Bhaja Govindam : ( 23/11/2012. )

Swami Sri Adi Sankaracharya's BHAJA GOVINDAM : 1- INTRODUCTION - 8 : Swami Chinmayananda 21/04/2019 1. INTRODUCTION : 8. i. These are addressed to seekers as a book-of-instruction to help them walk the path stright to their goal. It contains ideas that can refresh the seekers on their path. The Students whom Sri Adi Sankaracharya admonishes with these stanzas are already pilgrims, al  whom of, perhaps, are walking slow under the crushing load of their own fatigue. This is a textbook of advice ( Upadesam ), and not a book of disputation ( Vadam ). In Bhaja Govindam we meet with a teacher who is softly advising his own beloved disciples in the secret chambers of his own sacred retreat. ii. A disciple ( Sishya ) is (a) one who is taught by the teacher, (b) one who has become improved ---has become now relatively more introvert, having left the extrovertedness that he had in the past --- as a result of his study of the contents of the sastram-s, (c) one who controls and...

Swami Sri Adi Sankaracharya's BHAJA GOVINDAM : 1- INTRODUCTION - 7 : Swami Chinmayananda 27/03/2019 1. INTRODUCTION : 7. 7.1 Though it is classified as a devotional song ( Stotram ) the chorus alone can be truely designed as a prayer verse. The rest of the thirty stanzas, with scientific precision, dissect the shell of thoughtlessness that veils the glory in man kind and forces him/her to be helplessly stupid in his/her relationship with the world outside. The verses, on the whole, can be considered as a "Book of categories"  ( Prakriya ), in the science of Vedanta. 7.2 Unlike the other manuels of Vedanta - Atma Bodham, Vivekacudamani, Panchadasi, and others ... Bhaja Govindam gives, within the limited canvas of its composition, a moreelequent pictureof the art of realisation and is deeper diagnosis of the human unhappiness. It not only indicates to the students  the goal and path, but also reveals unto hin/her wrechedness of his/her present way of life, th...

25/02/2019 1. INTRODUCTION : 6. 6.1 Taking the opening stanza as a refrain or chorus to be chanted for emphasis at the end of following verses, tradition has it that the immediately following twelve stanzas were given out by the Acharya himself. They together go under the name Dwadasa Manjarika Stotram. Very contagious must have been the Teacher inspired mood and the exploding poem, that each of his followers, at that time in his company, considered a stanza of his own, and they together stand under the title Caturdasa Manjarika Stotram. After listening to all verses, Sankaracharya blesses all true seekers of all times in the last four stanzas. 6.2 This set of thirty one stanzas, together titled Moha Mudgara, has been very popular in our country. It is but natural that it gets published again and again by various institutions and, slowly, different types of readings get to be equally popular. Some of the alternative readings we have noted here and there in our commenta...

08/02/2019 1. INTRODUCTION : 5. Bhaja Govindam is one of the seemingly smaller but, infact, extremely important work of Sri Swami Adi Sankracharya. Here the fundamentals of Vedantam are taught in simple, musical verses so that, even from early childhood, the children of the Rishi-s can grow up amidst the melody of Advaitam. The musical rhythm in these stanzas makes it easy even for children to remember and repeat these pregnant verses. For the intelligent young person, a sincere study of this poem can remove all his delusions ( Moham-s ), and so the poem is also called MOHA MUDGARA ( mudgara = hammer ). *A popular story describes the circumstances in which the great poem broke out from the inspiring heart of the Teacher. It is said that, once in Benares, as Swami ji Sankaracharya was going along with fourteen disciples ( followers ), Sri Adi Sankaracharya overheard an old pandit repeating himself grammar rules, and at this futile effort put forth for a mere intellectual acco...

04/01/2019 1. INTRODUCTION : 4. Sri Adi Sankaracharya had brought into swamiji's literary dexterity in the works, both in prose and poetry, and at Acharya's hands, under the heat of Acharya's fervent ideals. the great Sanskrit language became almost a dove. Swamiji could mould it into any shape and into any form. From vigorous prose, heavily laden with irresistible arguments to flowing rivilets of lilting tuneful songs of live and beauty, there is no technique in language that Acharya did not take up; and whatever Swamiji took up, Swamiji proved himself to be a master in it. From masculine prose to soft feminine songs; from marching army verses to dancing songful words, be Acharya in the halls of the Upanishad discourses, or in the temple of the Brahma-Sutra expositions, or in the amphitheatre of Bhagavad Gita discourses, or in the open flowery fields of Swamiji's devotional songs, Acharya's was a creation that danced to the rhythm of heart and to the sw...

06/12/2018 1. INTRODUCTION : 3. In Swami ji's missionary work of propagating the great philosophical truths of the Upanishads and rediscovering through them the true cultural basis of our Nation Bharatham, Acharya Swami ji had a variety of efficient weapons in his resourceful  armoury. Swami ji was indeed pre-eminently the fittest genius who alone could have undertaken this self-appointed task as the sole guardian-mahatma of the RISHI-CULTURE. An exquisite thinker, a brilliant intellect, a personality scintillating with the vision of Truth, a heart throbbing with industrious faith and ardent desire to serve the nation, sweetly emotional and relentlessly logical; in Swami ji the Upanishad discovered the fittest Spiritual General. It was indeed a vast programme that Swami ji had to accomplish within the span of about twenty five years; for at the age of thirty-two Swami ji had finished his work and had folded up his Manifestation among the mortals of the world. To be con...

14/11/2018 1. INTRODUCTION : 2. It was at such a time, when our society was fertile for any ideal thought or practical philosophy to thrive, that the beautiful values of non-injury, self-control, love and affection of the Buddha came to enchant alike the kings and their subjects of this country. But the general decadence of the age did not spare the Buddhists also. They among themselves, precipitated different viewpoints, and by the time Sri Swami Adi Sankaracharya appeared on the horizon of  history of Sanatana Dharmam (  Hindu history ), the atheistic school of Buddhists ( Asad-Vadis ) had enticed away large sections the people of Bharatham. It was into such a chaotic intellectual atmosphere that Swami Adi Sri Sankaracharya brought his life-giving philosophy of the "NON-DUAL BRAHMAM OF THE UPANISHADS." It can be very well understood what a colossal work it must have been fir a single man to undertake in those days,* (*7th/9th centuries AD ) when modern con...