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Jai Shri Krishna,
When Bhagavan Shri Ram completes his leela and at the end decides to return to his abode (Vaikunth), he doesn’t go alone, but takes everyone in Ayodhya with him including insects, dogs and other animals. Everyone proceeds with him to the river Saryu to reach his abode when suddenly, someone realised Shri Hanumanji was not with them. The devotee said to God, “Your greatest follower, Shri Hanumanji, cannot be seen and the first person worthy of entry in your abode should be a follower like him.”
One follower turned behind and saw that Hanumanji was standing outside Ayodhya watching everyone leave and bidding farewell to Shri Ramji with tears in his eyes. Shri Ramji summoned Hanumanji who immediately presented in front of Shri Ramji. Shri Ramji said, “Hanuman, come with us. Why are you standing there all alone? I am taking everyone with me and you deserve to be in my abode first.”
Hanumanji replied, “Lord, please answer one question, will I get to hear your katha in your abode?”
Ramji smiled and said, “Oh! I will be present there myself!”
To this Hanumanji said, “Lord, you will definitely be there, but this servant is asking if your katha will be there?”
Ramji responded, “Hanuman! My katha is only available on this earth. I will be present in my abode, but my katha will not be.”
Hanumanji said, “Lord, then you proceed to your abode. Please command this servant of yours to stay here. Until your katha is present on this earth, bestow me with your blessings that I will continue to listen to it.”
To this Ramji said, “so be it!”
Hence, Shri Hanumanji did not proceed to Shri Ramji’s abode due to the longing for Ram Katha.
Prabhu charitra sunibe ko rasiya, Ram Lakhan Sita man basiya
Meaning: You are an ardent listener, always keen to listen to Shri Ram’s katha.
You dwell in the hearts of Shri Ram, Shri Lakshman and Shri Sita.
Shri Hanumanji either listens to Ram Katha or narrates it, and whoever Shri Hanumanji has narrated the Ram Katha to, has indeed attained Shri Ram. For example, Shri Hanumanji narrated Ram Katha to Sugriv and Sugriv met Shri Ram; Shri Vibhishanji acquainted Shri Ram after listening to Ram Katha from Shri Hanumanji as seen in Sunderkand in Shri Ram Charit Manas.
Shri Hanumanji narrated Ram Katha in Ashok Vatika which Maa Sita heard. Hence Maa Sita re-united with Shri Ram:
Ram Chandra goon barne laagaa, sunatahi Sita kar dukh bhaagaa
Meaning: As soon as Shri Hanumanji narrated the Ram katha, Shri Sitaji's grief disappeared.
Shri Hanumanji is such a great and thoughtful narrator. One who listens to him without doubt, gains darshan of Shri Ram. In addition, he is also a great listener. He listens to Ram Katha with complete affection. It is tradition to invite Shri Hanumanji at the beginning of every Ram Katha, as who can be a better listener than him? And Indeed, Hanumanji does arrive to listen to Ram Katha.
Come let us all celebrate this auspicious day of Shri Hanumanji’s birthday and pay our obeisance to him by singing along with Pujya Bhaishri to the divine Hanuman Chalisa.
Let us all pray to Shri Hanumanji to bless us all with his grace so that we can affectionately listen to Shri Ram Katha every day.
Jai Jai Shri Bajrangbali!
Soon after receiving a mail on Anita Moorjani's Interview in Manila on her book Dying To Be Me,was reminded of Sri Ramana Maharishi's experience of death which is posted here.
Death Experience
The turning point in Venkataraman’s life came spontaneously in mid-July 1896. One afternoon, the youth for no apparent reason was overwhelmed by a sudden, violent fear of death. Years later, he narrated this experience as follows:
It was about six weeks before I left Madura for good that a great change in my life took place . It was quite sudden. I was sitting in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden, violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it; and I did not try to account for it or to find out whether there was any reason for the fear. I just felt, ‘I am going to die,’ and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends. I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, then and there.
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ or any other word could be uttered, ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process. ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and blends with all the other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else, I was still centred on ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.
The effect of the death experience brought about a complete change in Venkataraman’s interests and outlook. He became meek and submissive without complaining or retaliating against unfair treatment. He later described his condition:
One of the features of my new state was my changed attitude to the Meenakshi Temple. Formerly I used to go there occasionally with friends to look at the images and put the sacred ash and vermillion on my brow and would return home almost unmoved. But after the awakening I went there almost every evening. I used to go alone and stand motionless for a long time before an image of Siva or Meenakshi or Nataraja and the sixty-three saints, and as I stood there waves of emotion overwhelmed me.
DADA J P VASWANI leads the Sadhu Vaswani Mission from Pune. Interacting with NARAYANI GANESH in New Delhi recently on the eve of Cheti Chand, the Sindhi New Year, he points out that today’s culture of irreverence is a major obstruction to personal and societal evolution
He is all of 94 years, yet his eyes sparkle, his skin glows and there’s nary a wrinkle visible. The calm exterior comes from a tranquil interior, for Dada is humility personified, always playing down his own achievements while holding up those of others. A half smile playing on his lips, he greets me with palms joined in a namaste. I do likewise and introduce myself. “And they call me J P Vaswani,” he offers, much to my amusement. Does he need to introduce himself?
