In Honor of Gudhi Padva 2020
Aji Soniyatsa Dinu

If you have had the opportunity to read Jnaneshvari, the poetic commentary on Shri Bhagavad Gita by Jnaneshvar Maharaj, then you’ve had the good fortune to experience for yourself how this revered thirteenth-century poet-saint from Maharashtra taught, and still teaches today. Through his poetry in the Marathi language that is at once simple and sublime, through his stunning use of metaphor, through his penetrating insights, he conveys his compassionate intention that each person receives the knowledge of how to find God. His every word is suffused with divine wisdom and devotion.

This is also how Jnaneshvar Maharaj teaches in his many abhangas, Marathi devotional songs. I first met him through one of these songs, “Aji Soniyatsa Dinu.” One day in the early 1980s in a satsang in Gurudev Siddha Peeth, Gurumayi requested a Siddha Yoga musician to sing it. As I listened, though I couldn’t understand the meaning, my heart was intensely moved. Not long afterward I began offering music seva singing bhajans and abhangas during darshan, so I learned this amazing abhanga and sang it often. In fact, year after year—during darshan after darshan—one of the darshan assistants would bring me a note from Gurumayi requesting that I sing “Aji Soniyatsa Dinu.”

Some years later, I even created an English rendering of the translation, “This Day is a Golden Day,” and recorded it. (That recording is available in the Siddha Yoga Bookstore.)

Why do I love this abhanga so much? Because it epitomizes my experience of following the Siddha Yoga path and receiving the grace of my Shri Gurumayi. It is my own heart’s song.

The melody that Siddha Yoga musicians sing is based on a composition by Hrdayanath Mangeshkar in the Bhairavi raga. Bhairavi, known as the “Queen of Ragas,” expresses the rasa of deep devotion colored by sweet yearning.

The image accompanying this abhanga depicts the samadhi shrine of Jnaneshvar Maharaj in Alandi. The photograph was taken in 1969 during a visit by Baba Muktananda to honor this immortal poet-saint.