.png)
Whole Diwali night I could not sleep!
I could not doze for even a minute as I was ultra-excited to do live yagna in Sadhana App with Om Swamiji the very next morning. While doing a yagna I always visualized that He is doing yagna with me. I hadn’t done any yagna in the sadhana without creating His image in my mind. In Sri Suktam Sadhana in Sadhana App, I need not imagine His presence, He would be right there in front of my eyes. Thought of performing yagna and pouring ingredients almost at the same time with Him thrilled me.
But the bitter truth is that I was so busy in chanting mantras, doing sadhanas, meditating on divine and writing post for os.me that when I found the time to sleep, it was actually my time to wake up. Without blinking my eyes for a second, I started for my next day. I took a bath and entered my prayer room. The whole night pass by in chanting, meditating and doing sadhana. Whenever I felt sleepy, I got up to wash my face with chilled water.
At sharp 5:15 a.m. the yajna began. There was a screen in the middle to watch the live performance of yagna by Om Swamiji. On the left-hand side there were basic ingredients like ghee, firewood and havan samagri. The special ingredients were listed on the right-hand side which include raisins, white sesame seeds and red sandalwood, special ingredient to perform Purn Aahuti. In the middle a virtual yagna kund was created. As soon as Swamiji started performing yajna than I started crying. The tears of love and devotion for Him wetted my cheeks. I could not see the screen properly because of the salty water in my eyes. Sometimes I clicked the wrong ingredient because of blurredness. I cried in the beginning, in the middle and towards the end. The only period when I was not crying was while offering ingredients and chanting the first verse of Sri Suktam. It was a difficult mantra and I had to focus on it while chanting. Sometimes, I was crying so loud that I could barely hear which mantra He was chanting.
He was cleaning the outer environment by doing a yagna but His powerful voice was cleaning the negative tendencies of mind as they were flowing out of me in the form of tears. The feeling of jealousy, hatred, anger, fear and desires all were burning into ashes while meditating on the chants in His dynamic voice.
While doing this virtual yagna, I also learned an important lesson that the end of the life is the same for the rich and the poor –we all are a handful of ashes. How high or hot the fire flames of yagna may be but in the end, they will turn into a pile of ashes! ‘इदं न मम’ (idam na mama) which is chanted with the fire offerings simply means is ‘It is not mine’ that nothing in this temporary world belongs to me. I shed the rat chasing for temporary desires of this materialistic world for the permanent desire of God and God alone. His presence and His words helped me in connecting my soul with the Supreme soul to seek God’s mercy and His Blessings.
अफलाकाङ्क्षिभिर्यज्ञो विधिदृष्टो य इज्यते ।
यष्टव्यमेवेति मन: समाधाय स सात्विक:॥
aphalākāṅkṣhibhir yajño vidhi-driṣhṭo ya ijyate
yaṣhṭavyam eveti manaḥ samādhāya sa sāttvikaḥ
(Of yagna, that is performed according to duty and to scriptural rules, and with no expectation of reward, is of the nature of goodness.)
(Bhagavad Gita 17.11)
Jai Sri Hari ma'am, After reading your point on rat race, I got reminded of one quote of Sri Ramakrishna paramhansa where he says, "first realize God, and then gain wealth, by doing this, you won't lose peace of mind while leaving material life." This article is wake up call for us. Thank you for writing.
ReplyDeleteI have something interesting icw “idam na mama”. Mom used to do Hawan at home for auspicious festivals. I always accompanied mom during those. She guided us on the ahutis. It was always uncomfortable as the fire kept going out, a lot of smoke, burning of eyes and irritation of eyes. It happened all the time.
ReplyDeleteWith the release of Sadhana app; I cannot emphasise enough about the life changing experience it was. All the smoke and irritation was gone. The I had this feeling that I should do a physical Hawan during Nav Durga Sadhna. The inner voice kept calling me out to it until I couldn’t ignore the call anymore. I went out and carefully selected each ingredient. With the little I had, I managed to get most of the ingredients except for red sandalwood. I got a red tinged one. The veins of the wood was red tinged but not as red as depicted in the app.
Also Kamal Gatta is overtly expensive here, 3 grains for Rs50. I managed to get only 3. That day, I started the Hawan live with Swami Ji and followed everything step Vidhi Vidhan. Surprisingly the Hawan burned bright. No burning sensation, no heavy smoke and the best part, all the samagri burnt down to white ash. No black coal remained. Mom was so shaken that she decided to follow only Swami Ji’s Hawan from that day. Since then, I always do the Hawan myself and everytime only white ash remains. Glory to my Swami Ji 🙇🏻♂️