“Hari se badaa hari ka naam, ant mein nikla yeh parinaam.” (“The name, the essence, of the Lord is greater than the Lord — that is what we discover in the end.” It was in the mid-1960s that my father learnt this bhajan from a group of Ramayan devotees in Bangalore. At the age of eight, I did not understand the devotees’ recitation of Ramcharitmanas. But the joy, fervour and lyrical beauty seeped in.
The bhajan goes on to say that we are lovingly remembering Ram even though we have never seen him. Eventually, one day, bound and pulled by our love, Ram will come. Even as a child, I felt that this was a call for Ram to fill our hearts. The next stanza recalls that Ram could not cross the ocean without a bridge but Hanuman leapt across the same ocean just by the power of Ram naam.
To cultivate, be blessed with, such faith is a timeless striving. The difficulty lies in knowing if and how this striving can make us more creative in grappling with the turmoils and conflicts of our time.
My father, Sant Dass, seemed to find his answer by instinct. He grew up in Lahore and lived through the trauma of Partition with not a trace of bitterness. In 1948, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s bullet-riddled body was being carried to the cremation site, my father was in the crowd of two million mourners who lined the streets of Delhi. He carried the searing grief of Partition and of Gandhi’s murder with dignity and a resolve to stand against the darkness that inflicts such pain.
Later, while working as an officer in the Reserve Bank of India, he brought up three children to feel as much joy at a temple or gurudwara as in a mosque or church. Along with my mother, he went on all the major pilgrimages in India — from Kedarnath to Rameshwaram — and visited the Vatican with the same reverence.
In the worldly domain, Sant Dass was known as an international expert in agricultural credit systems and in 1982 became the first managing director of the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). But to his family and friends, he was the anchor person for the much loved “Hari se badaa hari ka naam,” which he sang in his mellifluous voice. No wedding or puja in the family was complete without his singing this bhajan.
Towards the end of his life, when he was afflicted by Alzheimer’s, he remembered this bhajan even after he was unable to recognise any family member. Most of the attendants who helped care for him also began humming the bhajan.
The bhajan’s beauty lies in the simplicity with which it reiterates a truth that reverberates through the ages. Our faith in goodness — in the higher human faculties of love, compassion, resilience — is more powerful, truer, than any material manifestations of divinity. “Hari se badaa, hari ka naam” is like a compass unerringly focusing our attention on the essence of divinity.
This is why Ram naam was the life-breath of Mahatma Gandhi. On the world stage, Gandhi is probably the best-known example of how this frame of mind can empower you to creatively grapple with the energies of darkness. Of course, Gandhi’s story also painfully illustrates the grief that can accost a person on this path. Towards the end of his life, Gandhi was getting a deluge of hate mail from those who accused him of being anti-Hindu, who either rejected or failed to understand what Ram naam meant to him. Yet, Gandhi remained steadfast, he refused to hate the hater.
This energy, this latent possibility of the light within all of us, is what “hari se badaa” reaffirms. One of the most moving manifestations of this has been how one of my nephews has slightly, and significantly, altered the final stanza. The bhajan, as learnt by my father, concluded by saying that those who don’t carry ram naam in their hearts will drown, while even stones with Ram written on them will float. His grandnephew has tweaked that to say “doob na jayen vo dilwale jin mein nahin hai naam” / “Let it not be that those who lack Ram’s name drown.” This slight alteration infuses hope that no soul is fully or irretrievably lost. It expresses concern, rather than condemnation, for those who can’t feel the essence.
This may all seem rather esoteric. By contrast, disputes over structures and locations of worship can seem more “real”. The fiery storms they unleash do destroy lives as minds and hearts are consumed by hatred. But the forces of darkness are actually not any one group or identity. Darkness is a frame of mind which traps us into feeling that hatred and cynicism can be more effective than goodness.
Yet it is “hari se badaa hari ka naam” that endures. Towards the conclusion of Ramcharitmanas, in verse 112 of Uttarkand, Goswami Tulsidas explains why this is so. To love Ram is to be without desire, pride and anger. One who thus loves Ram sees the whole of creation as Ram. Since there is no “other”, how can there be enmity?
Then and now, the question is not how many people are fully able to live this truth. “Hari se badaa hari ka naam” inspires because it reminds us of truths that are above and beyond current disputes and turmoils. Who knows how this might energise our political strivings?
The writer is the founder of the YouTube channel Ahimsa Conversations and author of the soon-to-be-released book Vivekananda and Our Times: The Journey from Fear to Love
Gandhi, my father and Ram: A devotion without hate
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30.01.2024
“Hari se badaa hari ka naam, ant mein nikla yeh parinaam.” (“The name, the essence, of the Lord is greater than the Lord — that is what we discover in the end.” It was in the mid-1960s that my father learnt this bhajan from a group of Ramayan devotees in Bangalore. At the age of eight, I did not understand the devotees’ recitation of Ramcharitmanas. But the joy, fervour and lyrical beauty seeped in.
The bhajan goes on to say that we are lovingly remembering Ram even though we have never seen him. Eventually, one day, bound and pulled by our love, Ram will come. Even as a child, I felt that this was a call for Ram to fill our hearts. The next stanza recalls that Ram could not cross the ocean without a bridge but Hanuman leapt across the same ocean just by the power of Ram naam.
To cultivate, be blessed with, such faith is a timeless striving. The difficulty lies in knowing if and how this striving can make us more creative in grappling with the turmoils and conflicts of our time.
My father, Sant Dass, seemed to find his answer by instinct. He grew up in Lahore and lived through the trauma of Partition with not a trace of bitterness. In 1948, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s bullet-riddled body was being carried to the cremation site, my father was in the crowd of two million mourners who lined the streets of........
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