Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts

Monday, January 24, 2011

Hey Ram .....

Jai Gurudev !!

What effect does the continuous chanting of the name of a Guru or God  make ?Does it really have any sense ?An atheist would definitely say a "No !" ...Others would say , "Ofcourse yes, it brings a positive vibration !"

I do remember reading a story elsewhere sometime ago . 


The train was moving at a fast pace ...quite crowdy .One person was sporting a peculiar behaviour in that lot. He kept on murmuring to himself continuously . There was an young blood , sitting by the side of  him, who had seemingly got annoyed at this person's non stop lip movement . Further the  carefree attitude of that person tested the youth's patience even more. Unable to control himself , the youth interrupted him  ," Hey Mr , would you please stop that and keep quiet ? So Irritating !!
"Mr.Peculiar , slowly lifted his head up and looked at the youth , " I'm chanting the name of the Lord , my friend" , he said .
"What difference does it really make , Sir ? I guess , it's just a blind belief . " bounced back the youth .
Mr.Peculiar paused for a moment and started uttering  abusive words ....
The youth got wilder at this unexpected behaviour of Mr.Peculiar . Unable to control himself , he caught hold of his collars , " Hey you , what do you think of yourself man ? "
 
On this , Mr.Peculiar stopped his abusive language and resorted to his chanting of  "Ram ...Ram....Ram " in a soft rhythmic tone.
The youth visibly cooled down in few moments and quietly started to gaze outside through the window.
Mr.Peculiar smilingly said in a friendly manner , " What Sir, do you get to see the difference it makes on chanting the the name of the Lord ? Has it not brought a harmony in the mood and behaviour  of the persons around ? "
 A beautiful smile blossomed in the youth's face ,in response...
Infact , the Hindu Mythology has defined many divine characters to indicate numerous unique divine qualities , a man can acquire in his lifetime. 
Say for instance,  
*Ram * character depicts " Valour , Righteousness , Truth "
*Hanuman * character indicates " Supreme Devotion and Strength "
*Shiva * marks " Inner peace , Dispassion , Meditative powers "
* Shakthi " means as the name indicates "Power , Dynamism , Knowledge "
Hence by chanting the names of a particular deity , the associated divine qualities gets imbibed in the individual who does the chanting meticulously and with devotion .
The chanting of " Ram " makes a person shine with His characters of Righteousness , Truth and Valour .
And so with other names of the deities.
The peaceful vibration can be noticed in the atmosphere , when one chants the God's name. No doubt !!

Just give it a try and check for yourself !!




Love & smiles....

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Puja - A Child Game ?!



Jai Gurudev !!







Normally we offer prayers to the divine daily , weekly or special Prayers during festivals. We call it as Puja or Pooja .
Pooja is a Sanskrit word meaning an action that comes out of fullness.
In the sense , Pooja is done as an act of gratitude arising out of fulfillment or contented attitude .


Whenever we say Pooja, the things that come to our mind are  cleansing with  Water   , Flowers , Fruits , Food items offered as Prasad , Incense sticks , Camphors , Aarti , the Bell sound etc.





And also what we can notice here is , the Puja , what we perform is an imitation of what Nature is doing us . Puzzling ?! 



Just bringing to our mind , recollecting our childhoos games , one would not miss out the game played with toys with such an involvement . Generally , a girl child imitates her mom and the boy child would love to imitate his dad.


The girl child will have a toy doll and it's a fun watching her play with it  . She gives bath to the doll , feeds her with a bottle , talks to her , dresses her up and does what all her mom does for her.
 She makes her sleep , nurses her carefully as though the doll baby has fallen ill .
    
    On the otherhand , the boy child would imitate his dad , his profession . He would play as a conductor or a doctor or any profession  . That's a lovely game which no one would have ever missed out in those days of yesteryears - childhood  games . Also , they play the game of the impressive characters , which they see in their daily routine as teachers, milkman, postman , thief, washerman , bus conductor, driver etc . The children would just love playing this imitating games . It's a common sight to watch.                        


