Bliss from chanting* overcomes depression from thoughts about worldly matters

    A few years ago, I felt an intense desire to chant in the mornings. So every night before going to sleep, I prayed to His Holiness Dr. Jayant Athavale keeping His photograph in front of me, to grace me with the ability to chant in the mornings. For the next three days, at five o' clock every morning, I felt that His Holiness Dr. Athavale is calling out to me. That helped me wake up and made it possible for me to chant. Those three days, I could chant up to 7 a.m. everyday. As a result, for the next 2-3 days I felt extremely happy and peaceful. I felt happiness and peace everywhere and with everyone.

    Soon afterwards, I had some worldly matters to take care of, so I started thinking about them and got caught up in them. As a result, for almost 2 days I was very depressed and worried. I felt very bad, that for two days, I did not do any spiritual practice and only kept thinking about worldly matters. I also realized that by doing so, I could not experience the extreme happiness and peace I felt before. So I thought to myself, “Why should I think about worldly matters instead of thinking about the Lord, when thinking about worldly matters not only prevents me from experiencing that extreme happiness and peace, but also makes me feel depressed and worried?” This incident helped me come to the realization that only chanting can give me a very high level of peace and happiness.

Removal of obstacles after prayer with faith

    During a spiritual trip to India a few years ago, I had an opportunity to stay and participate in service unto God (satseva) at the Sanatan organization's hermitages (ashram) in various towns. One day, as a part of this service, I was working on the computer, formatting the Sanatan organization's small booklet on the Science of Spirituality. The computer program I was using had no automatic saving capacity, so each portion needed to be saved manually. I continued working on the document for two hours without saving, as the habit of saving my work every minutes was still not developed in me.

    Suddenly, I felt hot and had nausea for about five minutes. After that, the computer just froze. It had to be switched off and all work that I had done in the past two hours would be lost. I looked at His Holiness Dr. Jayant Athavale’s photograph that was kept on the computer desk, and pleaded to Him mentally, “Please save this file.” I had faith in Him and was at peace. As the computer was switched back on, the entire document was intact. Most importantly, I felt the Guru very close to me, and a relationship with the Guru Principle started developing increasingly.