The dog's tail

OM Sai Ram

Our entire TV & print media are all alike, wagging like dog's tails wherever their groups smell money. This time around, they smelled something of 40k-1.5L crores, which may well be concocted figures too. They have no idea how such money can be managed at all, let alone used well by a trust for the welfare of thousands of crores of people, Sai devotees or not! So stories were cooked up on disputes bringing reputed, well-meaning, karma yogis of the highest order in the form of Shri Sathya Sai Baba's trust and devotees taking care of him.

Being faithless, dishonest, immoral and biased by their own cheapest ilk, they first tried to attack Swami's miracles tagging them as tricks and magic, then with some scandals, with no success because Truth withstood everything. For the former, they brought in some stage magicians of high "entertainment value" or some chemistry majors to explain away how things can be hidden and made to appear suddenly or some chemicals react to produce such "effects". And this they called as proof, that because certain others can do certain things one way, so must everything be done that way be it by anyone. What a stupid logic! I can't help but give a crude example to drive home my point. Just because one can have artificial insemination and call the resultant embryo as reproducing humans, should that mean that there was never, is no natural way, and never will be, of reproducing?! They also chose some videos where it appears as if some tricky movements like the magicians are made by Swami, made a documentary around it calling everything fake, ignoring thousands of others (or crores of miracles in people's individual homes across the world including cure for dreadful diseases) where no such movement was involved that can't be explained by them with their limited tools. In this exercise, they forget that they are making a statement that billions of followers are all stupid and the media guys have superhuman intelligence, while the truth is contrary to this. Media is intelligent to the extent that they entertain the morons and keep them glued to the screens with awe, nothing more!

For the latter, they collected irrelevant data with no proof of even such number of people existing, discarded by all legal entities as bogus, and showcased those as scandals. Obviously, to brainwash the idiots who follow the idiot-box, as if their bums are glued to the chair, and all thinking capacity muted by the TV remote, they cooked more stories around these.

They also threw away decades of free education, healthcare, water supply, etc, of the best quality by the trust calling those as public's money returned to public. Not a single media-person talks of how wastefully the income-tax money is used since as many decades, also getting into corrupt pockets! And this is although the money collected in the form of various taxes without any choice whatsoever to tax-payer, forced as if in the interest of the nation. OTOH, Swami or his trust never asked anyone for donations, providing services free and highly subsidized food inside the ashram. Anyone who visits the ashram, even if with limited intellect or with highly evolved thinking, knows this for a fact. I, for one, have never seen a hundi of collections myself in a dozen years or more visits and don't remember contributing a single paisa to the trust!

Now that none of the controversies have clicked, the media had to come up with something new. So came around the creation of trust dispute of huge monies, pulling government bodies and what not. The intervening govt found nothing and called it a media creation, the trust members too did the same. Still, the TV channels continue with their blabber repeating false stories over and over, poisoning the minds of TV-watching armchair analysts, dragging names of selfless devotees that sacrificed their lives for the cause and Swami.

Meanwhile, Swami decided to leave his mortal coil to everyone's shock. Shamelessly, media took this sad moment in history, with total disregard to the faith of billions of followers worldwide, as an opportunity to pull down Swami's image with unconnected and meaningless comments from various personalities of no reputation whatsoever.

Now, media has "dug up" a new story like a dog digs out a bone, except this one too is in their never-ending imagination. That Swami's casket was ordered long before Swami's leaving the body has stirred a new controversy. Everyone who has ever visited Prashanti Nilayam knows that Swami is not only aware of each and every activity within or without, but makes them happen. Even if the casket was ordered long back, it only means that Swami had told them to arrange for it, nothing else. That there was a conspiracy to harm or poison One who can't be harmed or poisoned is all making me sick to no end. Not that they will succeed, because the faithless don't need any false story to bring down their faith and the ones with faith can't have their faith go because God stands with them.

Just like a dog's tail, media would never straighten. Sigh.

Ramaraksha

हरि: ॐ ||

 Long, long ago, one early morning of a beautiful day, Rishi Buddhakaushika was in meditation, lost in the depths of silence. Lord Shiva, in his infinite grace, blessed the rishi with Ramaraksha stotra, meaning the stotra that protects. One of the stanzas in the stotra is as follows:

राम: राजमणि: सदा विजयते रामं रामेशं भजे |
रामेण अभिहता निशाचरचमू: रामाय तस्मै नम: ||
रामात् नास्ति परायणं परतरं रामस्य दासोSस्म्यहम् |
रामे चित्तलयः सदा भवतु मे हे राम माम् उद्धर ||

There are many who do not understand Sanskrit and there are even more who not only don't care for any for the shlokas or mantras of our Vedas and dharma shastras, but think that they are based on superstition and contain no knowledge whatsoever. The fact is quite the other way around. These very people are illiterate and have no qualification to have an opinion on the subject, let alone make a judgment! For example, look & appreciate the beauty of the shloka from the words in bold. When read out in sequence as राम: (subject), रामं (object), रामेण (by/with Rama), रामाय (for Rama), रामात् (from Rama), रामस्य (of Rama), रामे (in Rama), हे राम (O Rama), they stand for all the ekavacana vibhaktis of the pullinga word Rama! That is, they represent all the cases of the singular masculine word Rama. So even if one can't understand the bhakti in the shloka, there is no way that the most educated of them all can be left out from being impressed by the grammar of Sanskrit language put together in a beautiful and melodious chhanda.

Having made a case on the educational value hidden in our shlokas, etc, lets move on to the bhakti in the shloka...

... on second thoughts, lets keep bhakti within, this Ramanavami. :) Best wishes.

|| श्रीगुरुपादुकार्पणमस्तु ||