Live With Naam Live With Him (Naamir Vani)

About the Book Establishes that chanting Naam is nothing but the preliminary stage of dhyana or meditation. When the Naam trickles down from the tongue to the heart, one reaches the state of meditation automatically.

This book helps us understand the practice of chanting Naam - the most accessible, simple and easy means to achieve material and spiritual wellbeing.

About the Author At the young age of six, Sri Sri Sitaramdas Omkarnath, one of the greatest saints of modern times, had a vision of Lord Shiva. Twenty years later, the Lord visited Him again and gave Him His Ishta Mantra. He acquired proficiency in Sanskrit and Yoga, and easily mastered the subjects of Vyakarana, Upanishads, Puranas and Vedanta.

While in his forties, He formally became a renunciate and assumed the name Sitaramdas Omkarnath. He wrote a number of books that were to give the world a glimpse into His deep spiritual experience.

Swami Chidananda of Divine Life Society hailed him as the Naam Avatara. All the leading lights of the day such as Sufi Pir Inayat Vilayat Khan, the Buddhist master Dalai Lama, Ma Anandamayi, Daya Ma of the Yogoda Satsanga, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and other mystics, experienced divine bliss on contact with Him. A proponent of the doctrine of Omkar, Sri Sri Sitaramdas Omkarnath said that all the streams of spirituality culminate into Omkara. He mainly preached the chanting of Naam or the Mahamantra i.e. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare. His teachings had a universal appeal.

He wrote a unique commentary on Gita titled Pranav Prem Piyush and his commentary on the Upanishads, especially the Brihadaranyaka and Chhandogya and Katha Upanishad is the 11 volume Magnum Opus titled Sri Sri Namamrita Lahari. He wrote 200 original books in his lifetime; built 76 ashrams all over the country, from Kanyakumari to Utrakashi Himalayas; initiated lakhs of followers and preached Sanatana Dhara tirelessly through ninety years of his mortal existence.

Foreword Naam is the Sanskrit word for name. Derived from it, Naami means the person named. Ordinarily the name and the named are quite distinct from each other. The name Peter has five letters but has no physical body; the man Peter has a physical body but is not made of letters. Yet, this little book says time and again, that Naam and its bearer are one and the same! How are we to understand this remarkable claim?

Of course, Naam here means the name of God only. God-intoxicated mystics can reach a stage where every sound appears to them as the Lord's name. Until that stage is reached, we must recognise the distinction between the names of ordinary mortals and the holy names of God, such as Narayana, Hari, Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Durga or Kali. The question then, is this: How can a devotee of Hari understand the scripture-endorsed doctrine that Hari and Hari's name are the same?

Short of direct realization, in a sense, one can never fully grasp this because on one side of equation, Hari Himself is unknown. But one can make tentative approaches. For one thing, Hari, we believe, has become everything (He wished: "I shall be many and be born!"), all real objects of this world are essentially Hari in disguise. The word or sound H-A-R-I is surely something real, it is an object of this manifold world. So, it must be Hari too.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages