Bhajan Chords - Lyrics - AOL

This blog post is in response to Questions asked by the blog readers. Checkout, ask questions and Questions and Answers List.




Q: Vikrambhaiya, Can we get the guitar chords of bhajans online?

A: Hey I'm the wrong person to ask since I don't know too many chords myself -- I outsource all the difficult parts to my highly qualified band-mates! I am, however, constantly striving to learn more about theory and harmony -- hopefully this year onwards I shall have more time for the same -- till recently my teaching schedule took up almost twenty days of each month, leaving precious little time for even the most mundane of domestic chores :)
The past few years I have been doing a lot of research into different styles of devotional music of India, especially from the folk traditions -- we have such a huge treasure trove of knowledge and art, most of which has never been documented.
I have had the privilege of listening to genius musicians and unheralded saints sitting in people's houses, or even under the trees, in remote villages whose names I cannot remember. The only thing I recall is being transported to heights of ecstasy, and praying that I could be blessed with such simplicity and lack of artifice!


For all those musicians who would like to play music in Satsang, here is a link to pdf files from the Art Of Living Website.

Aol Bhajans Lyrics with chords guitar or piano chords - Compiled By Christina (German Ashram).

You can find the online pdf file here

There are 3 more online pdf files with Bhajan Lyrics (these are lyrics to sing bhajans or devotional songs without chords).


Bhajan Lyrics 1



Bhajan Lyrics 2



Bhajan Lyrics 3

QnA.....

1: Darshana said...
JGD Vikram
What is the best camera to use for good picture (SLR or Not) what photo editing software do your use if any?
Thanks...
ps. I like the look of your new Blog :D

Hi Darshana
It is said that "the best camera is the one you have with you at that moment." Capturing the moment is the main thing -- whether it is done on a cellphone camera or a top-of-the-line DSLR. If you are serious about photography I would certainly recommend a DSLR -- they are now more affordable than ever before, and there is very little to choose between the top brands like Canon, Nikon, Olympus etc. A standard zoom like 24-70mm and a tele zoom like 70-200mm should suffice for most of your needs up to a fairly advanced level.
That said, if it's just a hobby, then you would be better off with a good quality compact ie point-n-shoot from one of the brands mentioned above, as well as from Panasonic and Sony.
I don't use Photoshop or Lightroom as most professionals do -- I prefer to keep editing to a minimum and simply sort the the images in iPhoto, occasionally doing a bit of sharpening, cropping or colour correction.
A photograph reflects your way of looking at the world, and provides an opportunity to commemorate and share your vision with others. Like any other art, it is primarily an avenue to improving oneself as a human being, rather than a narcissistic indulgence.
The blog will undergo further transformation in December, hopefully making it easier to access -- and with the added attraction of some downloadable music for you all!

2: Shruthi said...
Namaste,
Dwaitha and Advaitha - I wonder what the difference is. Aren't they both same in essence? my family has instilled in me the values of dwaitha philosophy ever since I was a child (I still am :D) These days when I listen to spiritual talks - most of them talk about non-duality. I know these are just concepts (reminds me of your song - Shabdon ke jungle mein...) and would make little difference in the spiritual journey. But it's a little frustrating not to know what I believe in. You have an answer right? =)
- Love and Light

Namaste Shruthi
Guruji said something very interesting a while back; "there is not much difference between an Astik (believer) and Nastik (non-believer/atheist). The Nastik says 'show me and I'll believe' while the Astik says 'I believe, now show me'!" Both lack direct experience of divinity. Our culture has always placed personal experience above all dogma on the spiritual path -- yet man struggles to qualify and quantify what he sees around him in the hope that it will provide the solace he seeks.
After Dvaita and Advaita came Vishishta Advaita as propounded by Ramanujacharya, wherein he said that divinity is one, but we do have the freedom to worship it in many forms :)
I would recommend that you go by your experience -- proper Sadhana/ meditation of course helps a great deal -- and don't worry about your beliefs, which anyways can change over time with knowledge.

