Twannama Keertana

INNER SIGNIFICANCE

The significance of Naamasankeertan:

Group devotional singing of the Name and Glory of God helps devotion to blossom in the heart. Devotion purifies our emotions.

Baba says, “Bhajans remove all negative thoughts, soothe the nerves, purify the mind and fill the heart with sweet love. As one sings bhajans, the mind gets saturated with God consciousness and negative emotions wane”.

Explanation :

In this verse, we realise the importance of the sadhana of Nama Sankeertana – group devotional singing of the glories of God with true devotion and bhaava and also correct raag and taal helps our Bhakti to pour forth its sweetness in a steady stream. All the higher tendencies and urges within us sprout forth and blossom in our hearts.

We feel great bliss of joy as we sing aloud the attributes and leelas of our Sai Krishna and Sai Rama or any form of God.

Nama Sankeertana is the easiest of all Sadhanas. It is all joy as the melody of the group singing creates holy vibrations in our hearts. Nama Sankeertana leads us to contemplation of the Form of our chosen Guru.

In the previous verses, we feel the awakening. The Sun of wisdom has dawned. The Guru with his loving touch has removed some of the layers of ignorance and given us an urge for sadhana.

In this verse, we start our spiritual journey with Bhajans and singing the Name of the Lord. We now in-gather our attention and step within our gross body. We move on to the Pranamaya Kosha by Nama Sankeertana and our breathing becomes long, slow, regular and rhythmic.

1. Namdev and Jnanadev

Once Namdev and Jnanadev were passing through a forest. They were tired and thirsty. They found a well, but the water was deep down and the well was very steep. Now how to get the water?

Jnanadev was a jnani. He had yogic powers jnana shakti. He turned himself into a bird, flew into the well, reached the water, drank it and quenched his thirst.

Namadev had no such yogic power, but only intense devotion to the Lord. Thirsty, though he was, his thoughts were on God alone and he got immersed in the chanting of his name. He was drifting into ecstacy and was in pure bliss, as if he tasted the sweetness of God’s love.

Just then, the water from the depths of the well rose up and started overflowing. Namdev could then, without any effort drink the water and quench his thirst. The jnani had to rely on his own power, but the Bhakta had the water flow right up to his hands. The name is very powerful and God himself brings to the devotee’s door-step whatever he urgently needs.

2. Narrate the story of the Bhramara (Wasp) and the Kumira worm which explains transformation. As one thinks, so becomes he.

One day a Bhramara (wasp) picks up the Kumira worm and confines it in a tiny mud nest with a narrow opening. Every now and then, the wasp visits the nest and sits close to the hole, humming all the while. The worm, mortally afraid that the wasp might strike and devour it any moment, keeps staring unswervingly all the time at the wasp through the role. As a result of this unceasing and single-pointed attention on the form of the wasp, the worm gets transformed and metamorphosed into the beautiful Bhramara, shedding its own original (ugly) worm form.

In a similar way, through contemplation on the Atma or Brahman, the Jivi sheds his sense of limitations and finiteness as also his separatist and egoistic individuality, and attains freedom of spirit and sense of universality – his kinship, nay, his identity with all creation. In place of the limited and narrow perspective of his senses and the mind, he attains a spiritual perspective (Soul-Sight), a cosmic vision and awareness. His innate divinity gets fully manifested in his thought, word and deed. It is blossoming of the soul and integration of personality harmonised in body, mind and spirit. Man attains a divine stature, Manava becomes Madhava, as Baba puts it.

3. Draupadi’s deep devotion to Lord Krishna.

Rukmini and Satyabhama were surprised at the grace granted by Lord Krishna to Draupadi.

One day, Krishna asked them to comb Draupadi’s hair. It was entangled and knotted as she had vowed not to comb it until she was avenged and the Kauravas punished. When the two queen combed her hair, they heard each hair make the sound ‘Krishna, Krishna, Krishna’.

It is also said of Hanuman that from each hair on his body the name ‘Rama Rama’ was heard.

So, have the name of our beloved Lord Sri Sai

Sarvada- always.

Sarvakaleshu- at all times.

Sarvatra- at all places.

Harichintanam- remembrance of God.