Jnana Yajna 67
Year & Dates:
March 02, 1960 to March 20, 1960
Yajna Topic:
Shrimad Bhagavad Gita- Chapter 15
Place:
New Delhi, India.
With an enthusiastic burst of pride, New Delhi had erected an extra-large Shamiana in front of the Gurudwara on Irwin Road, New Delhi and awaited the arrival of its favorite voice of Vedanta. Yet, when the crowd grew, that much-admired shamiana had to be extended twice to accommodate the record number of attendees. On March 2, 1960, Sri M. Ct. Pethachi Chettiar, Pujya Gurudev’s ardent disciple and president of Chinmaya Mission, Madras inaugurated the 67th Jnana Yajna. Sri. M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, extended a warm welcome to Pujya Gurudev and Delhi’s diverse audience. He recalled the Jnana Yajnas that he had attended and commended the way Pujya Gurudev was raising the cultural and spiritual awareness of the country with His Jnana Yajnas on the main Upanishads and Srimad Bhagavad Gita. The receptive audience in the capital city revelled in Pujya Gurudev’s discourses on the exalted Purushottama Yoga of Bhagavad Gita’s 15th chapter.
A Vision Above Interruptions
As Pujya Gurudev glorified the Infinite Truth on the big stage, the clouds began pouring. The dry and cold winter gave way to heavy downpours and active thunderstorms which wrecked the yajnashala. Almost as if the wind god too wanted to test the resolve of the Delhi audience, an intense dust storm with gusts up to 90 mph, also ripped the whole city and the yajna shamiana. Resiliently, the yajna persisted through the interruptions that Nature caused and even gained another stage!
On March 12th, on the request of a patron, Sri Gobind Lal Dhingra, Pujya Gurudev began an 8-day discourse in the mornings in Hazrat Nizamuddin, a new locality, on Gita chapter 12 which Sri B.N. Dattar, the deputy minister for Home Affairs inaugurated. Another impediment arose in the form of Pujya Gurudev’s dental procedure; an extraction of four of His upper molars caused heavy bleeding and prevented the evening discourse on March 19th. Braving through the pain, Pujya Gurudev did conclude Ch.12 in the morning classes. However, He developed a very high fever, and the evening dedicated to a Q & A session had to be cancelled. Pujya Gurudev had anyhow ensured that He had completed His exposition on Gita chapter 15 even by March 18th. He arranged for a devoted sevika, Mrs. Sheila Puri, to complete the Guru Dakshina ceremony and distribute the Yajna Prasad booklets to a caring audience who participated with discipline and adoration for their indisposed Guru.
Giving His swollen cheeks and fever-ridden body hardly any rest, Pujya Gurudev left Delhi for Mumbai on March 22, 1960, to supervise the preparations for Sandeepany Sadhanalaya, the Vedanta College that He was working tirelessly on amid the Jnana Yajnas. He oversaw the important step of depositing all the collected funds in the Indian Overseas Bank; thenceforth, all contributors could get their official donation receipts from Tara Cultural Trust (TCT) Office, Sakhi Vihar Road, Powai, Bombay. The land for the visionary college had already been donated by Smt.Tara Sarup, and TCT had been registered on January 19, 1960.
Pujya Gurudev functioned far above the challenges of circumstances or His own body, empowered by the Infinite.
Photo Gallery
A beautiful bhajan rendered by the singer before the commencement of the 67th Yagna!
The singer renders her song with utmost devotion to God and Guru!
Wtih each note of the bhajan, a wave of devotion washes over the vast assembly, uniting them in a symphony of love and reverence!
True bhajan is a total subjective surrender, in love and devotion, at the Altar of the Lord as conceived by the devotee!
As the throngs gather for spiritual talks by Gurudev, the collective consciousness ignites like a beacon!
Without spiritual stamina, no one can stand up to the threats and onslaughts of circumstances in life.
Through faith in HIM, we reach that faith in us.
Yagna is not complete without receiving blessings in the form of prasad pustika from Gurudev!
“Think,” Says Pujya Gurudev
The manifested world constituting the Ashvattha-tree can be cleft ‘by the strong axe of detachment’: The world of matter is inert and insentient. The experience of life gained through it is known and lived only because of the play of Consciousness upon it. So long as the wheels of a car are geared on to the machine the vehicle moves. In case we can clutch off the motive power from the moving wheels, the vehicle must necessarily come to its own natural condition of motionless stillness. Similarly, if the Consciousness is withdrawn from the body-mind-intellect vehicle, its play of perception-emotion-thought must necessarily halt. This clutching off of Consciousness from the inert matter vehicles is detachment. With the axe of detachment Krishna advises Arjuna to cut down the Tree of multiple experiences.
From Tyagi Magazine
Only a fool says this!
Despite being constantly present in every aspect of existence, those blinded by ignorance fail to recognize the divine presence. Denial of God equates to denial of self, as one’s very existence is inseparable from the divine. Those with discerning intelligence perceive and experience the glory of God.