My heartfelt Jay Swaminarayan to all…

It feels great to be back and serve our satsang with this publication of Akshardham No Marg.  Prefaces usually end with platitudes but I’d like to begin with being grateful to all those who made this dream into a reality. A Special mention to  Priya M Raghwani who kept the enthusiasm flowing when we struggled with the gujarati transliterations, and Nitinbhai who taught me the deep meanings (which one day, I hope I share with you all) of the kirtans presented on the CD.  I had tremendous support in font-setting from Nandkishor Bhai in Ahmedabad, Amos and all at Elite Offset Ltd with the artwork and printing and of course Sonal – my musical maestro!  Vast resources from Nand Santos’ kavyas to the efforts of ladies in the mandir have helped compile this publication.  So many have helped shape, edit, illustrate, research, sing, record etc – the list in endless! So to all who gave their precious time and effort, I am deeply grateful.

To those who have inspired & shaped me as an individual – there isn’t enough ink in this pen to express my gratitude; Shriji Maharaj has blessed me with countless friends and family who continue to educate and inspire me, and my prayers are with you always.

My parents and dear husband – today I hope I have made you proud.  Know that none of my efforts would have reached fruition without you in my life.  Sometimes I wonder what good I must have done in previous lives to deserve you, I thank you for everything.  Finally and mostly I am thankful to Swaminarayan Bhagwan for His immeasurable blessings.  To all my readers, I pray that I have made our faith more accessible to you in this endeavour and my shortfalls and oversights – and there must be many – are forgiven.

I often wonder whether our society will make huge leaps in religious discoveries or will we be taking 200 steps back at each click of a button in this global village of ours?  I earnestly believe we have moved forward in this regard; from the times of my first book where it was extremely difficult to find published  material in English or a kirtan online, to now, where I was spoilt for choice and reached for the challenge of making a CD!  I am so proud of our Sampraday’s achievements, but as we are advancing in motivations for religious endeavours I fear that we may loose some traditional wisdom along the journey.

As a society we hold ourselves back so much by not utilising the rich heritage we have;  our Nand Santos’ talents were countless in all aspects from poetry to literal articulacy, so isn’t it time we rediscovered the artisans of our legacy?  The generations to come need to be exposed to our history; where our roots are, how we have evolved into a people who build big temples and celebrate festivals with pomp and fervour. You might be thinking “we know all this”, yes we do, I don’t deny it, but do we appreciate the essence of our existence?  The point I am trying to drive home is the simple matter of birth and death.

As a civilization, we focus on worldly happiness. The sentiments we teach our children, is to be good satsangi’s, go to mandir etc, now (and I’m glad I can say this) we also explain why these actions are necessary, but then full stop. We delve into the tales behind our actions such as separate prayer halls for men/women or why we do puja, full stop. We fear discussing the penultimate reasoning for all our actions on Earth – a phrase I term as “Destination Akshardham”.  Why do we fear to educate about death when in actual fact it is the only certainty in life?  My own nearest and dearest tell me “don’t be silly, don’t talk of such things”, but Shriji Maharaj gave numerous sermons on Akshardham and Yampuri, He instructed Shatanand Muni to write the Yamdand and encouraged saints to compose ‘updesh’ kirtans so that our sampraday can know what the future holds for us. Indeed of the 4 pillars, Dharma, Artha, Karma, and Moksha – we talk about the 1^st three but liberation – the ultimate desire and purpose of life is shrugged off.  Are we being cowards or plain ignorant?

These are only my sentiments, I am not a scholar on our faith nor do I pretend to know our sect in great detail, but with the little knowledge I have, I find that we shy away from matters relating to life after death.  Our forefathers may not have needed to discuss it because the influence of the West was never enticing for them perhaps, but today this is not the case and if we don’t recite these ‘in-your-face’ reality kirtans then they will wither away and future generations will have the gruesome attitude of ‘lets live for today, who cares about what happens after death’. I shiver at this thought, Swaminarayan Bhagwan has given us the means to learn about what one faces once the end is near and not to take advantage of the clues is senseless on our part.  The simple aim of this book is to attempt to expose ourselves to our heritage and reality at the same time, so we can sing kirtans that act as philosophical guidance and remember we are not on a ‘joy-ride’ – our destination is Akshardham.