Sunday 9 February 2014

Awakening on the dark night


|| Aum Sri Ramakrishna Sharanam||
Lord Shiva
pic - google images
|| Aum Namo Narayanaya||

On Friday, amidst huge pomp and fanfare, the flag was raised at the Shree Veeraboga Emperumal Temple - signalling the start of the 10-day festival dedicated to Lord Emperumal or Maha Vishnu. This festival which takes place at Tirupati Tirumala Devastanam during the period of Puratassi is known as Brahmotsavam. Mythology says that after the marriage of Lord Maha Vishnu to His consort, they were driven in a chariot by Lord Brahma Himself... hence the festival was named Brahmotsavam. Annually, Vishnu temples throughout the world re-enact this wedding through a 10-day festival. Although many temples observe the festival during the holy month of Puratassi, here in South Africa, we find that many Narayana temples located on former sugar barracks observe it during the months of March/April. Our forefathers who carried our rich culture and traditions on their shoulders endured many hardships during indenture but ensured that they kept their traditions and practices alive. It is said that because the sugar operations were normally shut down for maintenance during this period of March/April, they seized the only opportunity they had to celebrate the grand wedding of Maha Vishnu: the Lord of preservation and sustenance who helped them get through the pain and suffering of separation from India, indenture, colonialism and apartheid.

 
It is rather special that this celestial wedding is observed by the Veeraboga Temple during the internationally famed ‘month of love’ attributed to Valentine’s Day. On a very material level,  man celebrates the uniting of two beings in love and on a spiritual level we celebrate the uniting of our Divine Mother and Father. However, beyond the maya of this leela, lies significant and profound truths that help ameliorate the cyclic discharge of pain and suffering with man. I recall very vividly as if it happened yesterday... 3 years ago when Revered Swami Vimokshananda attended our festival and was the Keynote Speaker. It was on Valentine’s Day and the programme director was welcoming the devotees and doing an introduction to Swamiji. He made mention about Valentine’s Day and how pleased he was that so many people could attend on this special day. Swamiji, after being introduced, approached the lecture with His divine countenance adorned with a mischievous smile and with His opening utterances alone ripped through the veil of maya that suffocated us.

 Maharaj said after His opening invocation mantras: “I am indeed very happy to be with all of you on this very special Ekadashi day and the occasion of the annual festival of the Temple.” Our minds and consciousness which always dwells on the physical and material cannot truly see beyond that. Here, Swamiji showed how when the mind in fixed on divinity that you can see beyond the physical limitations of earthly joy.

 Many of us live our lives with our inner beings enthroned in complete darkness and like in the world how we have diurnal and nocturnal creatures; we have certain tendencies that thrive in these dark spaces. We sometimes fail to understand why we act in a certain way - why we hate, revel in untruth, why we love etc...... Operating from the perspective of this darkness is not only harmful to you but also harmful to the people around you.

 
Sri Adi Shankaracharya composed a beautiful hymn in which He said: I am not mind, nor intellect, nor ego, nor the reflections of inner self. I am not the five senses. I am beyond that. I am not the ether, nor the earth, nor the fire, nor the wind (i.e. the five elements). I am indeed, that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva, love and pure consciousness.

 

Fixated with the outer beauty and drowning with infatuation welling with lust and greed... man becomes the recipient of untold grief and agony as the result of this. I am reminded of the melancholies yet hilarious episode where Parvati’s mother awaited to greet her son-in-law in the time-tested Indian tradition, but shrieked out in terror instead to see His body smeared with grey ash fresh from the cremation grounds, riding a bull, holding a skull in his hands, his eyes rolling as if intoxicated and looking utterly dishevelled and untidy - like He had not had a bath for several days. She wailed... lamenting her beautiful daughter’s choice of husband. “O daughter what have you done, you have ruined your family. Surely you were not in your senses when you made your choice. Why did I not remain a barren woman rather than give birth to you who have bought ill fame to the whole family. You have put away sandal paste and instead smeared yourself with mud; throwing away rice you have eaten the husk.”

Bhagawan Sri Ramakrishna
pic - google images
 In this ‘month of love’, on the 27th of February... millions of devotees will observe the ‘great night of Shiva’ where they will pray to that mighty Lord for inner awakening. On the dark night of the new moon we invoke the shakti within to awaken and illumine our lives. Like how the awakened Lord Shiva at the mere glance of His third eye (eye of discrimination) reduces the God of Desire (Kama) to ash... we take inspiration from Sri Adi Sankaracharya’s hymn to manifest our Shiva consciousness (Shivoham). Like how the Lord’s mother-in-law failed to see His true nature and inner power and beauty, we must also remove our darkness from within and expose the light of divinity that we are. To remind us of this and to explain these truths in the simplest forms, the Lord also came to us in this month as Bhagwan Sri Ramakrishna who was born on 18th February 1836. His simple teachings lead the way for the peace and harmony and brought about a new understanding of bhakti and renunciation for this modern age. ‘Master’ as He is affectionately known within the Ramakrishna family said: “Is anything impossible for the grace of God? Suppose you bring a light into a room that has been dark a thousand years; does it remove the darkness little by little? The room is lighted all at once. Intense renunciation is what is needed.”

