SSM Syllabus Pt II-2

7/23/2019 SSM Syllabus Pt II-2

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||Swami Shreeji ||

Prasangs - The Swaminarayan ScripturesFor Juniors

Swamini VatoStory - Struggles in LifeActivity: Mahamantra LekhanActivity: Crack the Code

For SeniorsYYE - Distilling the Essence

Youth Sabha Report for Week 1

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||Swami Shreeji ||

PRASANG1

Over the course of at least a decade, Lord Swaminarayan held sabhas regular-ly, offering spiritual guidance and advice to devotees. His style of speaking, delivery,and wide range of topics attracted listeners from all over the region. He made sure tospeak in a way that everyone understood the true meaning of religion and the rolethat it played in the devotees daily lives. His audiences included devotees with manydifferent backgrounds, from rural farmers and merchants to learned scholars andparamhansas. Many of Lord Swaminarayans discourses have been recorded ina shastra called the Vachanamrut.

In the time period from 1819 to 1829, four of the scholarly paramhansas in theSwaminarayan Sampraday, Muktanand Swami, Gopalanand Swami, Nityanand Swa-

mi and Shukanand Swami, compiled and wrote down these discourses. After beingedited by Lord Swaminarayan and sorted to communicate the essence of ancient Hin-du scriptures like the Vedas, Upanishads, Brahmasutras, Bhagvad Gita and theShrimad Bhagvatam, the compilation was shortened to a total of 273 discourses andtransformed into the Vachanamrut. The Vachanamrut is undoubtedly the most sa-cred shastra in the Swaminarayan Sampraday.

Every discourse starts with a brief paragraph explaining the time, day, date,year, and location of the sabha. In addition, this paragraph contains a detailed descrip-tion of the various clothes and garments worn by Lord Swaminarayan. The sabhaswere held in locations all over Gujarat, including Gadhada, Sarangpur, Kariyani,Loya, Panchala, Vartal, Amdavad, Aslali and Jetalpur. Lord Swaminarayan stayed for

an extended period of time in Gadhada, so many of the discourses from theVachanamrut took place there, specifically at the darbar of Dada Khachar. In manyof the discourses, Lord Swaminarayan wore white clothing and, according to ancienttradition, started off the sabha by either asking a question or by taking questionsfrom the audience. As a result, the Vachanamrut deals with many spiritual and philo-sophical topics, focusing on the nature of jiva, ishwar, maya, Brahma and Parabrah-ma. In addition, several of the discourses cover the concept of moksha, the value of aguru, happiness, misery, non-violence, prayer, bhakti, morals, good company, service,positive attitude, introspection, dhyan and many practical aspects of daily life and oursadhana. Overall, the Vachanamrut is a goldmine of knowledge in which devotees

can find the answers and solutions to even the most difficult questions and problems.

PRASANG2

Towards the end of his physical life, Lord Swaminarayan wrote a code of con-duct for all followers of the Swaminarayan Sampraday, includ-

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ar: residence or

oular: an elevated soulsupernatural tal-

: that which dis-us from God

ma: an ideal devo-God

Dada KhachaLord Swaminforemost devo

dhyan: meditasadhana: spiriney

ra: religious text


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||Swami Shreeji ||

ing brahmacharis, sadhus, householders, kings, married women, and widows. Hispurpose was to combine the teachings of the Shruti and Smruti shastras into a shortbook. He started writing the Shikshapatri (which means booklet of moral instruc-tions) on January 1, 1826, and finished it the next month on February 12, composing

a total of 212 verses. This booklet served as a moral and spiritual guide for all of thedevotees of the Swaminarayan Sampraday to follow. It offers instructions on a widerange of topics, including health, hygiene, dress code, diet, etiquette, diplomacy forthe royalty, finance, trade, education, friendship, morality, austerity, atonement, cele-brations, religious duties, forms of worship, and the aim of life. The Shikshapatri isdifferent from the Vachanamrut because it focuses on how to perform worldly dutieswhile keeping religion in mind as opposed to explaining the meaning of religion andspirituality.

The instructions presented in the Shikshapatri are for everyoneyoung andold; men and women; married, unmarried and widowed; and householders and sa-dhus. Lord Swaminarayan says that anyone who obeys the Shikshapatri will live a

happy and fulfilling life. One of the main topics is purity, specifically both outer andinner purity in all devotees. The three fundamental purities that he emphasizes are: 1)Purity of Diet, 2) Purity of Conduct, and 3) Purity of Soul.

