THE NEED FOR ‘SRAVANA’

THE NEED FOR ‘SRAVANA’

(Sri Swamigal in the Sat Sangh’s Tamil monthly magazine ‘Madhura Murali’, August, 1995 issue)

Focusing the mind on spiritual matters is very difficult since it has been accustomed to dwelling on worldly matters for crores of janmas (births). Most of the time, people are aware of the mistakes they commit. Yet they are unable to avoid it as it has become habitual. When we listen to a person describing vividly about a place that he has visited, don’t we feel a strong urge to visit that place? Similarly, it is true that reading or seeing pictures of certain places or things kindles our enthusiasm to visit that place or acquire that thing. The desire is deeper on listening about it from a person than by learning about it through a book or a picture. So, we should constantly listen to spiritual subject matters and about Mahatmas.

It is not enough to read or hear about such matters just once because the mind will indulge in sattvic (good) thoughts for a while and dawdle back to the usual worldly thoughts. We have to constantly listen to spiritual matters till the mind dwells on nothing but sattvic thoughts. Sravana (listening) is one of the nine forms of Bhakti. Moreover, King Parikshit attained moksha just by Sravanam. Just as listening to one who speaks superfluous worldly things is wrong, so too is not listening to one who speaks healthy spiritual matters. God has bestowed on us the power of speech that no other living being has been blessed with, just so that we will constantly talk about Him and attain Him. Let Saraswathi, the Goddess of Knowledge and Speech, shower her grace on us to achieve this.