Does Bhagavati Look at Wrong Uccharan in the Durga Saptashati Path, or Only at Our Bhava? — the Speaker's Rebuttal of the "Bhava Is Enough" Argument

The speaker sets out the questions of the talk. Does not reciting the Shri Durga Saptashati with pure uccharan bring us any kind of Dosha? Can Ma BhagavatiThe Goddess addressed by her honorific, used across these talks for whichever form is under discussion. Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. not be pleased simply by our bhava? If we are mispronouncing but doing so with full feeling, will we fail to get the complete fruit? And if one person pronounces purely but has no bhava inside, will Bhagavati bestow grace on him — or on the one who mispronounces but is surrendered to her? He reports the answer most people give: pure uccharan achieves nothing, correct puja-path brings nothing special, but with bhava and surrender Jagadamba certainly bestows her grace. He says he will dissect that claim. His first point: how is anyone to see whether a person has a pure, simple bhava within? Only if you and I could read someone's mind could we know that this person's bhava is pure. He then asks why the whole Sanatan society lays such stress on telling people: do not pay attention to clear uccharan, do not pay attention to Sanskrit, do not bother learning these things; recite the Durga Saptashati with bhava in any manner you like and Bhagavati will accept it. By contrast, nobody puts any stress on the opposite: you are literate, you are educated, you have studied so much, you recognise Hindi letters, you must have at least a little Sanskrit — and if not, things are available online now, so learn and do it properly by vidhi. Those who do occasionally say this — whether from the community of saints, from scholars, or an ordinary person like himself — receive so much abuse that they stop speaking on the subject altogether; anyone who stresses it gets only the opposite view thrown back at him. And 99% of the saint and SadhakOne who undertakes a sadhana; the practitioner as distinct from the ordinary worshipper. community, those who call themselves sadhaks, saints and Siddhas, also stress the same thing: bhava should be primary.

Taking up the "bhava is primary" claim, the speaker says: it is very good that you have bhava, that you hold BhagavatiThe Goddess addressed by her honorific, used across these talks for whichever form is under discussion. in great regard. But the moment even one of your undertakings fails, you say very bad things to Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. in your mind, and you will tell anyone that puja-path achieves nothing and one should attend to karma instead — karma should be right. So he tells the listener to run an R&D on karma as well and see how good his karma really is. Do impure thoughts not arise in your mind? Does your mind stay pure on seeing another man's wife or another woman's husband? Have you never deceived or cheated anyone in life? Considering yourself very clever and others fools, do you not fool them and take their money? In every profession, he says, if not openly then from behind, everyone is doing this: a doctor has his setting with the pathology lab and with the places where abortions are done, and eats commission everywhere by sending people around; a lawyer with all his knowledge takes money from the opposing party and loses the case. With all this cleverness on display, he asks, how pure are you, how good are your thoughts? You say whatever comes our way is simply our karma, how else would we manage — and then, when the matter of purity in puja-path comes before Bhavani, you say bhava should be pure. All in all, he says, you are somewhere fooling yourself — Bhavani is watching everything, Jagadamba is watching everything.

The speaker now states what, in his view, the bhava argument really means. Saying "bhava is what counts, so if your uccharan is unclear it will do, if you do not know the vidhi-vidhan it will do" — that is for those who are not educated. Those who have no knowledge of varna, no knowledge of swara, no knowledge of vyanjana, who do not know how pronunciation is done or how a path is recited in Sanskrit; people you may take to be altogether rustic, unschooled and illiterate. If even a mere feeling exists within them and they offer an ordinary StutiA passage of praise offered to the deity, shorter and less formal than a stotra. of BhagavatiThe Goddess addressed by her honorific, used across these talks for whichever form is under discussion., she shows herself more readily there. But you, he says, have done an MBA, a PhD, an MSc, a BSc, you hold big degrees, your income runs to crores of rupees — and there you say Bhavani will be pleased by bhava. Then you are practising deceit. You are not simple; you are putting on a show of being simple, you are committing hypocrisy. Remember this, he says — that was the first point.

