Sunday, Nov 24 2024  

MY EXPERIENCE AT THE AKHANDA BHAJANS - 13 DECEMBER 2004

My humble pranams at the l L otus F f eet of our dearest Mother Sai. Sai Ram, uncles and aunties brothers and sisters. I am Prasanth from Group 4 and today I am going to talk about my divine experience at the global Akhanda Bhajans that were held at Singapore Khalsa Association on the 10 and 11 of November this year . The Akhanda Bhajans is a very special event in which Bhajans are sung continuously for 24 hours. As Swami says, "Whe rever My Name is sung, I install Myself there."

This years was one of the most special Bhajans that I have attended in my life.

Although the Bhajans started only at 5pm , I my brother and a few other brothers from Katong Sai Centre several of us, including myself, were there at 3pm already. We helped set up for the Bhajans exciting event and then we had a briefing on what we were supposed to do. I had two roles. I was in-charge of issuing the sevadal scarves to sevadals which did not have scarves . The second duty was the toilet cleaning duty which is always a challenging task!

Then I got another duty, ushering. What I had to do was to usher the bhajan singers into to the seating area for lead singers at regular intervals. they were supposed to be seated at. Then o O ccasionally I used to go to the 1 st floor to have a cup of coffee to keep me awake too. I took the opportunity to serve drinks at the same time.

At about 2am in the morning, few of us got together and we sat in a corner and played the naal. Although it was more noise than music, I started to find myself becoming more energi z ed and awake getting better. Then when there was nothing to do, we used to go down at sweep the floor. When there was really nothing to do, I played solitaire and minesweeper on the laptops. This was the main reason for Bro Siva and Bro Yugu to turn off their laptops . As I have done for the past 3 years, I sat down to sing for bhajans in the early hours of the morning. I feel that this is an auspicious time to sing bhajans. Thereafter After this I Then at from 8-9 pm am when the Sai Centre, Katong centre had was lead singing their Bhajans , I had the wonderful opportunity of coordinating was doing the Powerpoint slides for them and I was thankful for the opportunity.

Then after breakfast I could see a rise in the crowd increasing . In that rising crowd I met one of my childhood friends. I had no idea that he became a Sai devotee follower of Swami which I was interested to learn . He told me about how he became. By this time when generally everyone was fresh and awake I was dead tired. I kept away from the bhajan hall as I felt tired there. It was very peaceful there. The vibrations were very strong Even though I was struggling with my tiredness at this point, Then I did started the car park duty. Then it started to rain very heavily. It is believed said that when g G od is happy, it starts to rain. I am sure that Swami was enjoying the bhajans throughout the world. Without any other choice With hesitance , my friend, Sherwin and I worked in the heavy rain. Although there were many problems due to the limited car park spaces us being told to reserve car park lots for few of the devotees , we managed to handle it somehow with Swami's Grace the grace of the lord. We also had Bro. Saumil to help us out. This was a good experience for us. as I had Then when we went back the hall when we were drenched due to the rain. It was now the most hectic vibrant part of the bhajans. The crowd had nearly filled the hall and naturally there were several duties to be carried out which we were all enjoying . So we had to align more chairs for the aunties and uncles. Then we had to surround the devotees sitting on the floor to make them move up if there was any space in between them as there was already no space for the devotees to sit. Then towards the end when the aarti was being held, we had to take out all the posters that contained swami's messages. Then we took all the flower pots and brought it to the first floor where it was loaded into a truck. Then we unplugged all the sound system devices and the Ganesha, Krishna and Shirdi Sai Baba Statues were brought to be loaded into the van which brought them to Aunty Rekha's house. Unfortunately as I usually do I was not able to follow the truck to her house as I had some party to attend. What I planned to do is t go to aunty Rekha's house deliver the statues and the go back home and sleep. But instead I went to the birthday party and went back home. By the time I slept it was already 11.00pm. So I had broken my record. I had kept awake from Saturday morning 10am o Sunday night 11pm. That was 37 hours. Then t he bhajan programme ended in glorious fashion. After the event, we stayed back to help clear up. Personally I i t was really a great achievement and I felt happy as I was doing it for Swami . Although I felt really tired as I was there for about 30 hours in total unlike many of the sevadals I did not even lie down throughout the whole bhajans, Swami gave me the energy to go on. Let us all feel the bliss of doing seva while the atmosphere is being charged with bhajans globally .

To end my speech I would like to share with you give you a quote from s S wami about Akhanda bhajan that I heard from someone at the Sai convention at Port Dickson, Malaysia which lasted from Friday to yesterday. The quote was, " " I have come only for the sake of m M y devotees.  Go ahead with the Akhanda Bhajans. I m M yself will come, and be with you throughout the singing."

Jai Sai Ram

Bro Prashanth
SSEHV Group 4