Friday, March 10, 2017

Devi's Naamaa

Today 10-03-2017, Friday morning at 6.15 I had a chance to listen to the speech of Shri P.Swaminathan in Podhigai TV. He was sharing an experience related to Shree Lalitha Sahasranamam. I wanted to share with you the same.

In a village, there lived a scholar who was very well versed in Lalitha Sahsranama and other sanskrit granthaas. He was also so proud of his knowledge and was always asking whoever he meets, some questions related to sahasranamam and will make fun of them as they don't know the answer for the same. This was a routine thing happening over there and the poor people could not do anything. They respected his knowledge. So they remained calm.

Ok. Our Maathaa Lalithamba is Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent. All are her children. If a child does some mischief on his or her siblings, the mother will interfere at some point of time. Lalithamba is not an exception to it. Indeed she loves to play with us, Her child.

The scholar met a man who looks after cows in that village. He has nearly 50 cows with him. He use to feed them, give bath to them and clean the places. He does nothing other than this noble task of Go samrakshana.

The scholar asked the man if he knows to recite Lalitha Sahasranama. The man replied, "I don't know that and all. Also it wont be easy for him to recite. But I have heard it being recited in the temple on Fridays. I have 50 cows with me. I have named them with the names that came in the sloka and also easy for me to call - like Sandhya, Savithri, Gayathri, Saraswathi, Lakshmi, Kamala etc.. Daily I use to meet each of that 50 cows atleast 20 times and inquire them like -

'Kamala, did you drink water?'
'Savithri, have you finished eating the hay?'
'Saraswathi, finished eating the fodder?'

so on.

The scholar could realize a sudden blow on his head. From that moment onwards he saw the cattle herd as Lord Krishna. He started to respect people and he stayed away from mocking at people.

What we have to take from this is - we need to be humble. Reciting naamaas with correct pronunciation is important. But reciting them with utmost love to Devi is more important. So let us not stay away from reciting God's naama having we don't know the proper pronunciation as a reason. Start saying. Pronunciation will be coming perfectly in the due course of time with the God's grace.

Saint Valmiki who was a thief in the previous birth, got upadesam from Sage Narada - the word "ma-ra". He kept chanting mara mara mara mara till his death in that birth. Ultimately rama rama rama rama came from his mouth. Then came the Rama avatara and Valmiki wrote the epic Ramayana!

The sound of the bell comes first. Then the Elephant.