme. But no matter which term we use, we mean the Highest within us, that which is the ultimate goal of our spiritual quest.

A spiritual person should be a normal person, a sound person. In order to reach God, a spiritual person has to be divinely practical in his day-to-day activities. In divine practicality, we share our inner wealth. We feel the divine motivation behind each action and share the result with others. Spirituality does not negate the outer life. The outer life should be the manifestation of the divine life within us.

God is everywhere. But if we do not see Him or feel Him inside our hearts, then we will not be able to see Him anywhere. First we have to see Him within us and talk to Him inside our hearts. Then only will we be able to see God and speak to God.
We live in ignorance. That is why we feel that God is somewhere else. But if we go deep within, if we realise the Highest within ourselves, then we will see that our own consciousness is one with God’s Consciousness..

We have to shed soulful tears if we want to embody the Supreme consciously and if we want to fulfil and manifest the Supreme at every moment of our earthly existence. When a child cries, the mother comes running. Similarly, when we cry from the inmost recesses of our heart, our eternal Father, the Supreme, comes running to feed us, to illumine us, to carry us to the Golden Shore of the Beyond.

The Voice of Truth Will speak to us Only when our heart becomes a sacred reservoir.

God is ready to talk with you, but you are not paying attention to Him because you are so fond of hearing the sound of your own voice. If you can start to feel that you have heard the sound of your own voice millions of times, and now you want to hear a much more meaningful and fruitful voice, then you will hear the Voice of God very clearly.

Again, there is a great difference between hearing and listening. You can hear the divine in me now, but you may not listen to it; you may not apply it to your day-to-day activities. If you hear what somebody says, its importance to you may not last even for a second. But if you really listen, then the words are recorded on the tablet of your heart, inside your aspiring being. Then spontaneously that divine message will be manifested in your inner or outer activities. If you want to learn to speak to God, you have to allow God to speak to you. You have to stop talking all the time. Then, when God speaks to you, you have to listen; you have to apply God’s divine Message in your day-to-day life.

Sing to the lord your prayers He is listening...


God is listening.
Just speak quietly.
God is listening.
Just speak devotedly.
Believe me,
God is not and cannot be deaf
To your heart-longing.
His Compassion-Perfection
Has caught the very first faint cry
From your oneness-heart.
God is listening.
Just speak quietly and devotedly.
If you can silence your mind
And ask your heart to speak to God,
Then only are you heading
In the right direction.

Meditation Through Music.. The easy way

Music has and also is the key to unlock the Heart-Door of the Supreme.

Music is the inner or universal language of God. If music is played from any part of the world, immediately the heart of the music enters into our heart, or our heart enters into the music. At that time no outer communication is needed; the inner communion of the heart is enough. The heart is communing with the heart of the music, and in our communion we become inseparably one.

Meditation and music cannot be separated. When we cry from the inmost recesses of our heart for peace, light and bliss, that is the best type of meditation.
Next to meditation is music, soulful music, the music that stirs and elevates our aspiring consciousness. We cannot meditate twenty-four hours a day, but we can meditate, perhaps, for two hours a day.
At other times we can play music or listen to music. When we play or hear soulful music, psychic music, immediately we are transported to a higher realm of consciousness. When we play music soulfully, we go high, higher, highest.
Each time we hear soulful music, we get inspiration and delight.
In the twinkling of an eye, music can elevate our consciousness. But if we also pray and meditate, then we are undoubtedly more illumined and fulfilled than a music-lover who is not consciously leading a spiritual life. Each spiritual musician is consciously spreading God's light on earth. God is the cosmic Player, the eternal Player, and we are His instruments. But there comes a time in the process of our evolution when we feel that we have become totally one with Him. At that time, we are no longer instruments; we ourselves are musicians, divine musicians. It is the Supreme who makes the proper instrument. Then, it is He who inspires the player to play properly.Let us not try to understand music with our mind. Let us not even try to feel it with our heart.


Let us simply and spontaneously allow the music-bird to fly in our heart-sky. While flying, it will unconditionally reveal to us what it has and what it is. What it has, is Immortality's message. What it is, is Eternity's passage.

Thoughts....

'Fine arts'... be it Music Dance Photography or Painting are special creative abilities man has been gifted with. They are the fine route ways to redefine the path to the real happiness.
Not all have the ability to appreciate fine arts nor can all be artists...
To experience and to enhance our understanding, our skills, our involvement and our enjoyment of the fine art is a gift by itself... The basic understanding begins when the artist and art merge as One and the creation comes out as a piece of divinity personified.. Such 'Shrushti' can be felt in fine arts... The search for the ultimate happiness in life man's life from womb to tomb travels far and wide.. only the enlightened can experience the glory of art.