SEETA THE SHAKTI

     Most of us know SEETA  as Lord Rama's wife  and se had somewhat secondary role  and we may not know the origin of Seeta. We knew that Seeta was King Janak's daughter and Lord Ram went to King Jana and in the Swayamvar he picked up the SHIV DHANUSHYA  and that is how he got married to her. We also know that King Janak  received her from a farmer. The farmer was working in farm and he found a box and the box contained a small girl and so he took her to King Jnak and he adopted her and when she greo up and baceme of age for the marriage the King announced the Swayamvar and invited many kings . The contest was to put an arrow on the Shiv  Dhanushya.- the Bow received from Lord Shiv. Seeta was playing with this Bow and when the many Kings tried to pick it up, no one could even lift it  and not even Ravan..And then Lord Ram came and easily picked it up and when he was putting the arrow the Dow broke and then the Parshuram came in. He was extremely angry. But that is  a another story.

    I wanted to to tell the origin of Seeta. There was a king named Padmaksha  and he worshiped Lakshmi  and then she appeared he asked her to be born as his daughter . Lakshmi told him that he has to ask to Lord Vishnu. So he did that and Lord Vishnu agrees  and he had a daughter called Padmavati. Ravan came to know about Padmavati and decided to attack King Padmaksha.So, Padmavati jumped in a fire and committed suicide . Ravan found 5 diamond in the ashes. He put them in a box and kept in in his house near Devhara, His wife Mandidari could not even move it, she opened it and found a very small girl in it. She told Ravan to get rid of it and warned him that if he does not do so that girl will destroy entire Rakshsa society.. With great effort he took it in a plane and berried it in a farm in city called Mithila. And then in future a farmer found it when he was preparing the land for sowing and he took it to the King Janak. She was the Goddess of Power The Ravan could not move the small box that she was in and then the Bow that many kings who could not even pick up she was playing with as a small child.

IMPORTANCE OF NAMA-KIRATANAM

   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.

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJESTIVE

    We have seen in our life how we have a disagreements with friends and relatives and many a times unknown people. I was visiting one my my friends the other day. The current topic of tennis star, unvaccinated being detained by Australian government was the topic of our discussion. The opinion was he should not be allowed to play in Australia as he should be not an exception to the rule. 'Why should he have Privileges that ordinary person does not have it?' We all have  incidences when WE get the privileges and don't complain. Things like getting ahead in line as we know someone or getting tickets as we know some one . The point that I was making is that when we look at OURSELF or things that pertain to US our outlook is different. So this is a old story but different point than privileges.

    The story is from stories of Birbal and Akbar. There are many stories related to these two. One day King Akbar was walking through the city with Birbal his secretary of state. They had changed in such a way that none could recognize them. They came across a lady who had a child playing in dirt , The child was full of dirt and was also not very good looking . Something happened and the child started crying and the mother came out and picked up the child and started kissing him on chick. Akbar was surprised. He asked Birbal how stupid that lady is . The child is dirty and is ugly  and this lady is kissing the child. Birbal  told Akbar that I will explain you tomorrow. The next day he called the lady's husband to the palace . he told her that we want you to pick a best looking child in the whole city . So you can go to different places and find out one child that YOU think is best looking  and does not seem to have any fault . You have 24 hours and come tomorrow. The man went allover and every time he saw some child he felt that that was too fat or too skinny or too dark or too fair in complexion. At the end of the day he went home without selecting anyone. Birbal had sent a person who had followed him without his knowledge. The husband went home and the wife noticed that he was worried . So she asked him as to what was on his mind . He told the wife that the king has asked him to pick BEST LOOKING CHILD in the city and after going around the city he could not find one - EVRY CHILD HAD SOME FAULT. The wife told him not to worry and took him to the crib where their child was sleeping and asked the husband 'Do you think there is anyone more beautiful than their child?' 

    The next day the father took the child to the palace  and presented his son as the best looking child in the town. The King was surprised But Birbal was not . He gave them gifts and send them home . The moral of the story is we can not find faults with ourselves or people that we love ,but for every body else we notice smallest of the fault. .  

DON'T FORGET THE CIRCLE

      Happy New Year .