 Let us in this very auspicious month fill ourselves with the divine light that dispels the nocturnal parasites of adharma. May Sri Ramakrishna and Lord Shiva Peruman inspire us all to shine with our inner beauty and let the divine love between all humanity be heightened, is my sincere prayer. Happy Ramakrishna Jayanti and Maha Shivaratri!

 
Yours ever, with blessings and prayers
Yogan
www.sudarshanavidya.blogspot.com
www.google.com//+yogannaidoo

Sunday 2 February 2014

Authenticity!!!!!


||Aum Sri Ramakrishna Sharanam||

 ||Aum Namo Narayanaya||

 
Aum- google images
Authenticity. Many dictionaries share the same sentiments with regards to the meaning of the word. They refer to it as: the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions. Authenticity seems to play out quite evidently in the commercial world where everything requires verification for authenticity. Contracts, applications, etc. require many identification checks and proof of various aspects before being approved. Of recent it has also become a schlep to cross borders with the mountain of paper work that one has to process from visas to proof of employment right down to proof of residency.

 
Last week I was amused whilst was browsing through the vegetable isle of a large supermarket chain-store. Having grown up in a farming community, we were accustomed to purchasing fresh, succulent vegetables at the market. We would notice how people would test the vegetables for freshness and value before purchasing. The most glaring one would be the scars left on the calabash by fingernails. I erupted into an internal burst of laughter to note that even in this day in large chain stores this practice continues, as I noticed the calabash being victim to the uncertainty of the customer. All these measures -some of which extreme- ensure that we are not cheated or hoodwinked into accepting inferior quality or anything less than that which we have opted for.

 
We have taken such precaution to ensure that we are not cheated from society… but what precautions have we taken to prevent us from being cheated by ourselves? This relevant enquiry arose from reading the glorious accounts from the Katha Upanishad. The pragmatic arguments delivered by protagonist Nachiketa comes as a panacea to his father who was afflicted with insincerity, anger, and remorse.

 
There was, in ancient times, a very rich man Vajashravas - who made a certain sacrifice which required that he should give away everything that he had. Now, this man was not sincere. He wanted to get the fame and glory of having made the sacrifice, but he was only giving things which were of no further use to him — old cows that were barren, blind, and lame. He had a boy called Nachiketa. This boy saw that his father was not doing what was right, that he was breaking his vow. In order to save his father’s honour, he beseeched his father to offer him as a sacrifice as well. This inauthenticity displayed by Nachiketa’s father is not unknown to us. Take a little time to think of how sincere or authentic you are towards every activity that you do. Are you sincere to your family, your work, your service to humanity and most importantly to yourself?

If there is single phrase that would be the essence of Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, it would be “Arise, Awake and stop not till the goal is reached”. Those who have read Swamiji would realise the extent to which He drove this idea in all his works. His inspiration for this teaching comes from the Katha Upanishad, where Yama (Lord of Death) said  to  Nachiketa in the 1.3.14 chapter of Katha Upanishad: "Uttisthata Jagrata Prapya Barannibodhata" ("Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn).

 
Many people, especially youth, unaware of their inner nature… live an aimless, mediocre life. In order to sustain this life, they resort to be inauthentic and they together with others like this, become the basis for the degradation of society.

 
Swamiji’s inspirational and personal accounts in America that relate to this from the Katha Upanishad can help humanity live a life of authenticity . Swamiji relates:

 

Travelling through many cities of Europe and observing in them the comforts and education of even the poor people, there was brought to my mind the state of our own poor people, and I used to shed tears. What made the difference? Education was the answer I got. Through education comes faith in one's own Self, and through faith in one's own Self the inherent Brahman is waking up in them, while the Brahman in us is gradually becoming dormant. In New York I used to observe the Irish colonists come — downtrodden, haggard-looking, destitute of all possessions at home, penniless, and wooden-headed — with their only belongings, a stick and a bundle of rags hanging at the end of it, fright in their steps, alarm in their eyes. A different spectacle in six months — the man walks upright, his attire is changed! In his eyes and steps there is no more sign of fright. What is the cause? Our Vedanta says that that Irishman was kept surrounded by contempt in his own country — the whole of nature was telling him with one voice, "Pat, you have no more hope, you are born a slave and will remain so." Having been thus told from his birth, Pat believed in it and hypnotised himself that he was very low, and the Brahman in him shrank away. While no sooner had he landed in America than he heard the shout going up on all sides, "Pat, you are a man as we are. It is man who has done all, a man like you and me can do everything: have courage!" Pat raised his head and saw that it was so, the Brahman within woke up. Nature herself spoke, as it were… Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.

 
Progress, prosperity and strength cannot come to those who hide behind religious practices ordained in the scriptures alone. This book knowledge is only worth the paper it is written on. It is until one develops firm faith in oneself with the understanding of the nature of the self and bases and lives their life in accordance to that nature (authenticity) then and only then can one say with authority that he has knowledge.

 
Nachiketa comes to us in this age as an inspiration and a catalyst for blissful living and peaceful co-existence. Swamiji Himself said: ”If I get ten or twelve boys with the faith of Nachiketa, I can turn the thoughts and pursuits of this country in a new channel.”

 
May Nachiketa be the pole star that inspires and guides us to lead an authentic life, is my sincere prayer.

 Ever yours with all love and blessings

Yogan
www.sudarshanavidya.blogspot.com
www.google.com/+YoganNaidoo