3: Vikram Ji, do you have an album with Kabir songs like Naiharwa?
JGD, Kumar from New York

Hi Kumar
These days Kabir is a very hot topic at least in India (shall soon write a post about that) -- with everyone from Dalits to Communists staking a proprietary claim to his philosophy. Nonetheless, I do have a nice concept for an album of songs from Kabir, Guru Nanak and Meerabai -- if all goes well you shall hear it in Feb 2012. Meanwhile I would point you to Shabnam Virmani's excellent Kabir Project, which has documented many facets of Kabir's work.



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Back to work :)

It's not that I haven't had anything to say -- in fact my head has been bursting with ideas these past few weeks -- but I have been content to process them internally, and focus on applying them to my life. You see, I have never been able to easily articulate my thoughts, and especially my feelings and emotions. Often, if suddenly called upon to react to a situation, or respond to an emotionally charged moment, I draw a blank; I would rather retreat to that sanctuary from where I merely weigh and witness events. I used to think that I am very judgemental, but I have realised that I tend to acknowledge both sides of every case and hence find it difficult to indict people, since their own pressures and liabilities come sharply into focus, revealing them also to be but victims of circumstance!
I'm home most of next week and should be writing (as often promised) -- but why don't we get back to work with a series of Q&A?
Please send me a few pertinent (and impertinent) and sincere queries and let's see what comes of them.
Jai Guru Dev :)

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Midnight musings

Nokia really is going through a rough patch. They have just not been able to cut it in the high-end smartphone market, and at the lower end the Chinese have pulled out all stops and left them struggling to resolve what is nothing less than a brand identity crisis. To compound matters, they ran a full page newspaper ad in India the other day announcing the launch of their new OS, unfortunately named Symbian Anna. I guess it's a Finnish name -- I'm told it's pronounced ayn-naa -- but in a country where Everyone Is Anna this week, it was almost as if the universe had conspired against them.

It's not just the folks at Nokia who are perplexed this week -- I am sure it's most of us who have been trying to make a semblance of logical sense out of the wildly disparate viewpoints and stances that have been on display over the Great Anna Imbroglio -- aided and abetted by a flailing media machine, somehow resulting in bringing large chunks of urban India out onto the streets.

I'm sure that each and every person or group involved in this has their cogent and valid reasons for their respective stands, but to a concerned citizen some of it is hard to fathom.
An old Gandhian social reformer steadfastly lies dying in Delhi -- should we not be trying to save him first? Or is a "fast unto death" only successful if the person dies?
How can a government be utterly deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of its people, and yet sit comfortably in power?
Of those out clamouring to bring down the aforementioned government, how many will actually vote in the next elections?
Will a Bill actually end corruption in a country where people are willing to stampede in a temple, litter everywhere, drive without concern for anyone and not extend even basic human courtesy to others?
How come so many Communists are against a Bill that is by nature "Of the people, by the people and for the people"?
How come Arvind Kejriwal wants to have nothing to do with any political party, and yet wants the Bill passed in parliament?

Hey, these aren't complaints -- I'm totally for the Anti-corruption campaign; I don't pay bribes, I pay my taxes and I am furiously passionate about my country. But there are so many factors at play here which nobody seems to even want to consider. For instance, with a population as large as ours, implementation of even the most basic of laws becomes a well-nigh impossible task. I have met several really committed civil servants who, despite their best intentions, have absolutely no way of completely covering the area under their jurisdiction during their tenure.

There are so many parts of our country where women and children are denied their basic rights, not by law, but by hidebound mores and chauvinistic, retrograde practices. It's easy to say that corruption is at the root of the lack of infrastructure in this country, but thats a rather trite and incomplete definition employed, I feel, to suit the current flavour of the moment. These issues have been there forever -- many of us have been working to amend them for years -- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's YLTP programs have empowered hundreds of so-called "educated unemployed" rural youth to become change agents and create self-sustaining economies in some of the poorest regions of India. And yet it seems like but a drop in the ocean -- there are over 700,000 villages in our country, and most of them lack basic literacy, leave alone a proper education. Conspiracy theories abound, naming everyone from Macaulay to Manmohan Singh as the sole reason for this backwardness and poverty, but at the end of the day it's high time we square up and acknowledge that we must start imparting a wholesome, value-based education to each and every citizen, an aptitude-based system which would enable and empower them to choose academia, trade, entrepreneurship, artisanship or employment as the need or choice may be. Then alone can we hope to truly nurture "the world's greatest democracy" into a people that not only know how to groom and choose their leaders, but also hold the power to force them to step down if they do not deliver.

