Lessons learnt from Sri Swamiji’s speeches
The following inspiring excerpts were taken out of few Bangalore devotees’ experiences:
We had the privilege of having Sri Guruji right through an entire week during March in Bangalore. His Holiness spent the first few days at the Bhagavata Saptaham at Jakkur, and the rest, giving spiritual discourses in the evenings at Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt.
Sri Guruji began the speeches on the special day of Ugadi. It is supposed to be the beginning of a New Year for many South Indians. Large crowds that thronged there to greet and meet with Sri Guruji were blessed by listening to some really invigorating discourses of His. His Holiness covered a wide range of topics on religion, spirituality and divinity. There was one particular story that touched us all deeply. It was about a comparison between a dog and a bull and that led to show how loyal and affectionate the dog is. He went on to say, ‘The dog simply stands by us at all times. It shows its affection as soon as it sees us when we return home. Whereas the ’emotionless’ bull is outright hardworking and people merely use it for its physical efforts. The dog hardly does any work for us, yet we always allow the dog in our houses and take care of it. Meanwhile the bull is something we extract maximum work out of and hardly care a jot for it once it becomes old and ‘unusable’ any further.’
In the end we learnt that we all have to primarily extend our love and affection for one another and to our Guruji rather than merely supporting them with various physical efforts. Love and affection alone is necessary and sufficient.
Another topic that moved us deeply was on cultivating Bhakti. Sri Guruji quoted the example of Ajamila and how he reached Vaikunta. Ajamila, being born in a Brahmin family, grew up to become a very notorious character. He had cultivated all sorts of bad habits. He led a life accumulating loads of sins and there is only place his soul would have reached after his death and that is not unto the feet of the Lord. However, the interesting fate of Ajamila serves as a tremendous source of learning for us all. Ajamila in his death bed, called out to his 8th son named ‘Narayana’ for the sake of water. Calling out the bhagawan’s name knowingly or unknowingly, he was the beneficiary of reaching Vaikunta as opposed to hell. We learnt that we need to perform our Nama-chanting continuously and our bhakti will increase many fold as rituals alone may not benefit us in this Kali-Yuga, even if it is only as much as Ajamila’s ‘Nama-chanting’.
