Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Pranati specially gave me, I think The Sunday Indian Express, asking me to read a particular article on it. It is about autism children who were being treated by Vedic mantras. When the Vedic mantras were chanted, initially the children were a little aggressive, they came and beat the teacher, and created some mischief, troubles etc. Very soon, they started silencing the other children. I did not read the article in full. I wanted to tell you about it.

Our mantras are of various kinds. Generally, the word mantra means a short spiritual or religious formula consisting of a few letters. It can be panchākshara, it can be eight-lettered, ten-lettered, fifteen-lettered, twenty-one lettered, like that. In another sense, mantra means a kind of a hymn. First you find it in the Rig Vedas, Rig Vedic hymns. Our whole Vedas are supposed to be chanted. So when the Vedas are chanted in their own special udātha, anudātha etc. tunes and tones, it will have a very special effect.

When we come to Sahasranamas, Sahasranamas also are very effective. Vishnu Sahasranama is the one where Bhishma lying on the bed of arrows instructed Yudhishthira, when he went to him after the successful war saying that “I have not succeeded in the war. I have lost it because my mother did not tell me that Karna was my elder brother. If I had known about it, I would have completely gone and surrendered before him. Because my mother did not tell me the truth about my brother, the whole war had to be fought, it was very bloody and so many people have died. This is one thing that I wanted to avoid. I could not succeed”.

Nobody could console Yudhishthira. Even Krishna tried but it was of no effect. Then Veda Vyasa told him, “Go to your grandfather, a full representative of the Mahabharata war. He is still lying on the bed of arrows waiting for uttarāyaṇa to dawn, for shedding the body”. Then Yudhishthira said, “I cannot go there alone. I am a ruthless grandson who went and asked him how to de-seat him from the chariot. How can I go? Krishna, you should come and take me and help me talk to him”.

Krishna took him, introduced him properly and said, “He has come with a lot of affliction and torment. Listen to him and give him the treatment that is necessary”. Then Bhishma started talking to the grandson. It is a very long conversation. Bhishma said, “An event once taken place cannot be reversed. So the entire Mahabharata war having been over, nothing can be done about it. You only have the memory of the war and the events that took place. This memory can be dealt with by another memory.”

“So you take a decision to perform an Ashwamedha Yāga, the greatest ritual Vedas prescribe. Only Maharājās and Emperors can perform it. It requires one year of preparation. So you decide to perform Ashwamedha Yāga, that means your mind will be busy preparing for it. When the mind is busy with this holy event, the unholy memory automatically will subside.”

But Ashwamedha Yāga can be performed only by Kings and Emperors. What about the ordinary people? How will they be freed from the sins that they have knowingly or unknowingly committed? Then he said, “In our country, thousand names of Mahavishnu are there, I know them, I will tell you. These thousand names will suffice. It can be more than a compensation for all the elaborate yajñas Vedas prescribe. Let people chant or do archana or havan using this Vishnu Sahasranama. That is more than sufficient.

So ever since the time of Bhishma and Yudhishthira, this Vishnu Sahasranama has been very strong, very vibrant in our land. See, it contains thousand names. Every name has got its meaning, relevance, significance, import and ideal. You will find in all the thousand names together, everything that the human mind needs for strength, for resolve, will, for relieving any kind of a wrong or sin, to be able to do anything of great achievement, for everything you will find there are some names or the other.

If you start chanting Vishnu Sahasranama earnestly and well, loudly, will also listen to your own voice, its effects are magical. What I told you in the beginning is the effect of Veda chanting on the autistic mind and intelligence. Vishnu Sahasranama is no less. We have other Sahasranamas also. So there are children here, I would like them to understand this chanting should become a vibrant part of your life. The Chief Election Commissioner Krishnamurthy was saying that he was always chanting Vishnu Sahasranama every day. Our Sridharan Ji, the metro-man also says Vishnu Sahasranama is a regular practice of his besides Gita and other things. Both of them say that in very very difficult times in their administrative life, Vishnu Sahasranama has helped them a great deal.

The chanting is very empowering, it is enlightening. It gives a lot of enthusiasm, spirit, courage, determination. There are some specific lines and words and phrases in Vishnu Sahasranama, the chanting of which will give you prosperity, domestic and household happiness, a life of promotion, a life of growth, enrichment, for all these different-different words are there. It should be chanted loudly, vibrantly and the chanting should be heard by the ears. When you hear your chanting, the effect is double, treble or even more. Most of the people chant without listening to what they chant. But you should listen to, listen to. That makes all the difference.

Many people work in different positions in our country and the world. But when you have a Vishnu Sahasranama or a chanting orientation, you will become entirely different. I had a disciple, ‘X’. He was a little eccentric. He used to put a tilak. One day the officer above him said, “Why are you putting the tilak? Remove it.” He said, “I will not”. He asked his wife, “What you want me to do?”. “Don’t remove it”. So that antagonized the boss. And from then on, it was a miserable life for him. But he held on to his position and chanted the mantra.

He was transferred, that is the first thing that any government people can do. He was transferred from one place to another, and from there to another. He was telling me that the result of all these transfers was he was given displacement allowance; it came to a substantial figure. So he constructed a first floor in his house. He would not have been able to do it if he was not transferred.

One day somebody had plotted to kill him. He did not know about it. He went to a lonely place, something like a forest-like area and he was chanting his mantra. A jeep of four or five people were coming to deal with him. It so happened that the jeep overturned, and if not four, three people died. The mission ended there.

He was a very exceptional man, very eccentric also, but he had this kind of a trait of obstinately clinging to the belief he had. How this chanting helps you, relieves you, protects you, it is something to be seen and heard, felt. If there is anything which has got a power over matter and energy, it is our mind. And our mind becomes sharper and more focused if it takes to prayer, if it takes to chanting or any other spiritual discipline.

People speak of depression, depression, depression. If they will listen to me, the depression will flee. They should take to some open and loud chanting, chanting, chanting. You should not say, “No, No, No… I don’t feel like chanting.” You have to force it. After all, you are not doing anything bad. It is not fighting with another person with weapons or defending you against weapons. It is only employing your body, mind and intelligence with a view to chant.

So what I want these children to understand is have the discipline of doing something. Somebody told me that the two girls of ‘U’ chant one or two chapters of Bhagavad Gita very well. I think all of you should take to chanting. There are children of the age of four and five who can chant a few chapters of Bhagavad Gita, sometimes the whole of Vishnu Sahasranama. What do you think of the brain power? Without looking into the book, a child of five or six years chants the whole of Vishnu Sahasranama without any mistake or repetition. Why not we use this capacity of the brain and enrich our life? Think about it!

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.