Happy Ugadi

Happy Ugadi to all Venugaanam Readers. 

From Team Venugaanam

We are delighted to bring you the 48th edition of Venugaanam this August. This month, Venugaanam newsletter completes 4 years since its inception. In this edition, we bring excerpts from Swami’s Divine Discourses compiled in Prema Vahini.

In Atmajyothi, we continue to learn and understand about supreme devotion.

The SKM updates bring to you some pictures from the school picnic to Visveswaraya museum and the teachers’ trip to Puttaparthi.

Shrikanth highlights the greatness of Draupadi in Lessons from Great Personalities.

What is the significance of offering one’s hair to the Lord at Tirupati. Read more in Bhargav’s article, on Loss of Vanity, the Divine Way.

Prakash gives us an important insight on how thankfulness about small things enhances the quality of our life.

Does Swami read every letter He receives and know all our problems? Shivashanker’s Tryst with Omniscience is a must read for all.

We conclude with a Chinna Katha on the importance of doing the Guru’s bidding.

We are happy to have your feedback on how to make ‘Venugaanam’ a better communication tool. You may kindly mail us at contactus@saikrushnamandir.org . Do feel free to share with us your experiences in following Swami’s teachings or on any other theme of your choice.

We pray to Swami to bless all the children and inmates so that they may all come up to His expectations.

May Swami turn our lives into a celebration of His message of love, sharing and caring.

Bhagawan’s Discourse: Sanctify Every Moment

Source- Prema Vahini

Direct your life to acquire your last moment’s mental tendency

A merchant calculates the debit and credit at the end of a week or month or year and draws up the balance sheet, to arrive at one figure —his earnings. So too, in this business of life, everything ends in some bit of net earnings after all the giving and taking concludes. At the very end of life, it is this small quantity that will come into memory. The experiences that persist to the very last moment, the two or three that well up into consciousness when one recalls all that has happened in life, these are the real sustainers, the genuine achievements. This does not mean that all other acts and experiences have been a waste. Forgetting them means only that their work has been accomplished and their value realised.

Atmajyothi

Sri Laxmi Narayan Aithal

तस्मात् सैव ग्राह्या मुमुक्षुभिः ।। 33 ।।

33. Therefore,  that  devotion  itself  is  acceptable  by  them  who  are  desirous  for  Liberation.

    68. In  this  manner,  a  practitioner  may  obtain  Action,  Knowledge  and योग  directly  or  not,  there  should  be  devotion  intertwined  in  them  all;  therefore,  among  knowledge  and  secondary  devotion,  the  latter  should  obtain  the  first  place;  and,  there  is  no  blame  to  the  theory  that  the  devotion  itself  is  the  expedient  and  also  the  fruit;  hence,  the  practitioners  should  achieve  only  the  devotion.  If  a  link  of  a  chain  is  caught  the  rest  of  the  links  are  followed,  similarly,  the  devotion  is  followed  by  all  the  other  expedients  themselves.  Here ,  the  Theory  part  of  the  Supreme  Devotion  is  ended  up.

SKM Updates

The month of July was one of joy, festivity and picnic for the children and teachers of the Sharavathi School. On 17th of July, all the children were taken for a picnic to the Visveswaraya Museum and the Bal Bhavan. Three buses left the school at 8:30 am. The museum authorities had already been intimated of our school visit and they made it very convenient for everyone. The children thoroughly enjoyed the 3D dinosaur show and the different exhibits in the Fun Science and Children Science galleries. They had a sumptuous lunch arranged at the museum. The chief attraction at the Bal Bhavan was the toy train ride. We were very happy to have the volunteering support from the employees of Credit Suisse. These volunteers had also arranged for some exciting games involving balloon s for the children at the Bal Bhavan. The children left Bal Bhavan at 5:15 pm , relished a snack of cream buns on the way back and reached school by 7 pm. Please see pics below:

Likewise, a study cum fun trip was arranged for all the teachers of the school. The teachers along with their families, Sai Krushna Mandir residents and village volunteers, were taken to Puttaparthi on 25-26 July, 2015. It was a wonderful visit and helped in building a better rapport with all the teachers and their families. We sincerely thank all the authorities at the Ashram, accommodation office, hospital, high school, university, Chaitanya Jyoti museum and PRO office for showing all these places to all of us very patiently and in great detail. We would like to specially mention:

Mr Prakash and Mr Umesh from Annapoorneshwari Travels for providing good vehicles for both trips

S Ravi Kumar Sir and Harsha K Sri from the Super Specialty Hospital in Puttaparthi,

Aswath Narayan from the university,

ShivRamkrishna Sir, Sailesh Sir, Sairam Sir, Uday Kumar Sir from the school

Unni Sir and Hanumant Rao Sir from the accommodation office

Special thanks to HJ Bhagia Sir( University) , Hari Shankar Sir ( Trust Administration) , and Dr Prashant ( Dentist at General Hospital) for having addressed all the teachers in the Double decker building.

Please see pics below:

Lessons from Great Personalities – Life of Draupadi

Excerpts from Sathyopanishad

Shrikanth S

Draupadi ensured that her husbands stayed on the path of righteousness and morality several times.   One such episode which reflects her greatness and magnanimity is an incident after the Great War.     On the night of the 18^th day of war, Ashwattama wanted to avenge his father’s death and wanted to kill Pandavas in their sleep.    After entering their tent, thinking the five children were the Pandavas, Ashwattama gruesomely massacred the young Pandava children in their sleep.   Realizing that the perpetrator was Ashwatthama, Arjuna tracked him down, and dragged him before Draupadi and Subhadra.  

Loss of Vanity

K V R K Bhargav

A trip to the temple town of Tirupati is always invigorating and spiritually elevating. One uneasy point in this spiritual odyssey was the concept of tonsuring the head. This was something which I was never comfortable with. How will I look? What people will comment seeing me? I survived a scare, narrowly escaping this ordeal last time when I visited this holy place. Few of my friends were very excited to offer their hair to Lord Venkateshwara and asked me, "Are you joining us?" I gave a reluctant 'no' and tried to explain, "You guys might have some 'mokku' to fulfill, I don't have anything like that." One of my friends quickly quipped, "No mokku, just want to feel my head without hair and want to post it as a special update on the facebook."

What are you thankful about?

-Prakash Srinivasan

In life sometimes we miss the obvious and one of the things that we rarely do (at least I) is to introspect about ourselves and determine the direction of our lives. Today we are very artificially busy, in the sense we are continuously bombarded by external medium/tools/gadgets etc etc. In this setting we lose sight of ourselves and it seems so funny and ironic, yet it’s true.

A Tryst with Omniscience

-Shivashanker Krishnan

It was in the year 2007. I was a shy 16 year old who had just left the comforts of his home to cherish the life of a Sai student. It didn't take more than a couple of days for me to realize that our school hostel was nothing less than a home away from home - a home where each lives for the other and all live for God. Little did I miss my home back in Chennai and my heart yearned for an interaction with Swami.

As I sat in the Sai Kulwanth Hall eagerly awaiting His darshan, I made a silent prayer to Him to speak something to me. But at the end of the day, nothing special fructified. All I could cherish for the day was His Darshan and His Paadanamaskar. As if that wasn’t a blessing enough, I stormed out of the mandir with disappointment written all over.