Posted on: 01 Apr 2018
Shri Gunadarsana asked: dearshrisurya, in my heart dattaswami is God himself. so i trush him. i try to serve swami in my ability. but this big deseasiatacks and disturb me and my service to swami.. what is swami ' advice to me personaly? thank for helping
Swami Replied:- Shri Surya has sent your question to Me for giving you the answer. When you are serving God in His program, certainly disturbances will come. In the initial stage, you have to solve your problems and you have to do service in the rest time, after solving your problems. This will be serving God partially. It is not wrong because nobody can become perfect in the beginning stage. In course of time, as your devotion to God increases, you will reach a stage in which you will neglect your problems and attend to the service of God only. This advanced stage results as your interest in God increases to reach the climax. This is the perfect stage. Perfect stage will never come in the beginning. You shall not forget that even the climax devotee also had a beginning. Even the PG student of today studied LKG previously in some time. Without studying LKG, nobody entered PG directly. Hence, you shall not be disturbed by your disturbance. In the beginning, attempt your problem for some time and allot some time for the service to God. This is the part time stage and slowly it enters in to full time stage. But, remember, that we shall not aspire for any fruit from God at any time. You are doing service to God since you like God. You are serving your issues since you like them. Service to God must be with such aspiration. While serving your issues, you never expect anything in return from them. That is real love and you must serve the God with real love only.
Shri LahariPotu asked: I have a mental illness and I accidentally started chanting Lakshmi mantra without knowing that I have to perform pooja, havan, and to recite the mantra 125,000 times. And thinking that I have to complete the chanting, I told god that I will try again. Now, If I want to chant the mantra again, can I just chant without performing havan or pooja because I am not chanting for any desire. What are the restrictions of chanting mantras? Also, I have a mental illness which might cause me to have bad thoughts while chanting mantras. Is it ok to chant with those thoughts? Will my thoughts cause bad things? If by chance, I cannot chant, does that mean I am breaking a promise to god? Please help. Thank you.
By
LahariPotu
Swami Replied:- Mantra means that statement or poem or song, which attracts your mind (mananaat traayate iti) so that you repeatedly read or sing it. Your mind must be attracted to it spontaneously and naturally. The idea of chanting a mantra for so many number of times is totally wrong. Your mind shall chant or read or sing so many times as your mind is naturally attracted. Let us take the example of a fellow, who sees cinema. He likes a specific song very much. He repeats it several times due to his personal attraction. He doesn’t have the idea to sing it for some personal benefit. There is no use in singing that song. But, still, he sings it due to spontaneous natural attraction. For him, that cinema song is real mantra. It is wrong to chant a Mantra, which does not attract your mind without any force. In fact, God gets headache on hearing the mantra chanted by you for so many times! The number is meaningless. If you sing a devotional song without any force, without any attraction to fruit and without such meaningless promise to God, it counts. Such song is mantra and your singing is the real chanting by which God is pleased. You sing such a song so many times as long as you are not bored. If you are bored, it is an indication given to you by God that He is bored! Then, stop singing. I am stressing on song because song is having highest attraction than poem and prose. God is best pleased if song is sung, which is the Saama Veda. Chanting a poem is better than uttering a prose sentence. Singing a song is far better than chanting a poem. Such devotional song is called as Gayatri. When a song attracts your mind and is repeatedly sung many times, such attracting song on God is the real Gayatri mantra. It is said that Gayatri Mantra is the best (Na Gaayatryaah paro mantrah). This is misunderstood by everybody to think that Gayatri mantra means a specific statement related to the deity Gayatri. Such idea is utter foolishness. It only means that singing the sweet song on God is real Gayatri. God is not bothered about your number. He is bothered about your pure mind without any aspiration for fruit and your sweet song that is naturally attracting your mind without any force. If you understand this true path to God, even your little spiritual effort becomes fruitful.