On a lighter note, for all we know, the Anna issue is but a launchpad for the Congress' premeditated retirement plan, a scenario where they make an apparently shamefaced exit and go into hibernation, ostensibly to lick their wounds, but in reality to finally take time off to enjoy some of the thousands of crores that they have set aside for just such a time!

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Worlds within worlds

The Yog Vasishtha, that ancient scripture wherein the sage Vasishtha unravels the secrets of the universe to the young, perplexed Lord Rama, is at once fascinating, revelatory, convoluted and confusing. The suggestion, especially, that each one of us creates, and then proceeds to inhabit, multiple universes simultaneously, seems to be a bit hard to swallow even for the most committed spiritual seeker. 


It is rightly said that life mirrors our innermost thoughts and desires, and we do know that our minds freely wander from topic to topic without rein of any sort. For instance, when 26/11happened, all we could see was our beloved Mumbai at siege, yet no sooner did the recession hit America did our vision just as easily embrace the global economy.


 Last month, we were concerned about Gaddafi's fate and now, there seems to be nothing more pressing than Anna Hazare's health! That which currently occupies us is paramount in our consciousness, often to the exclusion of all else -- certainly we do create and occupy a myriad of interwoven and parallel realities at once. 


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Some more posts/articles you might like to read on this blog.


Pancha Kosha: The Five Sheaths

The grand delusion

Premonition

Don't let the Indian drive

Coming unbinged: The story of my experiments with truth, food n samadhi

What a blunder!

How could the government not have expected the reaction of millions of Indians to Anna's completely unjustified arrest? They really pressed a raw nerve by swooping down on the non-violent septuagenarian who is a model of righteousness, when noted criminals and purveyors of terror are either left scot-free or mollycoddled in the name of "democracy/secularism"!
It's a great relief to be in India today, as all of us who have been working to improve our systems in so many ways finally feel that we are not alone, and that in future there will be so many of our concerned countrymen who will continue to stand by us instead of apathetically saying, "magar isme main kya kar sakta hoon (but what can I do)?" For a change, it's a pleasure to watch a news channel!


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Berlin WCF was stunning!

The Grand Delusion

Perhaps the greatest hoax that we perpetrate upon ourselves as human beings is the delusion that we can "figure out" how life works. Guruji often tells the story of the man who spends all night making his bed so that he can have the perfect sleep, only to see the sun coming up when he is finally ready to get into bed! This is the way that many people miss out on the entire experience and mystery of this wondrous gift called life -- and I am certainly a prime example of this phenomenon -- if I were to add up the time I have spent trying to understand and figure out the fundas behind things, it would add up to years and years of wasted time.

This is not to say that one shdn't endeavour to understand the world -- it's just that beyond a certain point it becomes counterproductive. Eg I have spent years taking apart guitars and rebuilding them, modifying them with endless varieties of pickups, strings, setup options etc etc, with the result that I know an incredible amount of guitar minutiae, but honestly I feel that at least half that time would have been better spent in actually playing the darn things!

At the same time, I'm not a big votary of those who simply jump in and take action, and scarcely spare a thought about the mechanism that implements the grand design -- all too often their lives run on momentum alone, and when they suddenly run out of gas they find themselves in a vacuum, frustrated and depressed. Of course, people like me would have ended up frustrated and depressed to start with, had it not been for Guruji and the deep insight that His knowledge provided.

Increasingly, one is able to revel in each moment, while leaving a wide berth for human error and ego; additionally, the better one meditates, the more one sees things in perspective, rather than through the restrictive filter of one's biases and limited experience of the world. I can tell you this much -- it makes the journey infinitely enjoyable, and fills each day with adventure and gratitude. Is there a final purpose or point to this exercise called life? At the moment I have no idea, and it doesn't look like I'm any closer to seeing it than when I first started out! Oh well....





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Panorama shot on iPhone fm Taj Bbay

Langkawi panorama at dusk