Guruvaar Prarthna
Our Beloved Sadguru Sainath, please accept our humble prayers on this Holy Day of Guruvaar. Baba, we are at the end of this year and ready to welcome the new year with lot of positive hopes and aspirations. The year we passed had lot of merits and demerits, positives and negatives, desires fulfilled and dashed, yet we thank You for keeping us on right track and holding us safe throughout the year. Our New Year prayer is very simple, let all out thoughts, words and deeds become an offering to You, to remember You – not once a day, not occasionally, not when we have a little free time, but to live and move in Your Presence, to become aware that we are not alone, You are always with us. On this holy day we start our prayers by reading your divine guidance in Shri Sai Samartha Satcharitra.
Those people, who after performing the 'panchmaha yagnas,' ate the remaining food, were saved from the terrible and unknown five sins, because the sins were burnt.
The well-known five sins are: "kandani " – pestle, " chulli " – lighting the hearth fire, "udkumbhi" – water pots; " peshani " – grinding, "marjani " – sweeping.
The grains are put in the pot (ukkal) and the pestle strikes the grain so that the chaff is removed and unknowingly during this activity lives are destroyed.
But the grains are not edible without the above-mentioned treatment. Therefore, the sin known as "kandani " is counted first in the list of "Panch soonas " .
In the stove, wood is burnt and cooking is done. There also, without knowing, life is destroyed. This sin is known as " chulli', the second sin.
Even in a grinding stone or wooden grinding mill, when grains are ground, unknowingly innumerable lives are destroyed. That sin is known as " peshani".
When people bring water in the pots from a well, or a lake, or a tank, or when men and women wash clothes, innumerable lives are destroyed.
While cleaning the pot, scrubbing and rubbing with the hands, unwittingly life is destroyed. This is the fourth sin of " udkumbhi ".
Similarly, when bathing in lukewarm water or while sprinkling cow-dung (on the floor), life is destroyed pitiably. This sin is called "marjani ".
In order to be free from these five sins, a householder has to perform these five 'maha yagnas', after which the sins are destroyed and he attains purity.
This is the power of purity of mind. The pure knowledge that is gained is sinless. After knowledge, liberation is secured. This is the attainment of the goal of life.
So be it. This was Baba's philosophy of mendicancy,
-(from Shri Sai Samartha Satchrita, Chapter 9, Ovi 54 - 65)
