By Sri Sri Sitaramdas Omkarnath
(Translated by Dr. Abinash Ch. Bose, M.A, Ph.D.) (Dub)

The essence of spiritual life is
Equanimity. The chanter of the Name
Wins it without effort. Friend and foe,
Happiness, misery, peace and turmoil —
In all these he finds his good and never falls
Into error. He sees the one Person
In the man of Vedic wisdom and the fool,
The Brahmana, the Chandala, the dog,
The donkey and the crow. Light dawns on him
Who goes repeating the Name, and then
All is one before the devoted heart.
Yoga, ritual, austerity, meditation —
These one resorts to for gaining his object.
A man who does so little knows how this
Equanimity comes. He finds his soul
Flooded with the peace it brings. Then his
Surprised, overwhelmed mind is the chanter and
It resolves to chant the Name incessantly.
If thou hopest to achieve equanimity
Repeat the Name without pause, the Lord's
Servant, Sitaram !
Service is all that the devotee, who owns
Nothing whatever, wishes to have in the world.
Service of the Deity he loves is his -
Life's mission. The devotee is ever busy
From morning till he goes to bed at night
With service, performing all pious acts
Like the telling of the Name, the ritual,
Meditation on the Name. He discovers
A Mind behind the image of wood or stone.
In that the devotee loses himself
Ever and anon. He holds long talks
With his most beloved Lord. At times
He takes his Friend within his arms and then
Stone ceases to be stone with the devotee's love.
For ever the spirit meets the Spirit.
It is beyond thee to do such service ;
So, Sitaram, ihe Lord's servant, make the Name
thy all,
There is nothing to compare with the book In which the glories of the Lord are described.
When, with moral Law and knowledge, Lord
Krishna,
The Life of devotees, went to his abode,
Then for the blinded humanity of
Degenerate days there arose the sun
of the Bhagavata on this world. The
Meeting-place of all joys is the joy of
The Bhagavata : the gentle reader who drinks
At this fountain is refreshed in spirit.
Passion, wrath, sin and sorrow all disappear
And the devotee finds extreme peace with ease.
Even so by reading the Ramayana
And the Gita men shake off sin and have
Devotion, To read a devotional book
Is to part company with sin forever.
Always read or listen to this with love.
Listening to the glories of the Lord
Who is all love, chant the Name with a single
Mind, thou Sitaram, servant of the Lord !
For one unable to read a book or
Hear it read, there is no other way than
Repeating the Name. All the meditation
And prayer that we have here are unequal
To the power of the Name's recital.
One is not content even if one heard
The Name chanted by many million. tongues
Through many million years. Recite the Name
O man, borne down by disease and brief !
Recite the Name you sinners, demons, monsters !
Recite the Name you, mean and low, poor and Destitute !
Repeat the Name, you pure Chaste wives i
Repeat the Name, you lewd, Fallen women !
Repeat the Name you who Are wise and virtuous — the best of men !
Whoever you are, the Name will bring you grace.
The wish with which you chant the Name will be fulfilled.
Why then O Mind \- hast thou forgotten
Such a Name ? Chant it and have mighty joy,
Thou Sitaram, the servant of the Lord !
The most vicious minds are freed from sin
By pilgrimage to holy places, and they go
To heaven. If the sinner sincerely takes
To pilgrimage upto the hour of his death,
All his sins will wear away — even parricide,
Matricide, the killing of a cow, a Brahmana,
or a teacher. The good, wise man who lives
In a holy place soon wins the Lord's love.
Nothing is holier in Kali-yuga
Than the Ganga. Easy the liberation
Of Ganga's votary. Thou art born and
Hast lived on Ganga's banks. Pray with the Name
Of Ganga on thy lips and thou wilt be saved.
Repeat constantly the name of Hari
At whose feet Ganga had her birth. Look at
Ganga and chant Rama, Rama, and blessed
Will be thy life, Sitaram, servant of the Lord.
The act of chanting the Name is a great
Ritual — the essence of all rituals.
This ritual is being preached in Kali —
Yuga. It's an easy path, smooth and straight.
By constant chant pure peace will come to thee.
Recite the Name as long as there is breath ,
In thy nostrils. By constant chanting thou wilt
Have the Greater Life in which thy Jife will merge.
Thou wilt no longer think, 'The body is me'.
With joy thou wilt walk and with joy sit down, With
joy eat and sleep : there will be nothing but Joy here. Repeat the Name and be thou blessed.
In joy the origin, in joy sustenance, In joy the end at last ! Thou art ever
Wishing for joy ; So chant the Name by day
And by night, the Lord's servant, Sitaram!

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