Monday, December 5, 2011

One verse a day

I have wanted forever to learn Lalitha Sahasranamam. My Mom always encouraged me to learn it, more after my wedding and even more after having a daughter. The Navarathiri season usually gets me all excited. I listen to the Saharasnamam recital many times and try to catch and remember the verses. But somehow I don't seem to progress well and the enthu wanes after a while.

I remember how I learnt the Vishnu Sahasranamam. During college, every Sunday, fellow students who have learnt the slokam aksharasudham will meet and chant the verses in the Saraswathi temple. I would just go and sit in the Mandir at that time, just to listen. I woudn't even attempt to read/ join. I would close my eyes and concentrate on the words of the many voices sounding as one. One can actually feel the calm descending upon the surrounding with each reverberating verse. I would feel all peaceful and collected after that hour. And hearing the Sahasranamam for many, many weeks during that four years somehow registered it in me. Now I can chant the verses by-heart and phonetically correct.

I would love for a similar experience now too.

There are so many great benefits from chanting the Lalitha Sahasranamam, as it is mentioned here. My Mom swears she heard in some TV channel someone saying that reciting the Lalitha mandhiram is said to specifically reduce occurance of headaches in the chantee. Personally, I find it to be a good therapy for the mood. It is a greater form of meditation, to recite the verses in the specified metre. It calms the senses and increases the level of self-awareness. The poetic verses brings in front of your eyes the divine form of God in all Her feminine wonder.

As any one knows, only pure dedication and bhakthi will help in learning the great slokam. I'm not sure how much of either of them I have in me. But I'm beginning anyways, hoping that I find the needed dedication to continue and that I will experience the increase in faith somewhere on the way.

The best way to learn a slokam is to go to a guru, they say. But I'm having to take the Internet as my Guru and have started again today.

I pray that She gives me the strength. Om!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yep they are so tranquilizing, yet so difficult to master without complete dedication