Hari om.
I'm sure all of you know that, starting today, we have an eclipse, and
also Hanuman jayanthi and full moon. And for that reason the janda pooja
was done a bit differently – we did the sankh pooja with one hundred and eight seashells,
and we did abishegam afterwards. The reason we do it this way is so
that whatever difficulties and obstacles might come our way will be
avoided.
It's the first time that three planets have aligned in such a manner.
They will stay aligned until some time after July 26. Many things can
happen during that time. It was predicted thousands of years ago that
anything can happen, good or bad, in kali yuga. We don't know which it's
going to be so we did the sankh pooja. Sukran, or Jupiter also moved to
the east, which is not good.
Many of you know that Hanuman jananthi is actually tomorrow, which is
correct. I'm not going to embarrass you, but the only reason we had it
today is that if we had it tomorrow with pournami today you wouldn't
come tomorrow because your quota for the month is finished. So we did it
today. Stanger is very fortunate because we are doing the pooja there
tomorrow. But it doesn't matter when Hanuman jayanthi falls, whether we
do it today, tomorrow or next week. Hanuman jayanthi is the time that
Ram had the first sighting of Hanuman – nobody knows when he was born.
So it is this time, under this thirthi, nakshaktra, and yogam that Ram
met Sri Hanuman. It is the appearance of Hanuman not the birth that we
celebrate, so it's not that important when the pooja is done. In your life
you can have an appearance of Hanuman any time. When you leave here and tell people that you did Hanuman jayanthi today
and not tomorrow, they will tell you there's something wrong with this
temple.
There is no such thing as Hanuman janda. It is the sign of victory
within yourself. You have now conquered anger, hate, brutality, violence
- whatever negative aspects you are fighting. You have conquered them,
and are putting up a flag of victory. In India no houses have a Hanuman
janda. Only in Mauritius and South African do houses have a janda. In
the olden days only certain people, Hindi people, had jandha. Now
everyone puts it up. It has changed. Everybody wants to show the sign of
victory.
We can go into the deeper aspects of the Ramayan and of Hanuman, but I
might confuse all of you. I just want to give you one significant point.
For what reason do you do Hanuman prayer on Tuesdays? You don't even
know. If I ask you why you're doing it on Tuesdays you'll say it's
because your father, grandfather, and great grandfather did it. Hanuman's day is Saturday, not Tuesday. But because you don't want to fast on
Saturday that is the reason you do it on Tuesday – for convenience.
Shiva's day is on Sunday but because you don't want to fast on Sunday
you've moved it conveniently to Monday. This is human nature. We pray
at our convenience. If we did Hanuman jayanthi over two days your
convenience would have been affected. Which other day do you want
obstacles to be removed? On Tuesday? On Saturday – Sani's day – you want
the bad luck to go. Otherwise we'd do navagraha seven days a week.
Ashok would have to leave work to come here full time.
And if you noticed the prayer took a very unique turn tonight and
created a very divine energy. That is because of the sankh. What is the
meaning of 'sankh'? 'S(h)ankara' is the name of Lord Shiva. It is
believed that Shiva meditates in a sankh. When he is sitting in
meditation he is referred to as 'S(h)ankara' – one who has attained
bliss. When they give that name to anybody. It is always 'Shankarananda'
– one who is in bliss. That's where the name comes from.
I'm sure you've learned something today. Shiva sitting in the meditative
posture is referred to as Sankara because he was meditating in a shell
called a sankh. You can all add that to your vocab or whatever book
you're writing.
Hari Om.
