Thought for Everyone

The Divine Name is pregnant with a great power to transform the world. It can create light where there is darkness, love where there is hate, order where there is chaos, and happiness where there is misery.
- Sant Ramadas

Which Special Nama?

Chanting the Lord's Name gives eternal bliss andhappiness. Now the question arises, 'There are somany Gods and Godesses in my faith and each of themhas umpteen names! Which one should I pick andchoose?' Infact Yudishtira himself had this doubt and,questions Bhishma in the prelude to VishnuSahasranama,

"kim ekam daivatam lokE kimvApekam parAyaNam
stuvantam kam prApnuyu: mAnavA: subham
ko dharma sarvadharmAnAm bhavata: paramO matah:
kim japan muchyatE jantu: janma samsAra bandanAt "

Who is the greates Lord in the world? Who is the onerefuge for all?
By extolling whom can one reach happiness andprosperity?Which is the faith that is the best of all thereligions?
By chanting whose Name can the beings cross the sea ofSamsara? "And Bhishmacharya answers,jagat prabhum dEvadEvam anantam purushOttamam stuvan nAma sahasrENa purusha: sathatothitha:"The endless Supreme Powerful Being, and protector ofall - Sri Vishnu --
By singing his Names, man attains prosperity andhappiness." Thus speaks Vishnu Sahasranama. However, given thecurrent busy day, where one finds it difficult to evensing a thousand names, we are forced to turn to ourscriptures for an easier way.The Upanishads are considered to be the Knowledgeportion of the Vedas. One such upanishad, "KaliSantarana Upanishad" resolves this predicament ofours!

The following conversation between Sri NaradaMaharishi and Lord Brahma is found in Kali SantaranaUpanishad. At the end of Dwapara Yuga, Narada, after travelingaround the world, approached Lord Brahma and askedhim,
“How may I overcome (the evil effects of) KaliYuga?”Lord Brahma said: “You have asked me an excellentquestion. I shall reveal to you the secret of all theVedas by which you will cross over the ‘samsara’(ocean of life) filled with the bad effects of theKali Yuga. This secret must be preserved andprotected.”
“Bhagavata Adipurushasya nArAyaNasyanAmoccAraNamAtreNa nirdhrtakalir bhavati nAradah punah papraccha tannAma kimiti,”
Said Lord Brahma, 'By merely uttering the names of thePrimeval ‘Purusha’, who is Bhagavan Narayana, one isfreed from the clutches of Kali."Narada asked further, “sa hovaca hiranyagarbhah” What are those names of Narayana?"
“HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE
HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE”
iti shodashakam nAmnAm kalikalmashanAshanam
natah parataropAyah sarvavedeshu drushyate
Lord Brahma said,
“This collection of the sixteenNames (of Narayana) destroys the evils of the KaliYuga. I don't see any other effective means (ofliberation) in the Vedas.Narada further clarifies for the sake of us, ‘O Lord,what are the rules to be observed with reference to it?" Brahma replied that there were no rules for it.Whoever in a pure or an impure state, utters thesealways, attains the same world of, or proximity with,or the same form of, or absorption into the divine.
Sri Sri Swamiji says that though all Names of God are divine and have the power to deliver us from the evilsof this age, this particular Maha Mantra is prescribedin the Shastras and has been chanted, followed,preached and lived for by great Mahans like SriChaitanya Mahaprabhu and ascertains
so, "Wherever Maha Mantra Nama kirtan is performed, the cosmic changes there. Waves of the Lord’s Presence exist there. There will be peace in that home. All auspicious happenings will take place!"

