Worth Remembering
Halifax, Nova Scotia
"I am the original fragrance of the earth, and I am the heat in fire. I am the life of all that lives, and I am the penances of all ascetics." Bhagavad-gita 7.9
The four above phrases of acknowledgment of Krishna's presence in each item is what our evening gathering contemplated on.
Sometimes people ask about 'divine perception'. Well, here it is stated what prominent essences in the things we take for granted are.
Before the group started on learning this selected verse I thought to walk them through the verse by memorizing it. By memorizing the profound statements made here about Divine presence, I proposed that we 'feel' the verse and could better capture its essence by looking at the Sanskrit, the original prose in which it is written. Through the Roman transliteration we articulated each word, then group words together dividing the verse in quarters, first with book in hand and then closed book.
Here's the verse in transliteration format:
punyo gandhah prthivyam ca
tejas casmi vibhavasau
jivanam sarva-bhutesu
tapas casmi tapasvisu
I was pleasantly surprised how our visitors to the ashram took to these new sounds. They did remarkably well. They even pronounced prthivyam, referring to 'earth', in a proper way. After a 25 minute drill of going at memorizing each quarter (or line by line) we said it all together as a complete verse by memory. We set the recitation to a tempo - the beat of a mrdanga drum and viola... A verse was learned and for the most part 'felt'. I'm sure that participants will come back for more reciting and repeating that which is worth repeating.
12 km
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