One of the things that we are asked to do when we worship God, is to do JAPA or repeating the name of Lord or chant BIJAMANTRA of out favorite God- ISTADEVATA . So Ishta-devata is the God that we develop some personal relationship.and we feel that it responds to our devotion.Ishta devata is SAGUN GOD, the God with form. The God is with no form but we for our own understanding have a form. We have difficulty with formalness God for worshiping. Even the Abrahamic religions have some for to worship -Cross or Mary or praying in some direction where Macca is located and then KABA etc. So we tend to repeat the name or a specific Mantra so many times - 108 is standard number. This story is related to the importance of this repetition.
When Seeta was abducted by Rvana, he knew that Lord Rama will come to fight . He needed all the help that he could get. So he woke up Kumbhakarna - who was his brother and used to sleep all the time.
When Kumbhakarna woke up and Rvana told him as to what he had done , he was mad and cursed Ravana and was not very happy. So he asked Ravan if after abducting Seeta,has he been successful in getting Seeta ? Ravana answered No . So then Kumbhakarna suggested Ravana to play trick and change himself in to look alike of Lord Rama. The Ravana answered, "For me to change myself in to a different looking person, I have to concentrate on that appearance and get it in my heart. So when I tried to concentrate on the Lord Rama , i feel like I don't want anything . I don't even care about BRAHMADYAN . When I look at my own wife Mandodari , she looks like my mother to me - so thinking about Seeta in any other way is impossible.'
So this is the principle of chanting or Japa and when we do that we develop a relationship with the Lord and that helps us in day to day behavior.
No comments:
Post a Comment