I have seen so many smiling faces since the start of Navarathri. I'm thinking that maybe the bhajan was different, maybe they're really enjoying the bhajan... Then a voice in my head said, 'No. Tomorrow they are breaking fast'. So, you happy faces, don't do it tomorrow. Leave it until Saturday: nine days and nine nights.Some of you were here every night during Navarathri. Others had to travel from Umkomaas by the bush, and Scottburgh by the beach. To you I say thank you very much for making these nine days so exciting. To mother Shobha, I don't know where she picked all the musicians from, but thank you very much. Every group entertained us.
So tomorrow what happens? We go back to exactly what we were doing ten days ago - our normal routine of fighting, anger brutality, greed and selfishness. That's what will happen. Can't we take this another nine days? Feel this peace for another nine days? You know, we think that if we come to service once a week, we have satisfied the requirement of the Hindu Sanatan Dharma. But, actually, we have not.
Just as we eat daily, just as are happy and party daily, so we need to pray daily, and our prayer should be in the same proportion as one-is-to-one-is-to-one, or two-is-to-two-is-to-two, or-three-is-to-three-is-to-three. Not five-is-to-one-is-to-zero, or five-is-to-one-is-to-one. If we party for eight hours, we should pray for eight hours. If we sleep for eight hours, we should work for eight hours. Prayer is not sitting in front of a murthi ringing a bell so your neighbours know that you're praying. Be engaged in divine sadhana, in religious books. Whenever I see our young Hindu girls they are carrying a People Magazine. It's the fashion, and they'll show you the cover when they're walking past. But if you give them a Bhagavad Gita they will put it in their bag so no one can see it. Why?
Hindu Sanatan Dharma is the most beautiful way of life ever given to man by God. Everything about it is directly from God. The Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, Talsidas' Ramayan ... The people who wrote these books were not saints but when they sat in meditation they engaged with God.
For the nine days of Navarathri I pray that you engaged with the Divinity of God. For nine days you may have fasted, but in that you have also shown your brutality through pens and paper, said things to each other that you shouldn't say during this time. If anybody asks you, you say you're fasting for Navarathri.
Let's take this to another level. Swami Shankarananda and his White dancing elephants and Indian warriors don't stop. At one o'clock tomorrow morning they will leave for Port Elizabeth. You must have this love, just to say the name of God. When they were singing, the name of Ram was resonating. That is what we need - to resonate in the name of the Lord. It's not about how you pronounce His Name, or whether you're in harmony. It's about being with God. Navarathri is not a nine-day band contest at all. No groups are better than others. There's no better group when you come to do God's work. Nobody is better than anyone else. Everyone does God's work to their best ability. God does not reprimand the child that tries to repeat his name. You don't get reprimanded for saying it wrong. Don't let people tell you that if you don't pronounce God's name correctly you will be punished. They have gone to schools to learn how to pronounce the words. You haven't. If you pronounce the names of God the way you think is correct, and with love for God, God will accept your prayer.
These nine days were about that, and about Luxmi, Durga and Saraswathi. I had hoped that all the raksha and asurik forces had left you. But no, some of you showed me those forces today. Why? Because they're there within you. You never let them go in the first three days of Navarathri, when you were focusing on Mother Durga. So where's the success in this journey? You won't have any success if you have any of those forces.
In the Bhagavad Gita, what did the blind king ask? He asked, 'What are the Pandavas and the Kuruvas doing?' How many sons were there? One hundred. Those one hundred sons are the asurik forces within you. Brutality, greed, violence, hate, lust, selfishness ... And once we have those asurik forces within us, divinity is lost.
Another thing that we all have that disappears during the nine days of Navarathri is ego. But it will be back again tomorrow. How will it start? 'Our organisation was better than yours because we had nine groups for nine days...' That is the ego. Ego is the biggest destroyer of your divinity. We should take these nine days and mirror them for another nine days, then carry on mirroring them all year. Nobody will laugh at you.
So the nine days have finished today. We have concluded. To many of you, the nine days means you've done your quota for nine weeks so we won't see you for the next nine weeks. It doesn't work like that. When you say, 'Ram,' Hanuman must be here because His name will resonate. When we say 'Durga,' you must be able to enjoy the force of Duruga. That is why the sages gave you nine nights for Navarathri.
Come next month, all the candles, all the lights, all the braais will come out. Companies will start to have braais for year-end. So already the Hindu sages and saints were too smart. They said, 'fast and relax your body for nine days'. That is what they did. Most of the Hindu prayers are done in the second half of the year. Even Purtasi was set in such a way that you can fast for one solid month and give your body enough rest so that you will survive when you abuse it over the next two months. The easiest way is become vegetarian. See, those who are laughing are thinking, 'You're joking, Guru'. But that's the truth. Become vegetarians. I can go to any temple any time of the day, month or week because I'm a vegetarian. I don't have to say to myself, 'God won't know that I've had two scrambled eggs and bacon'. The fact that the thought is in your consciousness, means that God already knows.
Hari om.
Another thing that we all have that disappears during the nine days of Navarathri is ego. But it will be back again tomorrow. How will it start? 'Our organisation was better than yours because we had nine groups for nine days...' That is the ego. Ego is the biggest destroyer of your divinity. We should take these nine days and mirror them for another nine days, then carry on mirroring them all year. Nobody will laugh at you.
So the nine days have finished today. We have concluded. To many of you, the nine days means you've done your quota for nine weeks so we won't see you for the next nine weeks. It doesn't work like that. When you say, 'Ram,' Hanuman must be here because His name will resonate. When we say 'Durga,' you must be able to enjoy the force of Duruga. That is why the sages gave you nine nights for Navarathri.
Come next month, all the candles, all the lights, all the braais will come out. Companies will start to have braais for year-end. So already the Hindu sages and saints were too smart. They said, 'fast and relax your body for nine days'. That is what they did. Most of the Hindu prayers are done in the second half of the year. Even Purtasi was set in such a way that you can fast for one solid month and give your body enough rest so that you will survive when you abuse it over the next two months. The easiest way is become vegetarian. See, those who are laughing are thinking, 'You're joking, Guru'. But that's the truth. Become vegetarians. I can go to any temple any time of the day, month or week because I'm a vegetarian. I don't have to say to myself, 'God won't know that I've had two scrambled eggs and bacon'. The fact that the thought is in your consciousness, means that God already knows.
Hari om.
AN EXCERPT FROM SWAMI'S TALK ON THE LAST NIGHT OF NAVARATHRI