The speaker moves to his second point: in how many ways does impure uccharan bring harm? He says Bhagavan has set proof of this before us many times through his leela, and anything should be judged by proof, not by looking at somebody's life story. The most well-known account concerning uccharan, he says, is that of Vritrasura — for whom Maharshi Dadhichi donated his bones and whom Indra slew with the VajraLord Indra's indestructible thunderbolt weapon — invoked here as a simile for a fully consecrated Stotra's impenetrable, intensely potent efficacy. — and the second is the account of Ravana. In the first account, Indra insulted the deva-guru Brihaspati, who went away displeased. With the devas guru-less, the asuras attacked and the devas lost. When they went to Brahma, he told them that Vishvarupa, son of the rishi Tvashta, though his mother was an asura, had the ability to be their guru; they should overlook the matter of his mother and make him guru. Vishvarupa had them perform the Narayana Kavach, the sadhana and AnushthanaAn extended ritual observance — such as 108 recitations of a scripture — carrying its own strict rules. of Narayana, and the devas were victorious again. Then Indra had another yajna performed for the protection of devaloka, with Vishvarupa present — but while openly offering Ahuti for the devas' protection, he was covertly offering for the asuras too. Seeing this, Indra grew furious and killed Vishvarupa with his weapon — killed his own guru, incurring the dosha of guru-hatya. Tvashta, Vishvarupa's father, was enraged and performed an anushthana, a yajna, with the aim that Indra's enemies should increase and that he should obtain a son who would be the slayer of Indra. Here, the speaker says, note that because just a single matra went wrong, instead of a son who would kill Indra, a son who would be killed by Indra was obtained. The description is that the mantra had "indra shatru vardhasva" — may Indra's slayer grow — and in place of "indra" they said "indraḥ": "indraḥ shatru vardhasva", meaning the one to be slain by Indra. One meant Indra's killer; with indra become indraḥ, the other came to mean: may a son to be killed by Indra be obtained. Because of this, Vritrasura — who in a previous birth was King Chitraketu, under Parvati's Shraap — was killed by Indra; Vritrasura had even held the post of Indra, and his killing was done with the vajra made from Maharshi Dadhichi's bones. So all this, the speaker says, happened solely because of that uccharan going wrong.

In the same way, the speaker says, there is the account of Ravana, found in one of the Ramayanas. Ravana was having a Chandika pujan of Bhagavati Tara performed, in which the path was being recited with the Tara mantra embedded (garbhastha) in it. Hanuman arrived there, seeing that if this pujan of BhagavatiThe Goddess addressed by her honorific, used across these talks for whichever form is under discussion. were completed, Ravana would become invincible from every direction. So Hanuman took the form of a young Brahmin, a boy batuk, went to the aged Brahmins and pleaded with them not to commit this wrong act — if this rakshasa was to be brought to an end, they should make some mistake. The mistake was made in the second mantra of the Argala Stotra, "jaya devi bhutartiharini". The speaker recites it as the transcript records it — "जय तबम देवी जय भूत जय तबम देवी चामुंडे जय भूतारती हारनी" — and says that in place of "bhutartiharini" it was made "bhutartikarini": the "ha" was turned into "ka". Because of that wrong uccharan Bhagavati became angry and Ravana was destroyed. This, he says, is reckoned to be one cause. From these two leelas, he says, at least understand how great a mistake and how great a destruction followed from wrong uccharan — whatever Bhagavan's own will may have been in it.

So, the speaker says, you mispronounce in your own life and think all your desires will be fulfilled — and someone even gives you a reference: look, we recited with feeling and it bore fruit. Pay attention, he says: that person is making the mistake too. Those who have listened to the elders have always heard this: what we do has its full effect on our descendants and lineages after us. It is exactly such people, and their children, who go on to say: our father, our mother did so much puja — then why is ruin coming upon us today? Wrong uccharan in the name of bhava, wrong vidhi in the name of bhava, or in the name of bhava never doing a vidhan-based pujan at all and never wishing to learn one — these, he says, are the things that carry people into the pit of destruction.

The speaker asks listeners to recognise themselves. Two kinds of people take Sanatan into the pit. One kind attacks directly and misleads people away from it. The other kind are not open about it — they are "crypto" people: outwardly they will say they are Sanatani, but what will they teach you? They will say: no, keep only the primacy of bhava, do not learn uccharan. Brother, he says, both are necessary.

Bhava works up to a level, the speaker says. Some people bring up the full story of Kannappa and of Gunanidhi-Kuber: Kannappa offered meat and Bhagavan accepted it, so if we have bhava we can offer anything and Bhagavan will accept. Pay attention, he says: Kannappa was a villager, a forest man, without literacy; he did not know how to perform abhishekaA ceremonial bathing of a deity’s image or symbol, usually with water and other prescribed substances. and the pujan method of Bhagavan Shiva, he had no Vedic knowledge at all, and so he worshipped according to whatever bhava was in him. And everyone should also know that he plucked out both his eyes and offered them to Bhagavan Shiva. Do you have such bhava within you, he asks — that if you were tested you would pluck out your eyes and offer them? Here you say you have bhava for Bhagavan, and if you get a scratch on the way to the temple you at once point a finger: I was coming to your temple, look what you did to me. Second, Gunanidhi-Kuber: that he lit a lamp with his gamchha, his angochha, and would obtain the post of Kuber. That, the speaker says, is incomplete information — he did not obtain the post of Kuber then; please consult the Shiv Mahapuran. In the next birth he obtained the position of a king, became a king, and then had Deepdaan performed throughout his whole kingdom, under Mahadeva's rule as it was. Only after that was his next birth as Kuber — and even then the full post was not attained; having taken that birth he worshipped Bhagavati and Bhagavan Shiva, and only then was the full post of Kuber obtained.

