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Day 1
There is no place or time God isn’t present. However, where is God’s experience? Can we experience God all the time? The breaths in his non-existence is this material world. Forgetting him and not feeling God is this material would.
Why these temples and Katha? To remind us that life is not possible without that eternal God. If God is everywhere & omnipresent, then who can we insult?
What is the purpose of sitting for such long periods of time & making an effort to sit in this Katha?
You want to travel from illusion to the supreme Truth? S.B. will take you. This is why S. B. starts with Satyam Param Dhimahi.
SB will take us from darkness to light so we can see the real path in this life.
What is the purpose of life? SB. Says to experience God. Where this experience is present, a person is always in bliss.
Darkness is the vicious cycle of living to eat/earn and Eating/earning to live.
This journey is to know thyself. Bhagavat is the greatest of all Puranas. Thus all Puranas perform stuti of Bhagavat. Why listen to the importance of SB before SB? When we understand the importance, we develop love for SB. Then we become hungry to experience Him.
Love life. It means loving God. Have a desire to live for long & be successful.
I will be successful in fighting my internal vices. Don’t fight with your mind. Live such that we can be of support to others.
The mind gets weak in several ways: inability to tolerate insults,praises, sorrow etc. One who can tolerate is strong. Teach children not only how to win but also how to tolerate failure. Tolerate shock thro’ discrimination of right and wrong. Shock of past, attachment to present $ worry of future leads to sorrow. In fact sorrow doesn’t exist. We have made sorrow. There is only bliss everywhere.
Day 3
We started with a prayer, “Mangalam Bhagavan Vishnu, Mangalam Garuda Dhvaja, Mangalam Pundrikaxa, Mangalam Tano Hari.” Mangal is eternal. Mangal is to make progress. Mangal gets us out of misery and attachment. Katha gets us out of sadness, attachment, and jealousy.
Then we had a youth session where Pujya Bhaishi answered children’s questions. “Why and what is the punishment of previous lives”? There is a life after death. Death is not the stop, but is the comma. We change bodies in different lives. Example- When we go from one room to another, we carry our belongings with us, but when we die we do not take any worldly stuff with us, we only take our deeds. Some actions go with us in another life and for, some we get results in the same life. Once we drink water, we do not stay thirsty anymore. When we take food, medications etc, we will get results after some time, but not immediately. If we plant mango seeds, we have to wait many years to get mangoes. That is how we get results of deeds from previous lives. Destiny is the collective outcome of many actions.
We do not have any choice of where we take birth, who will be our parents, or what will be our genders. It all depends on your destiny. For example- In accounting the year-end balance is carried forward to another year and it becomes an opening balance for that new year. Similarly, we get results of some deeds in this birth and results of some deeds are carried forward to the next birth. If you want to get out of the cycle of rebirth then we can go on the path of Bhakti. God is merciful, so we can ask for forgiveness.
“What is the meaning of life, what is goal of life?” For example, we go to school to attain knowledge. Being humans we can serve others, humans and animals. Once we finish our studies, our goal should be: To be helpful to mankind and serve our family, our nation and our world.
“Why are women not allowed to go to the kitchen and temples when they have their periods?” In the old days, women took responsibility of all work at home and in farming. Our elders were wise. They thought that using religious ways, women can be told to get some rest for a few days. Medically and scientifically proven, women get weak during that time and they need rest to get back to their routine and functions. So elders forbade women from going into the kitchen and temples so they can rest for a couple of days.
“Where are the original religious books being kept”? In the old days, saints did not have pens or papers or printing presses. The saints and rishis spoke and the disciples memorized what the saints said and passed it along to the following generations. In recent years we are able to write on paper and we’re able to preserve it. Shikshapatri written by Lord Swaminarayan is kept in the museum of London.
How can we live with affection and unity? We need to believe that every being has a soul and that is part of the Supreme Soul, God. For example, ladies go to the well to get water with their containers. The well is only one but there are many containers. Every container gets filled with water. If we feel happiness from others’, the happiness created is oneness.
“What should we do to keep God happy”? Always do good karma (deeds) then God will be happy. God is in every being. He is always with us but we are not always with him. He is watching all of us all the time, and he watches what we do.
The first Shloka of Mangla-Charan starts with eternal truth. We should eat, pray, and do things together. That is the way we can make society good. Pujya Bhaishri explained the meaning and importance of Gayatri Mantra.
When we walk in the dark, we may find a snake, but we think that it might be rope. We realize it was a snake, not rope, when we turn the light on. Due to getting attached to worldly things, we have an illusion of the snake and rope. To achieve knowledge is the realization of truth.
For humans, first breath is the journey towards death. If our life span is about 80 years and when we turn 10, we have 70 years left to live. Do good karma during human life. We adopt bad habits in life and ruin the beautiful body given to us by God. Realize God is in every being. Do not do anything which can hurt others. In Bhagavat Katha, truth is God.
Truth defends us and we have to defend a lie. So tell the truth all the time. We need good thoughts for our mind like we need good food for our bodies.
In Bhagavat, there are 12 chapters which represent 12 organs of the body of God. Pujya Bhaishri talked about the different incarnations of God.
