By Parvati

On May 24th, our Enthusiasm-Awakeners song group celebrated a
bitter-sweet achievement: we sang the remaining eight songs which
completed a set of 1,528 English songs.

This set of 1,528 songs were all the English songs — excluding those
for individuals, enterprises and a few others — that Guru composed
since forming our group on 19 December 1999.

1,528 songs in eight years and five months. That averages to nearly
one song every two days. That amounts to a stunning amount of pure
Grace.

These short songs never cease to amaze me. Guru can say so much in 30
words or less. He can illumine, inspire, educate, sympathize, cause
laughter, cause tears — all within a melodic minute.

I can not adequately express how these songs have affected my life, I
can only simply and honestly say that they have saved me.

I am not a singer and I can't read a note of music, so to learn these
songs took a tremendous amount of practice on my part. I would listen
to a recording of the song and sing along with it over and over until
slowly I would be singing roughly the same notes as the recording. I
would say that I would have to sing each song 100 times before I could
sing it confidently. Funny enough, in this way, I think that my lack
of singing capacity actually aided my spiritual progress!

I remember that at the time our group formed Guru was often having
people come forward and recite aphorisms. Some people would
practically whisper their poem, and Guru kept begging people to speak
up, reminding them that `quiet' does not necessarily mean `soulful'. I
decided that this could be our niche — we may not be able to do what
other groups did (i.e. sing well) — but we could sing loud!

Guru seemed to not only tolerate, but to enjoy our childlike approach.
While he could be very strict with other groups in regards to specific
notes and proper pronunciation, with our group he seemed to recognize
our capacity and thus, was very accommodating and compassionate.

1,528 songs. At first, I was worried that this might be the end of the
book for our group, but I guess it really is just an end of a chapter.
Guru has written well over 7,200 English songs — so even if we
continued learning the remaining 5,672+ songs at the same pace of one
song every two days, we've got 31 more years worth of material! And,
who knows, in my next life I might even have the capacity to learn
Bengali songs — and with more than 13,600 Bengali songs — that would
keep me busy for more than 74 years!

~~~~


In honour of our style of singing, here are some actual postings on
church bulletin boards:

-- Miss Charlene Mason sang, "I will not pass this way again," giving
obvious pleasure to the congregation.

-- Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all
the help they can get.

-- At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is
Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

-- Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of
several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.


From: Inspiration Sun part 5

http://srichinmoyinspiration.com/inspiration-sun