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On the 30th of November at Shree Peetha Nilaya, we celebrated Babaji's Day with Sri Swami Vishwananda (see below a short video of the celebrations). In the morning he sent the following Tweets setting up the mood for the day, “Happy Babaji's Day. This is the day Babaji chose to stay eternally in this world giving Himself for the Realisation, for all to realise themselves”; “Jai Babaji! Jai Babaji! Jai Gurudev! Only your Grace can make all realise who they truly are. Pour it on all who long for it. That's my prayer.”
In the evening, at the beginning of his speech, Sri Swami Vishwananda revealed to us that he had been with Mahavatar Babaji during the day. He said, “He sent His blessing to all of you, to everybody actually, not only to you who are here, but to everybody worldwide. This is a a day which very often is confused, because many people think that it's the birthday of Babaji, no? It's not the birthday of Babaji. Actually, it is on this day that Babaji chose to be present in this world permanently. It's a promise which He gave to His sister, that He will be eternally present.” (JL3, p.279)
“So, what we are doing today it's just a remembrance of that day, a remembrance of gratitude. Gratitude, because He has looked for you, from wherever you are. Gratitude for His Grace of knowing Him. Gratitude for He has giving the Kriya to you all. So, this is the day to express this gratitude to Mahavatar Babaji.”
The prayers dedicated to Mahavatar Babaji included the chanting of the Guru Paduka Stotra; Kalash puja & homa; the chanting of The Guru Gita; the Abishekam on a murti of Mahavatar Babaji; Arati followed by practice of Atma Kriya Yoga.
Chanting of the Guru Paduka Stotra
Kalash puja & homa
After the Guru Paduka Stotra, Sri Swami Vishwananda chanted two Guru bhajans Sharanam Sadguru Sharanam and Gurudev Mere Dātā Mujko Aisa Varde while the Kalash puja and homa were being performed by other Bhakti Marga Swamis. Throughout the night, Sri Swami Vishwananda was in a very meditative mood, so from time to time he just stopped singing. Everytime this happened one of the Bhakti Marga singers took the lead of the bhajan.
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| Throughout the night, Sri Swami Vishwananda was in a very meditative mood |
The Chanting of The Guru Gita
When Sri Swami Vishwananda started chanting The Guru Gita, he made a commentary on the following verse:
Haṁ bījam saḥ śaktiḥ kroṁ kīlakam
Śri guruprasādasiddhayarthe jape viniyogaḥ
Śri guruprasādasiddhayarthe jape viniyogaḥ
Haṁ bījam, this is the bij mantra for Guru. If you understand the word Haṁ, you will understand the word Guru. And this is the secret it hides. It hides the secret of the Sohaṁ itself. But to understand the Haṁ you have to understand the Grace of the Master. Without the Grace of the Master nothing is possible, because this is the Shakti, saḥ śaktiḥ, This is what it is said, the Haṁ – the Guru is the Shakti of all the mantras. If you understand that, you will long only for that; to receive the Grace of the Master.
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| Sri Swami Vishwananda wrote in one of his Tweets, "Guru's Grace is all what one needs, nothing's else. Jai Mahavatar Babaji ki Jai!" |
Haṁ bījam saḥ śaktiḥ kroṁ kīlakam - this is the magic He holds; Śri guruprasādasiddhayarthe jape viniyogaḥ - use this mantra to attain the Grace of the Master.
Abishekam to a murti of Mahavatar Babaji
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| Sri Swami Vishwananda performed an Abishekam to a murti of Mahavatar Babaji |
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| Sri Swami Vishwananda sent a Tweet later during the night saying, "During the prayers the energy rose and Mahavatar Babaji presence during abhishekam was very strong, giving his blessing to all Kriya Sadhaks" |
After pouring some of the Kalash water on the murti, Sri Swami Vishwananda used the remaining water of the Kalash to bless the murtis on the altar; all the Swamis and Swaminis; Full Brahmacharis and Full Brahmacharinis followed by Kriya Sadhaks.
After Arati, Sri Swami Vishwananda asked all Kriya Sadhaks to stay and do their evening practice. Then, he said, “Know one thing: during the prayers, Mahavatar Babaji was here, so the Kriya that you do, receives His blessing and Grace. Know that He is present inside of your heart, so the blessing He gives you is for His blessing and His Grace to awake inside of you and guide you.”
"So, today we are celebrating this festival because it's very auspicious. It's very loving and caring that Mahavatar chose to be the Jagadguru, the Guru of all, of the whole Universe. And He doesn't look for gratification, He doesn't look for fame, name, anything. He does His work quietly. He prepares His disciples, His students and He sends them to the world. Great teachers, great saints have been His students and they have put their mark into this world. As it's said in the Guru Gita: the Jagadguru is the Guru of Gurus. He is clearly inaccessible for normal people, which means that without His Grace nobody gets to know Him, but with His Grace He makes the way so that you can approach one of His bhaktas, but you can't approach Him directly. Very rare He has let Himself be approached by normal people. And very rare He has given this opportunity also. As much as I know Him personally, He has given this opportunity to 75 people who live with Him. They used to be 52, but it has increased a little bit.”