If we take a closer look at the way we offer prayers or Puja , it is something similar to the kids game of imitating elders .
For instance , during a Pooja, the place is well cleaned , disinfected with naturally available items like turmeric, cowdung etc and a beautiful design pattern is drawn on the ground with various colours smeared on the patterns called as Rangoli .
Infact , the Divine makes our life colourful , providing us lots of entertainments and each one of our life is like a unique rangoli pattern .
And in that case , are we not imitating the Divine ? 


Then , during the Puja , we decorate the place with flowers , lit lamps , burn the incense sticks to spread the fragrance ,  offer flowers , fruits , various delicacies  , sing songs , play musical instruments and make aartis with Camphor . And then we bow down to God as an act of surrender.








If we observe  , the Divine Nature gives us flowers , fruits , vegetables, Cotton for clothes and literally everything to us .



The Nature causes the birds to chirp - multiple sounds produced by different birds , similar to the vocal songs and instrumental sounds.




 
And the Nature provides us the ample light and heat by making the Sun to move around us , rather makes the Earth move around the Sun
and makes the living on this planet earth a reality . Otherwise, no one can think of life on Earth at all. How kind is the Nature towards us ?!


This is similar to the aarti , we do , in response to the moving around of the sun , an act of gratitude towards the Sun and the Nature , in turn.  

So, do you agree with the fact that we offer prayers or perform Puja to God , as an imitation of  what the Divine Nature does to us , living beings with so much love and care ?!







Love & smiles.....






Saturday, January 8, 2011

Right things in the Right Time !!

Jai Gurudev !!




"Is it mandatory that we need to ask for something , while praying ? "

The other day , a friend of mine  raised a question .

Approaching from a different  perspective , we can easily arrive at a suitable answer .

Lets assume , a child and its mom going for the shopping in a mall . They wanted to buy some clothing for the child.

The child , right from the time they started off to the mall , was very curious , asking for a specific type of dress . The mom said , "Yes darling , definitely I'll get one such for you !!"
All the way to the mall , the child did not keep quiet , kept on asking for it , though the mom had agreed to meet its demand . The child did not stop , until such time it got whatever it needed.

Immediately , the next moment , the child started off again with a fresh demand  and just kept on pestering for the same .The patient mom , out of her love for the child , tried her best to meet its' demands . 


But, the child did not stop with one or two demands . Next ...next...one more ...one more...

Just imagine the mental state of the mom . She finally would have got fed up of the ever growing demands of the child .





Sometimes her response would be " Okay , take it and get lost !!"
And sometimes, she would not bother to hear the child's demand at all .
Though at times , she would even go to the extent of scolding & beating the child to make it sit quiet and calm .



So, coming to our discussion ,
let's put our ownself in the place of the child  and
let's put the Divine or the God in the place of the mom and imagine such a situation as above .
Generally ,we call the Divine as The Heavenly Father or The Divine Mother as the path set by our  religions .

Though we may feel a bit uneasy to imagine  ,
the underlying fact is that  , that's what exactly is happening in our cases too .
We go to the places of worship or do the prayers , only to keep on placing one or the other demands to the God .
How disgusting would it be , if we are in the place of the divine !!

Inspite of the divine taking care of our every needs right before we are born , till we die , we never get contented with what we receive at all !! 




As the mom knows the needs of the baby well in advance , keeps the food ready even before it starts feeling hungry , nurses the baby during the times of illness , showers love abundantly on the child unconditionally  and takes care of the child's every need meticulously with dedication and love .








So, Will not the God or the Divine Mother/Father take care of  us and bless us with whatever we need in appropriate time ,  even before we ask for anything  ?!






What if the child  , having confidence in its mom , remains happy and relaxed/peaceful all the way to the shopping mall , enjoying the location , laughing and playing , singing and dancing with her  ?!





What if we , also have an unshakeable Faith in the Divine that our wishes will all be fulfilled in the right time , in the right way and .... move around in a relaxed and peaceful state of mind , enjoying every moment of our life ?!!





What if we say a word of thanks to God for whatever He is showering on us instead of placing demands after demands ?!







Love & smiles.... 

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