INTRODUCTION TO TEJASVINAAVADHEETAMASTU

Dear Friend,

Namaste. Jai Shree Hari. Shree Matre Namaha!!

By the Grace of My Guru His Holiness Sri Om Swami ji i have been granted various opportunities to chant the Glorious Sri Rudram at Sri Badrika Ashram during the Shivaratri Abhishekam done by His Holiness himself. 

One of my Gurubandhus Sri Manish Gajralwar kept insisting that he wanted to conduct online sessions so that people can learn chanting and benefit from the same. 

I have learnt very little,  and hence was very reluctant, but when he kept insisting year on year for a couple of years, I gave in and started  having sessions of Sri Lalita Sahasranamam.

These sessions are conducted on Sundays at 5.30 pm India Time.  For very small children there is a separate session at 5.00 pm. 

The idea of these sessions is very simple. 

1) Purely  From what I have understood - Sanskrit pronunciation is a little different from vernacular / local languages like Hindi , tamil, marathi punjabi etc.   The pronunciation of alphabets - Aksharas - have been slightly  changed in our local vernacular dialects.    So we try to restore the pronunciation to the original method. 

2) There is a lot of importance given to dwitwas  or half alphabets in Sanskrit pronunciation from what I have gathered.  We look at correctly pronouncing the dwitwas.

3) The Mahapranas like KHA GHA DHA etc need special attention. So we look at that. 

ETC....

There are some points like these that I have picked up during my journey. But i must be clear- I am not a sanskrit expert or a scholar- no where near that.   

Also it is very obvious from Guru Adi Shankaracharya's Bhaja Govindam - where he says nahi nahi rakshati dukrunkarane - where he supposedly sarcastically admonishes an aged sanskrit grammarian to go  beyond these punctuations and tenses and look at the deeper aspects and chant the holy names with devotion. 

So nice chanting is important only to some extent and it is not more important that devotion. This aspect has been pointed out many times by our revered Guru also.

Below i have copied  5 links which lead to 5 videos which are just 2-3 minutes totally spanning 10-12 minutes. 

I request you to please go through the videos multiple times.     

1: Dwitva  https://youtu.be/uuecKLEf4j4?si=ZViUSHLAfgE30Fws

2: Full Consonants   https://youtu.be/DrwayzSiYoU?si=va-auM0dKL_FzNYK

3: Mahapranas  : https://youtu.be/xnZCWAal6Fg?si=LMiTz-pT-NsEcCai

4:  Ya ha Va   : https://youtube.com/shorts/6WvxIrYe6h4?si=ol8CQSC7z9voGKmX

5:  Joining words while chanting Visarga   https://youtube.com/shorts/ETq-ecamlPI?si=G0m4j-yKpTSVQxXO

Some additional Points

Fees of the Sessions:   I have been blessed to learn from my teachers and remain highly indebted to them and hence I would like to keep these sessions totally non - transactional.    Through years of chanting under the guidance of Guru I have immensely benefitted.  I pray to Ambal and Guru that you get inspired to chant a lot and   receive Mahadevi's and  Sri Guru's  blessings. 

Format of the sessions:   In every session there will be new lessons and there will also be repetition of the old lessons. So people who have attended regularly get something new and people who have missed earlier sessions can make up what they have missed.  After every session an individual one to one session is also conducted for some people to just make sure that they are benefitting from these sessions. 

Attendance:  Regular Attendance not only takes us forward but also inspires others to continue the path. But since we are all living in perplexing times it is fully understandable if some of us are unable to attend a few sessions.  Even if you have lost some sessions I encourage you to join in again and again and give strength to this humble  attempt  to spread the glory  of Divine Mother.   

Parents and Children: I feel that parents attending with children and also very good as, the Family, later, can chant together, creating wonderful divine bonding channel. We as a family do it with much joy and satisfaction.   It is common knowledge Children have a lesser span of concentration but their retention is very good.  I request parents not to bother about the slight disturbance that children will cause during sessions   and  also request other participants to be a bit tolerant, as, that is our way of serving our glorious dharma by introducing it  the next generation. 

Another Important point about chanting:   After going through the videos mentioned above and after attending a few sessions there will be nothing more to learn from the chanting technique side. i.e. once the methods are understood any shloka or shaastra can be taken up and read.  So in reality there is no need to attend the sessions further once you feel confident. But I have myself found immense benefit in conducting these sessions as the chanting is slow during the sessions and it helps us to sync in deeper into the sounds and experience the joy of that slow loud clear chanting which we may not do when we are alone. So  one hour of slow loud clear group chanting every week has immensely benefitted me and given me insights into the sounds meanings and therefore  I recommend you also to take benefit of the same and attend the sessions, even if you know the shloka stotra being chanted. 

Matruka Varna Roopini  :  Means she is of the form of the Matruka Varnas i.e. Aksharas ie alphabets       - vowels and consonants. Every alphabet  ( not even word- only alphabet  )  chanted correctly with devotion  irrespective of its meaning  is her form ( roopa).   Another way to interpret is that each alphabet's sound has infinite meanings to show the glory of Divine mother.   I have found immense happiness in giving attention and chanting each alphabet with affection attention and clarity. 

Bhaasha Roopa :   Language itself is her form.  So we should chant her names with clarity and affection as every language itself is her form.

Naada Roopini : Sound is her form Etc .. directly emphasise the  importance of chanting and hence these sessions.

My sincerest thanks for this opportunity.

Tejasvinaavadheetamastu,

Prostrating to Sri Guru and Divine Mother 

Prasad Parasuraman