The practice of Atma Kriya Yoga
After Arati, Sri Swami Vishwananda asked all Kriya Sadhaks to stay and do their evening practice. Then, he said, “Know one thing: during the prayers, Mahavatar Babaji was here, so the Kriya that you do, receives His blessing and Grace. Know that He is present inside of your heart, so the blessing He gives you is for His blessing and His Grace to awake inside of you and guide you.”
Highlights of Sri Swami Vishwananda speech about Mahavatar Babaji
"So, today we are celebrating this festival because it's very auspicious. It's very loving and caring that Mahavatar chose to be the Jagadguru, the Guru of all, of the whole Universe. And He doesn't look for gratification, He doesn't look for fame, name, anything. He does His work quietly. He prepares His disciples, His students and He sends them to the world. Great teachers, great saints have been His students and they have put their mark into this world. As it's said in the Guru Gita: the Jagadguru is the Guru of Gurus. He is clearly inaccessible for normal people, which means that without His Grace nobody gets to know Him, but with His Grace He makes the way so that you can approach one of His bhaktas, but you can't approach Him directly. Very rare He has let Himself be approached by normal people. And very rare He has given this opportunity also. As much as I know Him personally, He has given this opportunity to 75 people who live with Him. They used to be 52, but it has increased a little bit.”
“Time is the master of this world, which governs everybody and to which everybody is bound. It varies constantly. That's why sometimes you start to do something but you don't know what will be the outcome of it. You can have a big dream about that, but what will be, the reality, only the Lord Himself knows and He does everything according to its time. He separates and He reunites. This is what you all went through lives, and lives, and lives to be reunited again here and to celebrate Mahavatar Babaji's day. To get to know Mahavatar Babaji is not a coincidence. Maybe you can say, “Ah, yes, coincidently I came across the book Autobiography of a Yogi, I read about it.” No, it's not a coincidence. It's all the Master's will. Babaji has been around here for five thousand plus years and through that, many have received His blessing knowingly and unknowingly. The blessing of Him and the Grace to know about Him is there.”
“Time have called you here and it's right. You didn't have any choice, because this is the place where the Master has called you. What you have to do it's to accept the will of the Master from your heart and surrender to that. He doesn't ask you to leave your material world outside. He asks you only to transform yourself. That's why He has given Kriya to you. What Kriya does? People think that they are just a normal human being, no? But Kriya transforms you from a normal being to Divine, to remind you of your inner divinity. That's which all the great Masters have come. Through His guidance He has guide them to help humanity. Like that, for all these thousands of years, quietly He has been doing His work. It's funny – when you see such a great being like Him, for five thousand years; He could have proclaim Himself very great and I'm sure everybody would run to Him if He would be very accessible. He could have done lots of publicity for Himself, but this is not His aim, it's not His dharma. He quietly sits in the heart. From the heart He directs each one where they have to be, like He has directed all of you to be here. So, like that He governs, he controls His bhakta. He looks after His sheep as a good shepherd. But as the Jagadguru He doesn't reveal Himself. Very rare He will come to you in a dream, probably in a vision, but normally He doesn't.”
“Babaji is not accessible like that, you can't just go to the Himalayas, walk through and say, ‘Hi Mr Babaji, how are you?’ No, it's not like that. If He doesn't want to choose to show Himself, He will not. Many great saints have tried to meet Him, but He didn't show Himself. To Ramanuja Acharya, He gave him only a glimpse, which means, He met Ramanujacharya only for five, ten minutes. That's it! And that's what also transformed him. So, that's why I said, consider yourself lucky even to serve Him, to know about Him, to practice what He has given. Why He has given this practice? Because He wants you to be back to your original self. Something which has been dormant inside of you for lives and centuries, can be awaken again. That's Realisation.”
“Dive into the ocean of your heart you will see that everything in life makes sense. Every experience of life which you have gone through makes sense, fully. That's why you are here seated. Not only here, in the world, all the bhaktas, all who practice Kriya from any lineage – because He has given Kriya to many Masters, according to its time, He gave different form of Kriyas. This is the Grace which He has given to this world, to be close to the people when the people make the effort. Because if you don't make the effort then you will take things for granted, then you will not value it. That's why Mirabai said that when the Guru gives something it's the most precious treasure. If you don't know how to treasure it, you will lose it. But if you know how to treasure it, it will be your salvation. It will be your Realisation. It will lead you directly to the Divine Itself. And this is the Grace which He has pour upon people, through the Kriya itself. And in this time He has choose to infuse Kriya with the sweetness of bhakti, because people have forgotten bhakti. People have move away from devotion. People have become so much into the mind that they have forgotten their heart. So, through Atma Kriya Yoga He is reminding one to awake this bhakti again, to awake this love, not the superficial love, but to awake this deep longing for the Divine. And once one has this deep longing, one moves from the mind to the heart, where His guidance and His blessing reside, because when you got initiated it's a ignition which happen inside of you. When you got the Shaktipat the teacher – when he is doing the transfer of Shaktipat it's also transferring the whole energy to you and this is like a key which ignites, you know, lights up. But if you keep pressing the break of the car and then you press the accelerator the car will not move. The break is the mind, you know, which you have to pull down. Then you will move towards your true dharma, the dharma of your Atma. And all this is only possible through the Guru's Grace.”