1) Purity of Diet: He instructs his disciples not to eat meat, eggs, onions and garlicin addition to harmful substances like alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

2) Purity of Conduct: He instructs not to be disrespectful to any deities, pilgrimplaces, devotees, sadhus, and the Vedas. He forbids gambling and bad company.For sadhus he instructs absolute brahmacharya.

3) Purity of Soul: The final liberation of the soul is possible by joining the jivawith Brahma (Aksharbrahma).

Lord Swaminarayan also instructed that the Shikshapatri should be read daily by alldevotees.

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macharya: theof celibate life

ti: what is heard,revelation of

al Truthti: what is re-

bered, dharmic

ions passed downime


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||Swami Shreeji ||

SWAMINIVATO

Padchhyne pugy nahi temvishayno pr ve tem nathi. Mtegnan thy tyre sukh thy chhe.A shadow cannot be caught. Similarly, material desiresalso cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, happiness is experi-enced when spiritual wisdom is attained.Chapter 5, Vt 191.

Jetlu ki mymay sukh chhe tesarve dukh vinnu hoy nahi e vtpan ek jni rkhvi.One should keep in mind that whatever happiness existsin maya is not without misery.Chapter 1, Vt 25.

Ek jane lkh rupiyni buddhi lidhitemaj mokshani buddhi anek prakr-ni mot thaki shikhy chhe.Someone bought wisdom for 100,000 rupees. However,the wisdom for achieving moksha can be learnt from theGod-realized Sadhu.Chapter 1, Vt 27.

ACTIVITY: MAHAMANTRALEKHAN

This year is the Sarva Suhrad Sopan. Su -hraday-bhav hasso many meanings, and encompasses the one-heartedness, theunity and the spiritual harmony between us all.

The Anoopam Mission mandir belongs to our worldwideAnoopam Mission family, and so we wanted all haribhakto tohelp to build the mandir in the UK!

Guruvarya Param Pujya Sahebji has said that mandirs arebuilt from the bhav, bhakti, samarpan and prarthana ofharibhakto. So it is with the suhrad samarpan of your prayersoffered here through mahamantra lekhan, that this mandirwill arise! Go to www.anoopam.org/mantralekhan and writethe Swaminarayan Mahamantra for 10 minutes!

STORY: STRUGGLESIN L IFE

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day asmall opening appeared, he sat and watched the but-terfly for several hours as it struggled to force itsbody through that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. Itappeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and itcould go no farther. Then the man decided to helpthe butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors andsnipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. Thebutterfly then emerged easily.

But it had a swollen body and small, shriveledwings. The man continued to watch the butterflybecause he expected that, at any moment, the wingswould enlarge and expand to be able to support thebody, which would contract in time. Neither hap-pened!

In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its lifecrawling around with a swollen body and shriveledwings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did notunderstand was that the restricting cocoon and the

struggle required for the butterfly to get throughthe tiny opening were Gods way of forcing fluidfrom the body of the butterfly into its wings so thatit would be ready for flight once it achieved its free-dom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need inour life. If God allowed us to go through our lifewithout any obstacles, it would cripple us. Wewould not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly.

Discussion QuestionsWhat is the best way to deal with struggles in life?How have your struggles helped you grow as a per-son?

4 Swamini VatoSwaminarayan Aksharpith, Amdavad - 4, INDIA.

Copyright Swaminarayan Aksharpith.


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||Swami Shreeji ||

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||Swami Shreeji ||

Trying to read and understand the plethora

ofHindu scriptures can be a mind-boggling exer-

cise. Thousands upon thousands of rst-handencounters with the Truth, all told from dierent

perspecves by a host of God-realized saints. Who

wouldnt be daunted by this task? And more praccal-

ly, who simply has the me in this hecc, modern age?

Thankfully, we dont need to parse through endless

pages of text to nd the answers that we seek. God

Himself, in the form of Swaminarayan Bhagwan, took

care of this for us. He did this by bestowing upon us the

Vachanamrut and the Shikshapatri.

The very name Vachanamrut indicates its purpose.

Vachan meaning words and amrut meaning nectar

words of nectar, or the dislled essence of all the

scriptures as spoken by God.

Swaminarayan Bhagwan had learned all the core scrip-

tures at an early age. Indeed, He was engaging in de-

bates with learned scholars at the age of 7 and win-

ning them! And as Nilkanth Varni, He undertook an ep-

ic journey throughout India to every one of the holy

places to research the dierent ways that Hindu philos-ophy was being taught. He nally stopped that journey

when He found an abundance of Hindu knowledge be-

ing passed on in its purest form: a small collecon of

sadhus led by Ramanand Swami in Gujarat.