A disciple of his uncle, T L Vaswani (who is referred to as Sadhu Vaswani), Dada admits that until he came under Sadhu’s influence while in college, he was full of himself as an argumentative young man, flaring up at the slightest provocation. Why was that? “In school, I got four double promotions and passed the Matriculation exam at the age of 13,” he says, adding that he graduated when only 17. “I thought I knew everything,” he says, chuckling, “until I began interacting with my guru and that changed my life.”
Young Achiever
Dada studied physics and his Masters’ thesis on ‘The Scattering of X-Rays by Solids’ was sent by the University of Bombay (to which his college in Karachi was affiliated) to Bangalore, to Nobel laureate C V Raman, for assessment. Raman had won the Nobel for his Raman Effect on the scattering of light. “I expected to fail because my thesis was on another theory of a western scientist that was not in agreement with Raman’s theory.” After a six-month correspondence between the young Vaswani and Prof Raman, finally, the thesis was approved. “I never expected to pass the test,” confides Dada. “But this shows C V Raman had a truly scientific mind,” he says.
Reach Out To The Soul
The Sadhu Vaswani Mission is known for its work in education and its promotion of forgiveness and vegetarianism. The St Mira’s College in Pune is popular as are schools run in various cities. “Sadhu Vaswani started the Mira movement in education…in Mira, he found, on the one hand, intense bhakti for Krishna and on the other hand, she had not just humility, but was mother to the poor who came to join her in worship of Krishna,” explains Dada. Value education, according to Dada, does not take into account the fact that every human being is essentially a soul, for it only considers the physical and mental aspects and does not address the soul… “We need to go beyond value education,” he says.
So what did he think of the Sanjay Dutt case? Ought he to be forgiven? “The Sanjay Dutt case is different. It is the duty of the administrator to give dand or punishment. The law has to take its course. There have been cases where kings have punished their own sons. Without law enforcement, lawlessness could increase. We see so many women being molested. If such a thing happens in Dubai, the rapist will be sent to the gallows and so it does not happen there,” says Dada, who believes that while forgiveness is a personal decision, when it comes to implementing order in society, laws need to be enforced.
Why do people prefer to say ‘I am spiritual’ rather than say, ‘I am religious’? Dada points out that rituals, rites and ceremonies are the kindergarten of religion, whereas spirituality is that which has to do with the spirit. “Each one of us has been given human birth; the purpose is to realise that we are immortal spirits. Creeds and dogmas are specific to each religion, so they separate one religion from another…You have your own religion, I have my own religion. The separateness that we have gets completely lost when we come to spirituality — for you have the same divine spark that is in me,” he says.
Zero Is Hero
According to Dada, at the lower state, we are concerned more with words and when you reach the higher stage, words lose their meaning. In fact, if you enter samadhi and come out of it, you cannot describe it in words. “On the physical plane, we have to work for unity. On the spiritual plane, unity is already established; there is no difference between the two of us.”
Speaking of higher planes, would he explain the concept of zero in Sindhi tradition which is different than ‘nothingness’? “It is the point (not a circular symbol) where your ego has to vanish. Sadhu Vaswani used to say, ‘I am only a zero but not the English zero, because the English zero occupies some space. I am the Sindhi zero; am just a point.’ It’s what we call nukta in our Sindhi language.”
How do you arrive at nukta, and how do you vanish? Dada says it can only happen with the grace of the guru. “The guru first draws you to himself — so much so that you arrive at a point where you know you cannot do without him; you cannot live away from him. Once that point is reached, he starts his play. He becomes a butcher. He picks up the trident and strikes you (your ego). You cry, you want to run away, but the pull of the guru is such that you cannot even run away. Then, he takes you to a point where the ego vanishes,” he says. However, the guru’s grace and the disciple’s ego vanishing does not happen to all, for you have to be ready to receive that grace. “Narendra (Vivekananda) was ready, he was a prepared soul; therefore Ramakrishna could get results,” says Dada.
On God And Goodness
What would he say to young people? “We must turn back to God. We have thrown God out of our homes, schools, colleges and universities and the vacuum so created has been filled in by the devil. Children have no reverence for their parents; students have no reverence for their teachers. Reverence, I believe, is at the root of the right type of life. So many young people come to me with their problems, I tell them, don’t forget that you have this human birth only because of your parents, so please show some reverence to them. Only when irreverence changes to reverence, there will be hope for everyone.”
Even if one’s parents happen to be criminals? “Of course, reverence is the first step. I must learn from the life of my parents. Dattatreya said that he learnt a lot from criminals and prostitutes — you can learn only if you have the spirit of reverence. A person may be a criminal, but there is some element of goodness in him. The best amongst us falters somewhere. The worst among us has some good point.”
