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Vinayak Iyer
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All that you do, all that you eat, all that you offer and give away, as well as all austerities that you may perform, should be done as an offering unto Me.” Bhagwat Geeta. So offering what we eat to the Lord is an integral part of bhakti-yoga and makes the food blessed with spiritual potencies.
“Patram Pushpam Phalam Toyam Yo Me Bhaktya Prayacchati, Tadaham Bhaktyupahritamasanami Prayatatmanah”
Whoever offers a leaf, a flower, a fruit or even water with devotion, that I accept, offered as it is with a loving heart”. Thus, we can see that the Lord does not need anything, but if one offers fruits, grains, and vegetarian foods, He will accept it.
Indians make an offering of food to the Lord and later partake of it as prasaada – a holy gift from the Lord. What we offer to God is Naivedyam. When it comes back to us, it becomes Prasada. Literally, a gracious gift. The prasad has the deity’s blessing residing within it. To most of us, prasada means something edible and that is all. But the real meaning of prasada is “purity, cheerfulness, bliss, joy, peace”. This is our true gain upon tuning our minds with the Lord during the worship. The real prasada is the feeling of peace we experience in our hearts while looking at the idol of the Lord after we have performed our daily puja with love and devotion. Experiencing the peace and joy is how we tune our minds to the Lord. There is a Bhavana, an attitude involved in it. This attitude is born of the vision of God. Prasada is not an object. It is purely born of understanding. The understanding of the reality is the basis for prasada. In its material sense, prasada is created by a process of giving and receiving between a human devotee and the divine god. A flower accepted for one’s sense gratification is material, but when the same flower is offered to the Supreme by a devotee, it is spiritual. Food taken and cooked for oneself is material, but food cooked for the Supreme Lord is spiritual prasäda. This means the mercy of the Lord. Thus, the food we eat after it is offered to the Lord becomes a means for our purification and spiritual development.
This is the appreciation of God. We accept that God is the author of the result of our actions. The result thus becomes prasada since it comes from God. Thus result of every action must be looked upon as prasada from the Lord. So we have to be alive to the reality of our being the doer of action and God being the giver of the result. Therefore, even if I do not get what I expected, I still accept the result as prasada and having become wiser, work harder. A person ultimately becomes wiser by the attitude of prasada. We welcome whatever comes to us and our whole life becomes a learning experience. Thus we arrive at the meaning of prasada as the cheerful acceptance of the situation as it comes to me. Thus prasada-buddhi becomes the attitude of glad acceptance. Anything that comes from the Lord is Grace or Prasada. Let us learn to look upon the results of out actions given to me by the Lord as prasada.
Food is a gift from God, it should be treated with great respect. Traditional Hindus offer food to God mentally before eating. “The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sin because they eat food, which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin” Bhagwat Geeta.
Pradakshina (Sanskrit), meaning circumambulation, consists of walking around in a ‘circle’ as a form of worship in Hindu ceremonies in India. The devotees walk around the garbha griha, the innermost chamber of the shrine housing the temple deity. It is done around sacred fire (Agni), Tulsi plant and Peepal tree also.
Pradakshina literally means: to the right (Dakshina means right). So in Pradakshina, one goes to the left hand direction to keep the deity around the Sanctum Sanctorum on one’s right side. Pradakshina is one of the customary aspects of going to a temple. Typically, Pradakshina is done after the completion of traditional worship (pooja) and after paying homage to the deity. Pradakshina is supposed to be done with a meditative mood.
From the Rig Vedic verses –” Pra as an adjective means very much. Pra can also come as a prefix to verbs and take on the meaning of onward, forward. Onward to Dakshinam or south is pradakshina . When one does that, one’s right side is facing the deity inside the garbhagraham and the circumambulation is Dakshinacharam or auspicous as recommended by the Veda. ”
Skanda Purana ~ In the word Pra-Da-Ksi-Na the syllable Pra dispels sin, the syllable Da bestows what is desired, the syllable Ksi causes the destruction of Karman and the syllable Na is the bestower of salvation.
Hindus go round the sanctum sanctorium in the temples and sometimes the deities in the pujas or yajnas at home in a clockwise direction. We always assume God is the center of our existence. He also exists everywhere. So when we do Pradakshina or circumambulation, we accept that our actions and thoughts are always centred around God. The center point is always fixed and remains the same at whatever distance we do the pradakshina. So we are reminded of the eternal truth that God is the center of gravity and the main focus of our existence. This is the main principle of Pradakshinam. Just like in solar system, the sun is at the center around which the planets rotate, our pradakshinams should be done with god at the center. The Pradakshinam should be done slowly and never in a hurry, Our thoughts and actions must dwell on God. It is normal to do Pradakshinam always in a clockwise direction. This is because we assume that Lord is always on our right side. This reminds that we must always lead a righteous life , in the right path called Dharma.