So by virtue of exhausve study and experi-

enceSwaminarayan Bhagwan was the leading authori-

ty onHindu scriptures and philosophy in His day. When

He spoke, He took the essence of all our scriptures and

applied it to contemporary mes. And thats

thesignicant point: beyond condensing down the key

points of our Hindu faith, He went further and showed

how to apply this knowledge in our day-to-day lives.

Right here, right now.

It is one thing to have all the answers, but it is another

to be able to connect to them in a modern, praccal

way. Now this may all sound great in theory, but howdoes it work in pracce? Lets take a look at some ex-

amples.

Anyone who has tried it knows that meditaon, an an-

cient and powerful form of prayer, is dicult to per-

form during a day and age when our minds are en-

gaged in endless forms of mental smulaon and infor-

maon overload. Accordingly, Swaminarayan Bhagwan

advocated mantra-recitaon (dhun) as an alternave

form of prayer. This is much easier to do anyme, any-

place and anywhere.

We lead lives that are exceedingly acve. Not many are

engaged privately or professionally in acvies that

lend themselves to contemplaon and introspecon.

As a result, Swaminarayan Bhagwan emphasized karma

yoga, or the pracce of seless service as a primary

method of pleasing God. As Sahebdada says, serve

humanity in order to serve God. This is something that

we can do, right? Amidst all of the hustle and bustle in

our lives, we can strive to develop the singular mova-

on to serve others instead of ourselves. Not necessari-ly easy, but denitely achievable.

Swaminarayan Bhagwan also placed primary emphasis

on Guru bhak, devoonal surrender to a Guru as a

means of realizing God. Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu,

Gurur Devo Maheshvara, Gurur Sakshat Param Brah-

ma (My Guru is Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and He is

the manifest form of the Supreme Lord Himself) is a

shloka that all Hindus learn but somewhere along the

way it got lost as a central tenet of Hindu philosophy.

Swaminarayan Bhagwan brought it back, for He knew

that we as spiritual seekers struggle to connect to God

in the abstract. But the easiest and best way to connect

to God is to simply recognize the form that is present

right here in front of us.

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by Shree Patel


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||Swami Shreeji ||

All of these concepts have been prevalent throughout

the history of our religion. But Swaminarayan Bhagwan

did us the immense favor of choosing the specic ones

that we need to focus on here and now. He explained

all of these principles and answered many deep philo-

sophical quesons in 273 discourses, which were me-

culously compiled by several of his paramhansas.

These comprise the Vachanamrut.

In the Shikshapatri, Swaminarayan Bhagwan wrote by

His own hand the standards by which He wanted His

sadhus and followers to abide in their daily lives. He did

this to remove any ambiguity. It also serves to outline a

code of conduct for devotees in a me of great person-

al, yet unrestrained, freedom. In our modern age, ac-

cess to educaon, informaon, technology, entertain-ment and travel is unprecedented. But there are two

sides to every coin, and all of these things can be harm-

ful as well as benecial.

Going full speed down a path of limitless consumpon

can be very dangerous from a spiritual standpoint. For

example, I recently came along a startling stasc: chil-

dren see, on average, eighteen thousand murders and

violent acts on TV before they nish high school! Do we

ever stop and think about what we are leng into our

minds?! Our religion tells us that to achieve lasngpeace and happiness we need to achieve purity in

body, mind, and soul. But doing so involves living with-

in certain limits and constraints. This is what Swamina-

rayan Bhagwan outlines for us in the Shikshapatri.

But heres the best part. Swaminarayan Bhagwans ad-

vancement of Akshar Purushoam philosophy the

process by which we aach ourselves to a God-realized

Gunat saint (Akshar) in order to achieve God

(Purushoam) means the eliminaon of any guesswork

as to how to apply both the knowledge of theVachanamrut and the guidelines of the Shikshapatri

specically to our individual lives. For we have been

blessed with the ulmate living, breathing personal in-

terpreter of these eternal scriptures: our own beloved

Gunat Guru, Sant Bhagwant Sahebji!

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||Swami Shreeji ||

Name:

Youth Sabha Center:

Time/Date/Place of Sabha:

Attendance:

Sections Completed (check boxes accordingly):

Sahajanand Charitra: The Swaminarayan Scriptures

Junior Swamini Vato Yogi Youth Editorial: Distilling the Essence

Junior Story: Struggles in Life Junior Activity: Mahamantra Lekhan

Other:

Outstanding Performance of the Week:

Name of Certificate Winner:Please circle categories:

Suggestions:

Please return this completed report to P. Swatiben Patel through email

E-mail address: [email protected]

SwaminiVato

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Bhajan Games SevaParticipation

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SSM Syllabus Pt II-2