Summing up the examples, the speaker says: incomplete teaching, incomplete knowledge, and after that no desire to learn — and pushing away even the one who wants to learn — from all these causes Sanatan suffers loss. If ruin comes to your house, it will come from these very causes. He calls it cleverness, double-dealing, deceit and betrayal to go before BhagavatiThe Goddess addressed by her honorific, used across these talks for whichever form is under discussion. and say, "Mother, now be pleased by bhava", while you have the capacity to deceive your employees, to fool your juniors and your seniors, to swindle people into insurance, to swindle patients and earn from their illness and eat commission on it — the lawyers who cheat and build their houses and buildings, not caring whether their clients win, lose or die. In the end, he says, everyone is baking his own bread — and yet you lay the blame only on Brahmins, pandits, tantriks and sadhaks, and whoever says "brother, learn it properly" gets four abuses. Nothing of his is going to be lost by this, he says — it is the listener who will lose. He is making them aware so that their eyes open: learn the subjects properly, learn uccharan with clarity, so that welfare comes about properly. Leave no lack in yourself. You are capable, you are educated — why fall short, why do it wrongly, why perform an unauthorised act?

The speaker turns to AdhikaraThe eligibility or readiness required before attempting an advanced ritual — without it, even a correctly performed rite risks serious harm to the practitioner.: we will do that for which we are authorised. In the Puranas, in pauranik mantras and in tantrik mantras, everyone has the adhikar, and upadesh for them can be obtained. But if you cannot, then do it in Hindi. If you do not know how to pronounce Sanskrit, have no Diksha, have not learned, and do not know the vidhan, there is no Dosha in doing it in Hindi — and in the Durga Saptashati there is no need to perform the shaap-uddhar when it is done in Hindi. The charit path that you do as a bhava-based, emotional path — do it in Hindi with bhava. Why do it wrongly? Do it wrongly, he says, and you will certainly receive punishment, however much you reason with yourself and however much you nourish your ego that "our feeling is pure, a mother is a mother, a mother can never harm anyone". Meddling with the mantras, mutilating the mantras, not reciting according to the ChhandasMeter — the structured, rhythmic pattern (such as Anushtubh's eight-syllable units) governing how a stuti or scripture must be chanted, specified in its Viniyoga. because you do not know the vidhan and do not want to learn it either — from this, somewhere or other, only harm comes to you. Keep this in mind, he says.

Whenever this subject comes up, the speaker says, what we should do is this: if we do not know clear uccharan, we learn it. We take time — two months, six months, a whole year — learn it well, do it well, do it correctly. Not, he says, run away like cowards: "oh brother, a Saptashati path brings harm, and we do not know how to do the path correctly, so we will not do it at all." That, he says, is first-rate cowardice, the timidity within you — and it is precisely what such people want: either you do it wrongly, or you do not do it at all.

Whatever platform such teaching comes from, the speaker says, he will not name names — but a very great mahatma, a Vaishnavacharya, told about the Devi Suktam of the Saptashati a story concerning another mahatma: that he made a wrong uccharan for 45 years, and when he later corrected the pronunciation the Devi became angry. Brother, the speaker says, discourses of this kind will work only for rustic, unlettered, forest people who have no knowledge of the Saptashati at all. Let them worship as they can — if, with a pure feeling, they mispronounce, the Devi will still do them good. But when you know how to read, and there you invoke bhava and pronounce impurely, the Devi is not going to be pleased by it; that is a matter of being made a fool. By promoting and amplifying such subjects, he says, you spread ideas among people that: go on, mispronounce, do the vidhi wrongly, there is no problem, do not learn the vidhis, there is no problem, stay happy however you manage, Ma will be pleased by your bhava.

When your uccharan is done with purity, the speaker says, your bhava too will become pure — remember that. Because the moment pure pronunciation begins, by the effect of that mantra whatever slightest lack remains within you begins to become pure, begins to become clear. Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. gives not only your material desires — she gives both BhogThe food offering placed before a deity before anyone in the household eats. and moksha. First, he says, bhoga will come, naturally; after bhoga comes moksha — dharma, artha, kama, moksha. Dharma, artha, kama, and then moksha. So among the four PurusharthaA practitioner's own intense, sustained effort — the one thing within their control, since the fruit (Phala) of Sadhana itself is not.s, kama stands third and it will certainly, certainly be obtained. But you begin by making mistakes first, and then you wish for your desire — and when the desire is not fulfilled, you complain. That, he says, is your foolishness.

Closing, the speaker hopes listeners will understand this subject and learn clear uccharan. If it does not come, then in that state do not recite in Sanskrit — do it in Hindi, and learn Sanskrit; one is not to run away from it. He adds that he will try to arrange something for teaching Sanskrit uccharan through this platform and medium as well. He then points to a pattern he sees. Where the matter is one of unauthorised karma, people say: do it. For the things that are not to be done, they will either forbid them or send out wrong ideas about them, so that the person moves away on his own. And for what ought to be done, they will forbid it: do not do this. In this way, he says, Sanatanis are being made weak — and he ends by calling on Sanatanis to wake up and recognise themselves.