Skanda Purana States that The sins committed by the mind are destroyed by the first step (of pradaksina), the sins committed in speech by the second and the sins perpetrated by the body by the third step. Accordingly the number of pradakshinas are one for Ganesha, two for Surya (Sun), three for Shiva, four for Devi and Vishnu and seven for Peepal, Arayaal (sacred fig). In Shiva temples, the devotees start the Pradakshina as usual from the front and go clockwise till they reach the gomukhi (the outlet for abhisheka water) from the Sanctum Sanctorum. The drainage outlet for the ritual ablution offered on the Shiva Linga with water, milk is not to be crossed. So the worshippers have to return in anti-clockwise direction till they reach the other side of the drainage outlet to complete the circle. Accordingly the first padakshina destroys all sins including brahmahathya papa (sin due to slaying of Brahmins), the second makes the worshipper an adhikaari (qualified person for material and spiritual pursuits) and the third helps the person in obtaining naindra-sampaada (pleasures of life which lead to final liberation). A number of twenty one pradakshinas in a day is considered most beneficial. All these actions knowingly or unknowingly have salutary effect to ward off the ego from the mind of the devotee. It is noteworthy that the purpose of temple worship is never achieved unless one understands that visits to temples are meant to help the devotee to shed his ego.
We cannot draw a circle without a center point. The Lord is the center, source and essence of our lives. We acknowledge this by performing Pradakshina. Recognizing Him as the focal point in our lives, we go about doing our daily chores. This is the significance of Pradakshina.
Also every point on the circumference of a circle is equidistant from the centre. This means that wherever we may be or whoever we may be, we are equally close to the Lord. His grace flows towards us without partiality. According to Adi Sankaracharya, real Pradakshina is the meditation that thousands of universes are revolving around the Great Lord, the unmoving centre of all forms. There is a popular legend about the significance of Pradakshina. Once Lord Shiva wanted his two sons, Ganesha and Karteka , to get “worldly experience” and asked them take a “tour of the universe”. While Subrahmanya spent decades traveling the world on his peacock, Ganesha just walked a full circle around his mother and father and is believed to have explained “since the world is contained within you, I have already encircled the world”!yes it is but requires quite a lot of practice. Generally you could learn to Lucid Dream with a month of practice, but if you want to experience a long and vivid Lucid Dream, then it will take a minimum of few months of practice. There are various techniques, do your research. there are plenty of online materials available describing the techniques, most of it can be self-learned but one thing that’s a must is practice every single day. I have just listed down the stages of Lucid Dreaming:
Lucid Dreaming is very much a staged process, the ones that matter to you are:
1) Drive – Cultivate Interest, Build Motivation and set goals
2) Preparation – Get your Sleep Schedule in order, bring your Dream Recall to at least 2 full Dreams/night, start doing at least daily Reality checks.
3) Induction – Do hourly RCs, Meditate, work further on your Dream Recall, start one Induction method and stick with it. Do this until you are becoming lucid at least once a week.
4) Stabilization – Before starting your Dream Adventures spend at least a month just stabilizing and walking around in your dreams to get your Clarity Level up.It’s important to complete one stage before advancing to the next. Few books you could refer are ETWOLD, Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, the new Holecek Dream Yoga book etc.
The fact of the matter is, there exist NO 33 crore Gods.. The exact word that occurs in the Vedas for ‘crore’ is Koti (कोटी) which in many languages like Marathi literally indicate the numerical value of crore. But are we really to take that meaning?
If we go deep in the language of Sanskrit, we understand that the word Koti indeed does mean ‘crore’ but more correctly, it means ‘types’. So 33 Koti Gods means 33 types or families of Gods. Accepting this, then who are those 33 ‘families’ of Gods which we have? Plus, do Gods like Durga, Gnpati, Skanda,etc have any place in that?
So here are the 33 families of Gods- 12 Adityas + 11 Rudras + 8 Vasus + 2 Ashwini Kumar = 33 Families
The last two families of Ashwini Kumar are replaced by Indra and Prajapati sometimes. But this seems improbable since Indra or Prajapati was a general post with many people being named as Indra or Prajapati at many times.
Let us see these people in detail-
12 Adityas or द्वादशादित्य are the sons of Aditi and hence called Adityas. The names of these 12 Adityas are Tvashta (त्वष्ट), Pusha (पूषा ), Vivasvan (विवस्वान), Mitra (मित्र ), Dhata (धाता), Vishnu (विष्णू), Bhaga (भग), Varuna (वरुण), Savitru (सवितृ ), Shakra (शक्र ), Ansha (अंश ) and Aryama (अर्यमा). The Rigveda has just eight of these Adityas with certain Brahmanas mentioning all 12 of them. The Puranas unanimously mention the number to be 12. Their mother Aditi along with these are praised in the Rigveda as proper Gods. These were the sons of Kashyapa rishi. One of these Aditya, Vivasvan was the father of Vaivasvat Manu from whom the genealogies of kings started.11 Rudras or एकादशरुद्र are those Rudraganas who are said to have originated from Brahmadeva’s anger. Their names are Manyu (मन्यु), Manu (मनु), Mahinas (महिनस ), Mahan (महान ), Shiv (शिव ), Rutudhvaj (ऋतुध्वज ), Ugrareta (उग्ररेता ), Bhava (भव), Kaal (काल ), Vamdev (वामदेव) and Dhrutavrat (धृतव्रत). Their names vary in different scriptures but the number remains same.