We should not under estimate the power of women

Swami Vivekananda, in one of his speeches abroad, said, ‘For India to grow, we have to admire, accept and utilize the power of women.’ Once, a female disciple of Swami Vivekananda happened to meet the great Tamizh poet, ‘Mahakavi’ Subramanya Bharati, in a freedom-struggle gathering when she was on a visit to Tamil Nadu. She enquired of the poet’s wife Chellamma and asked him why she did not make it to the meeting. Bharati replied that she was at home. The disciple quipped, ‘Your talks are revolutionary and stress on women’s liberation, but you don’t bring your wife along. Only if you recognize the power of women and use it for the sake of the country can we attain independence and nurture growth.’ The great poet humbly agreed. Beginning with our scriptures, throughout history, we see the importance that has been accorded to women. Never have our scriptures, at any point, failed to portray the prominence and power of women. In the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad, Sage Yagnavalkya decided to renounce his family and go to the jungle for penances. He turned to his two wives and asked them how they wanted his property to be shared between the two. One of them jumped forward and demanded the riches and the most expensive of his wealth. Maitreyi, the other wife said, ‘You have decided to renounce these riches and embrace an ascetic life. Would someone do that without any rhyme or reason? To me, that verily indicates that there is something more valuable than these material riches. Pray impart to me that knowledge before which these possessions are but trifling.’ Yagnavalkya was pleased at the quest of his astute wife Maitreyi and taught her the supreme Truth of the Vedanta. In Ramayana, Soorpanaka wanted Sri Rama alone. She was injured by Lakshmana. Ravana wanted Sitadevi alone and he too met his end. Hanumanji wished to have darshan of Sita-Rama and therefore He remains as a chiranjeevi to this day and revered by one and all. Ramayana thus shows the importance of worshipping Devi along with the Lord. Long ago, there was a great scholar in Andhra Pradesh by name Bilwamangala. One day, he met a beautiful maiden by name Chintamani and fell in love with her at first sight. He started leading a licentious life and always longed for her company. On a terribly stormy night, he wanted to have her company and risked his life to meet her. As soon as she saw him, she rebuked him for having led such an amorous life and advised him that if he expressed even a fraction of the longing and devotion that he had for her, towards Sri Krishna, the Lord will appear before him. Great realization dawned on Bilwamangala and he immediately fell at her feet, beseeching her to accept him as her disciple. With the feeling of guilt writ large in his mind, he pierced his eyes with a needle and blinded himself. Later he went to Brindavan and became an ardent devotee of Krishna and subsequently had His darshan too. Bilwamangala, who later came to be known as Lila Suka, composed a spectacular work called ‘Krishna Karnamrutham’ which is a mellifluent masterpiece on Lord Krishna. But for Chintamani, we would not have had the great Mahan by name Lila Suka in our history, nor his glorious work on Sri Krishna. Goswami Tulasidas lived the life of a householder and loved his wife very much. One evening, after he returned from a tour, not finding his wife at home and learning that she was at her parental home, he rushed to see her in the middle of the night. Seeing that Tulasidas came to see her unmindful of the grave perils of the night, instead of reciprocating his fervour, she admonished him, ‘You have so much love for this fleeting body, which is nothing but a bag of flesh and bones! If you had the same passion and thirst for Sri Rama, you would have see Him face-to-face!’ Tulasidas took these very words of his wife as Upadesa. The rest of his life was spent in Rama Dhyana. We should realize that it was verily his wife who made a Saint of the otherwise commoner. But for his wife, we would not have got the great Tulasi Ramayana today. In the recent past, we see the life of Janaki Mata, a great Rama Bhakta from Tanjore. She was a standing example to the fact that even women can attain Realization in spite of being in family life. We see the same being illustrated in the life of another great woman-saint, Andavan Pichai too. There have been so many such instances where women have been great Mahatmas or have played an important roles in the lives of great Mahatmas. It is high time that we revived our glorious past by upholding, celebrating and utilizing the power of women and using it for the welfare of the world. Let us bring this latent power to the fore and use it to propagate Mahamantra Kirtan throughout the world.

Power of Nama

We have heard of great Mahans chanting the Rama Nama or the Krishna Nama towards attaining God-Realization. Are there other Mahans besides Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who have chanted the Maha Mantra to attain the Lord? Moreover I have read that a Sadhak should stick to one name and form. The Mahamantra has both Rama and Krishna 's names. So to avoid the mind from wavering can I contemplate on my Guru while chanting the Maha Mantra?
Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji:

The beauty and power of the Divine Name is that it completely takes over. All you need to do is chant. When you chant do not bother whether your mind wavers or not. Nama will take care of that. Though there maybe so many names and mantras, this mantra is specifically prescribed by the Upanishad for this age (Kali Santarana Upanishad). Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Swami Sivananda, Swami Abhedananda, numerous sadhus in Vrindavan, advocate this mantra as the simplest solution in this Yuga. Bhagavan Ramana used to say that the doubt whether one would be able to attain liberation is the greatest hurdle and nothing else. Faith is the bedrock of anything in this world. For certain questions, any amount of intellectual analysis will not help find a decisive answer and they will always remain.

The secret is to hold on to a path advocated by the Guru and proceed doubtlessly with faith in the words of the Guru and the experience the bliss Yourself.