Loving Ganesha: Chapter 19 (section 2) - Singing to Ganesha--Ganesha Bhajanam

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font-family:Arial">Namaste all,

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font-family:Arial">From http://www.himalayanacademy.com/books/lg/lg_ch-19.html

the second section of chapter 19.

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12.0pt;font-family:Arial">Om Shanti

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font-family:Arial">Neil

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font-weight:bold">The Working Together of Three Worlds

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Bhajana is an essential part of the Hindu

religious life. My satguru,

Sage Yogaswami of Columbuthurai,

Sri Lanka, placed great importance on chanting. He

would say, "Sing, sing, sing. Morning, noon and evening we will chant with joyful

hearts the blessed name of Siva. Sing always of the Lord and meditate on Him

who bestows virtue, wealth, happiness and liberation."

We join a

revered band of devotees when we chant the praises of God. Hindus sing to God,

to the Gods, to the multitudes of devas within their

temples and home shrines who will gather around devotees when they congregate

together almost anywhere. Each Hindu has his or her own guardian devas who are

never far away, always available and willing

to assist from an inner world of consciousness, from the Second World, or astral

plane. These guardian devas attend Hindus from the time of birth or from a

previous birth or from a ceremony or event occurring anytime in life when they

enter the great assembly known as the Hindu religion. When two or more Hindus

gather, each brings to that assembly -- depending upon the personal sadhana that

the Hindu has performed in

this life and in past lives -- his own devas to add

to the throng.

As

sincere devotees meet, the inner-plane devas form a

conclave in the same room, invisible to the physical sight but fully visible to

the inner sight and sensed through the feeling of sanctity that pervades the

atmosphere of the room. As the singing of the Hindu hymns commences, other Second World devas are

drawn according to the sum of devotional intensity. These devas

sing together in the inner planes in concert with the First World bhajana, and

that calls others, until a multitude

of beings in the Second World join in the same chorus as is being sung in the

First World.

font-weight:bold">Sincerity of Purpose

We must

realize that when we sing bhajana

the devas of the Second World and even the Gods of

the Third World hear our intonations and are aware too of the depth of our

devotion. They are fully aware of us, though we may be only partially aware of

them. They know and appreciate the meaning of the words that we chant. For this

reason it is very necessary that each one deeply understand the meaning of the

words, even when those words are in Sanskrit. The meaning, the tones of the

voice, the thought behind the meaning, the feeling behind the thought -- all

these give power to the bhajana, add their beauty to the sounds that

radiate out from our love and devotion, taking that meaning, thought, feeling

and sound from this macrocosm into the microcosm of the devonic

world and through that into a greater macrocosm where the Gods live. High tones

penetrate deepest, piercing through the microcosm into the great macrocosm that

we know as the inner worlds. Also, concentration of mind, awareness of meaning

and sincerity of inner feeling add to the ability of the chant to penetrate to

spiritual depths or, in their absence, to remain little more than a sweet song

hardly distinguishable from any other song.

font-weight:bold">Singing is Prayer and Thanksgiving

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13.5pt">ost Hindu chants are a joyous praising of the Divine. They can also be

a reminder that there are subtle inner worlds of existence, a pleading that we

may be more aware of them and more in harmony with their great beauties and

truths, and an invocation of the Gods and even of certain benefits which they

are empowered to bestow. Our hymns are a thanksgiving for all that we have, for

all the good that has been granted to us in life by our Gods, or during an

immediate time span. Of course, we are only capable of such thanksgiving when

we inwardly feel grateful, content within ourselves and not dissatisfied with

our dharma, not struggling to oppose our karma in this life but to fulfill it by

bringing it into harmony with our religion.

True thanks must be offered, or true petitions made, with the mind and emotions

and thought in a single accord as the Sanskrit lyrics are enunciated. How would

the God perceive a devotee who is chanting something to him, pleading to him

through the tones of his voice, but simultaneously thinking about something

totally different and unrelated -- or if he is not thinking at all but merely

mouthing meaningless syllables? Obviously the devotee will be inwardly seen as

insincere and shallow, saying things that he doesn't really mean. It would be

unwise to assume that the Gods are incapable of perceiving such states of mind.

They are, in fact, more fully aware of the devotee's inner feeling and thinking

states during bhajana

than the devotee himself.

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One bathes before coming to satsanga or bhajana. One prepares the mind and

the emotion, knowing that he is, in a sense, on stage and performing before

beings of great intelligence who are able from their

microcosm to look into this macrocosm. These Gods are being invoked, and they

will attend if the invocation is properly and sincerely performed with a devout

heart and a mind that is one-pointed in spiritual pursuit. The devas in the

Second World -- which is the world of astral

or mental bodies -- will respond because their function, their fulfillment and

dharma on their plane of consciousness is

to help evolution in the First World, physical plane, and thereby further

evolve themselves. They are spiritual helpers, working with the First World to

open it up to the Third World. All the worlds work together when Hindu

devotees gather together. The astral beings who work on the lower astral plane

contact more evolved beings in the higher Second World who are able to

themselves work with the individual and to invoke the Third World. The Personal

Deity is thus reached, and the blessings flood forth from within.

It is

very important that we are sincere when we chant these holy hymns that have

reverberated in the nerve systems of uncounted seekers and sages down through

the millennia. We would not want to be seen as insincere or inattentive, saying

one thing and thinking another, or saying and thinking one thing and feeling

another. Presenting ourselves to the Gods through prayerful song or just

appearing before them in the temple precincts, we want to be in a most pious

and profound state of mind. Ordinary affairs must be temporarily relinquished,

along with ordinary feelings and thoughts. Yet, you would not want to pretend

either. If you are unhappy when you come to the temple, they must see that

unhappiness; and you must not try to cloud or conceal it from them or yourself.

Then they can help. The Gods are going to see you the way you are from their

vantage point in the microcosm looking out and into this macrocosm.

 

 

font-family:Arial">Loving Ganesha by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

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font-family:Arial">Web sites: http://www.hindu.org/

& http://www.himalayanacademy.com/

email: contact (AT) hindu (DOT) org

Himalayan Academy

Kauai's Hindu Monastery

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Kapaa, HI 96746-9304

 

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