Repeat the Holy Name - from the Songs of Tallapaka Annamacharya of South India

 

Repeat the Holy Name - from the Songs of Tallapaka of South India

Whenever you're hungry, whenever you're tired

Repeat the holy name, there is no other way

In moments of want, or when you're all alone

If someone captures you and you're locked up

The blessed name of Hari is the only support

If you're forgetful and make mistakes in life

Whenever you're hungry, whenever you're tired

Repeat the holy name, there is no other way

When danger threatens, or you're scandalized

In times of sin, whenever you are in terror

The power of Hari’s name is your true comfort

Search until dusk falls; you'll find no other way

Whenever you're hungry, whenever you're tired

Repeat the holy name, there is no other way

If you're bound in chains, condemned to death

When you're waylaid on the road by creditors

The name of Venkata is the only way of release

Idiot mind, search as you wish, no other way exists

Whenever you're hungry, whenever you're tired

Repeat the holy name, the only way to go higher

-- Annamacharya, Songs of Three Great South Indian Saints, William J. Jackson

Note: Annamayya (1408 – 1503) was a Telugu musician, composer, and a Hindu saint of south India. Divine names to be repeated may vary from tradition to tradition, and even in the mystic verses above, but it's a universal spiritual practice to repeat a sacred name of God, to meditate upon it. "Repeat the holy name, the only way to go higher." (Annamacharya)

Simran -- The Power of Repeating God’s Name

Simran -- The Power of Repeating God’s Name 

Repeating a Name (or Names) of God with love and devotion, called in the east "Simran", "Manas Jap", or "Zikhr," is one of the key spiritual exercises used to cultivate love for God and to invoke the Positive Power in our daily lives, making it possible to live a life of love. Simran is a mental repetition of a Name of God done during meditation, and this spiritual practice is also done during available moments throughout the day and night as a way to remember God all the time. Says Sant Tukarama:

"Such is God’s Name 

that it heals the disease of the world.

Whosoever repeats the Lord’s Name 

while engaged in earthly duties, 

remains ever in a blissful state of divine communion. 

One absorbed in the Lord’s Name, O Tuka, 

has truly attained liberation while living."

This spiritual exercise of repeating God's Name helps to uplift our day, to bring some of the heaven and bliss of meditation into our down-to-earth daily experience, and is a way to remember in a world of forgetfulness, to remain awake in a world of spiritual slumber, to abide in Truth, no longer dominated by the forces of illusion. Be who you really are wherever you go!