8 Vasus or अष्टवसू are sons bron from Dharma rishi and Vasu. Their names are Drona (द्रोण ), Pran (प्राण ), Dhruva (ध्रुव ), Aka (अक), Agni(अग्नी), Dosha (दोष), Vasu (वसू) and Vibhavasu (विभावसु ).
The 2 Ashwini Kumars were born from the Sun and were the doctors of the Devas. These tow had helped Chyavan Bhargav rishi to regain his youth.
Ref : This Article written by Gaurav Banerjee
The earth has got very powerful magnetic forces around it, that let’s it function the way it is. Iron is an important component in our blood stream and it’s required for our sustenance. Have you ever noticed that when you stand upright and when you keep your body horizontal, there is a difference in your blood pressure? This is because when the body is upright, the pressure needs to be high enough for the blood to traverse to various parts against gravity while in a horizontal direction a similar amount of pressure might actually damage or rupture the blood vessels. So the body adjusts. Similarly to gravity there is a magnetic field around earth as well and the body needs to be aligned in a direction which is in tandem with the magnetic field of earth.
Sleeping against the magnetic field of earth for a few days won’t cause any major harm but over a period it will affect. Know that there are small damages that do happen to your brain when pressure is exerted. Might not cause a major damage and cause you to go into a coma or die but slowly it affects your grey matter.
East – Best position to sleep.
West – Ok
South – Ok
North – NoOm signifies the four states of the supreme being mainly the three sounds in Om (Aum) denote the waking, dreaming ,deep sleep state and the silence between successive repetitions of the mantra represents the turiya state or the fourth state. The three states denotes the conscious, sub conscious and the unconscious state of the mind. According to some of the scriptures and samkhya, they believe that the whole material creation which includes the human mind and body are a manifestation of the mula prakriti (primordial creation) which in turn is formed of the three gunas mainly the sattva, rajas, tamas. The 3 letters corrsoponds to the 3 gunas as:
A for tamas which means darkness, ignorance. U for rajas which means passion, dynamism and M for sattva which means purity, truth and light. And the last state which is the silence between the 2 Aums represents a state of pure consciousness which transcends the three gunas. Some literature also have interpreted the meaning of Aum as A for Brahma the creator, U for Vishnu the sustainer and M for Shiva who is the destroyer and the silence between the 2 Om sounds as the reality that lies beyond trinity. Certain other scripts have modified it and said that A means the present, U is for the past an M is for the future and the silence between the sounds is to represent the reality beyond time and space.
Significance of Chanting Om on the Vedic Vaani section discusses this in detail.
Excellent information, thanks for sharing. I have been to Ekambareshwarar and it’s a beautiful temple.
There is an interesting story about Ekambareswarar temple and the sacred mango tree. As per the legend, the goddess Parvati once playfully closed the eyes of Lord Shiva, and the entire universe went into darkness. Due to this blunder, Parvati had to take birth on the earth (as Kamakshi). Kamakshi came to Kanchipuram, made Shiv linga out of sand, and installed it under a mango tree and worshipped with the objective of getting married to Lord Shiva. The Vegavati river overflowed and threatened to engulf the Shiva Linga. Kamakshi, embraced the Linga and saved it from getting eroded. Lord Shiva appeared before Kamakshi and married her. The mango tree under which Kamakshi installed Shiv linga is believed to be still there in this temple complex, which is believed to be 3000 years to 3500 years old. This mango tree is the sthala vruksham of this temple. The mango tree is said to bear fruits of four different tastes in each season, representing four Vedas of Hinduism. You can find the small shrine with the idols of Kamakshi and Shiv linga under this sacred mango tree. Ekambareshwarar means “Lord of Mango Tree”.
I would like to quote a proverb here.” The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”
From my experience I feel they can seduce you to do things that you will surely not do otherwise. They tend to even torment you with your past actions and can even scare and hurt you. I have literally experienced all of this. One day i almost got killed and i think it needs to be really powerful to do that.
Sometimes I feel isnt it about what we focus our attention on to. Our power of thought have never been more effective than it is at this time of the human history. May be there is a hidden meaning behind behind the number 22 but at the same time I feel it is all about what we think and want to believe.
Money can determine your self worth at times but not always. It is like living in a state of non attachment . When you have not enough , you start panicking and getting worried and when you think you have sufficient then you tend to be happy and contented with the luxuries around . It determines a person’s emotional status.
I have lost my husband for 3 years now. I miss him terribly even today .Can anyone tell me how long does it take to have these heavenly visits?
Relationships are something which needs to be worked on constantly. But if you are a person who believes in astrology then it is important to analyse the complete natal charts of both the individuals. Just mere zodiac sign wont help.
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