Om Sri Ganeshaya Namah!
Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram!
Om Namo Bhagavate Sivanandaya!
Om Namo Bhagavate Chidanandaya!
Om Namo Bhagavate Krishnanandaya!

Namaste!

Let Sri Rama Be Your Ideal
by Sri Swami Sivananda

Taken from Divine Life Magazine 1950

Ideals are remembered and adored for the purpose of adopting them in our life. The Ramanavami celebration or the Vasanta Navaratri every year, is an opportune moment for us to saturate ourselves in the Spirit of Sri Rama. We love and adore the ideals, because we express thereby our yearning to unite with them. In our worship of God, it is implied that we should be virtuous, good and perfect, even as God is. Sri Rama said, “To anyone, who once takes shelter under Me and solicits ‘I am Thine’, I shall give fearlessness from all beings; this is My vow”. One cannot be a devout worshipper of Sri Rama if he is not a devout worshipper of the qualities of Sri Rama. Compassion, gentleness, justice and sagacity found their best abode in Rama. Worship of Rama means resorting to truthfulness, saintliness and divinity.

Rama’s rule was one of the laws of unsurpassed rectitude, which does not pay heed to personal relationships of a brother or a wife. Truth has an iron hand. It establishes impartial oneness of vision. One, who approaches Rama with love, becomes wide in heart, pure in spirit, good in nature, dispassionate in thought, speech and action. A true devotee of Sri Rama is, His representative, His power and knowledge. Rama-Nama burns ignorance, passion and sin. With knowledge or without knowledge, correctly or incorrectly, when the word ‘Rama’ is pronounced, it showers a rain of good on the devotee. ‘Sri Rama Brahma Tarakam’—Sri Rama is Brahman who takes one across Samsara. Rama is one in whom Yogins sport (Ramante), i.e., the Self within. Ramanama is the essence of Sahasranama. Once you take refuge in Him, your welfare becomes His responsibility.

To a devotee, Rama is not simply a good and great person, but God Himself. Rama is the son of Dasharatha the King of Ayodhya, as well as the Divine, omnipresent God, Self, Atma or Brahman. The destruction of the ten-headed Ravana by Rama is the annihilation of the mind with the ten senses. Worship of Rama is the worship of the Virat Purusha Himself. Read the prayers offered by Mandodari and Brahma in the Yuddhakanda of the Valmiki Ramayana. They refer to Rama as the one Creator of the universe, the God of all, the Ruler of all. ‘Tattvato Jnatva’—after knowing Him in truth, one enters into Him.

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27th March is Sri Ramanavami.

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The following article was recently posted at Sri Swami Krishnanandaji's site:

• The Search for Self-Realisation

Yours in the service of Gurudev,

Pannirselvam

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BOOK SYNOPSIS

Hindu Fasts and Festivals
By Swami Sivananda

The Hindus are a profoundly religious people. Their goal of life is Self-realisation or the attainment of God-consciousness. A religion of some kind they must have—a religion which will stir the depths of the heart and give room for the exercise of faith, devotion and love.

All Hindu festivals have a deep spiritual import or high religious significance. All great Hindu festivals have religious, social and hygienic elements in them. In every festival there is bathing in the morning before sunrise in the river or tank or well. Every individual will have to do some Japa, prayer, Kirtan, recitation of Sanskrit verses and meditation.

Man gets tired on account of hard work or monotonous actions. He wants some change or variety. He wants relaxation. He wants something to cheer him up. These festivals make him cheerful and happy, and give him rest and peace.

In this book Gurudev has explained the significance and the philosophy of many of our fasts and festivals. In two aspects of these observances, he has always allowed the greatest freedom: (1) in the determination of the dates of the festival, which, as he has explained on page 53, vary, and (2) in the traditional ways of celebrating them. For instance, in South India during the Durga Puja they have the Kolu when various idols and toys are arranged in colourful gallaries before which, every evening, girls sit and sing. Again, in some places there is fire-walking without the Kavadi (see page 109), held in honour of Draupadi Amman who was born of fire; or in Ceylon, according to Yogi Satchidananda of Ceylon, in honour of Kannaki Amman. Gurudev never disturbs anyone’s good beliefs and customs.

For more information, please see: Hindu Fasts and Festivals

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KIRTAN FOR DUMBNESS: A dumb boy was brought by his parents to the Ashram. The father informed the Master that the boy was dumb, except for producing a particular sound. The Master enquired of him whether a certain devotee of his was conducting regular Kirtan. When the man answered in the affirmative, the Master said to him, “Take your son there, where there is Kirtan. Or you may all join together and conduct Kirtan in your own home. By constantly hearing the Name of the Lord, the boy also will try to repeat it. Slowly the dumbness will disappear. Kirtan is the remedy for it.”

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“Gandhiji writes: You might ask me why I tell you to use the word Rama and not one of the many other Names of the Creator. True; His Names are as many as and more than the leaves on a tree, and I might, for instance, ask you to use the word God. But what meaning, what associations, would it have for you here? In order to enable you to feel anything when repeating the word God, I should have to teach you some English. I should have to explain to you foreign people’s thoughts and associations.

But in telling you to repeat the Name of Rama, I am giving you a Name worshipped since countless generations by the people of this land, a Name familiar to the very animals and birds, the very trees and stones of Hindustan, through many thousand years. You will learn from Ramayana how a stone by the roadside sprang to life at the touch of Rama’s foot as He passed by. You must learn to repeat the blessed Name of Rama with sweetness and such devotion that the birds will pause in their singing to listen to you, that the very trees will bend their leaves towards you, stirred by the divine melody of that Name.” – Sri Swami Sivananda

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