   I am sure that everyone has had celebration of the new year's eve  and enjoyed the party and are glad that 2021 is over. We all hope that the 2022 is better than 2021 and we talk of something else than mask and covid and vaccine and unvaccinated etc. But with time passing by all of us tend to forget that we are getting old. This blog is not to make anyone feel unhappy, but one must not forget the aging process. But it remind me old story. The Yamadoot - messenger of Lord Yama who is considered God of Death in Vedic religion came to take away the life of one old man, he asked them how come you don't give any warning . The Yamadoot answered, "what do you think was grey hair and receding hairline and loosing teeth and the wrinkles that you tried to cover with makeup ?" So on this first day of 2022 I want to say that we all do what we have to do. The old Kishorkumar song -translated in English, 'You lost childhood playing around - tou lost youth in sleeping and now in old age you are crying that the life is gone and there is no time. So I want to tell a old story and that may help to understand what I want to remind all. 

   In a family there was a couple was living with their son who was 7-8 years old. The father of the husband was also staying with them. One day the grandfather was bringing  a glass bowl from kitchen and it dropped from his hands and broke . The daughter in law was mad  and went out and brought a plastic bowl for him and instructed him to not use glass bowl and use only plastic bowl. In next few days was the husband's birthday. So everyone decided to buy gifts . There was a party arranged by the wife. As the husband started opening up the gifts, he noticed that he had a gift from his son. He decided to open that first and as he unwrapped it, he found out a plastic bowl. He was surprised and wanted to ask the son as to why he bought the bowl. The son told him that with this birthday he was older by one year and so he may drop the glass bowl ,so he decided to get him a plastic bowl which will not break even if it falls to the floor. The mother was speechless. The obvious fact that we tend to forget is that we are getting older and we must 'take care of the business' and I don't mean money or property etc. 

    ONCE AGAIN HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ONE AND ONLY ONE

   Hindu or Vedic religion has many Gods and people tend to worship one or other and sometimes have problem with different Gods and some would not consider other Gods as real Gods and that has created problems in society. Unfortunately many have not understood that the GOD is only one and the statues that we have is only for our convenience. In history some of the greatest of the devotees have made that mistake. One has to understand that the GOD has no form or qualities and it is only for our understanding that the GOD takes different forms as we can not worship formless GOD. Even when other religions claim to have no Idol worship, they tend to have some type of form like cross or Virgin Mary. This story is of one great devotee that was enlightened about this. 

  Narahari Sonar was a goldsmith and from his childhood was worshiper of Lord Shiva. He was true devotee but would not worship anything other than Lord Shiv. One dat a rich man came to him as he wanted to offer his appreciation for Lord Pandurang , which a form of Lord Krishna which in turn is Lord Vishnu's Avatar - reincarnation. The Rich man wanted to have a golden belt prepared for the Pnadurang . Lord Pnadurang is in town called Pandhari and the story is that the lord came to see Pundalik his devotee. So the Narahari being goldsmith was told to do the belt . But Narahari did not want to go to the temple of Vishnu as he was devotee of Lord Shiva. So he told the man to go and get the measurement of the waist on his own and he will create the golden belt. The rich man went to the temple and gave the measurement to Narahari . When the belt was done and the man took it to the temple it was too small. So the man did take new measurement and went to Narahari who did new belt as per the measurement given to him . This time the belt was too large . So the man requested  Narahari that he should do the measurement himself. Reluctantly he agreed but told him that he will do the job but will take the measurement blindfolded as he did not want to see the Lord Vishnu. So both went to the temple of Pandurang . As Narahari started checking the measurement and touched the statue of the Pandurang, he could see that statue being that of Lord Shiva . He was stunned and so he opened the eyes  and what he saw was not Lord Shiva but it was Pnadurang - form of Lord Vishnu. So he closed his eyes and started working again and again he saw Lord Shiva ,as soon as he touched the statue . Again when he opened the eyes and saw , it was not Lord Shiva but it was Lord Pnndurang. Noe his eyes OPENED -he was enlightened that Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu are one and the same.. 

    So, we have a form that we trust , pray, worship as we find it easier and that form is called ISHTA DEVATA . But all the forms are that of the GOD which is formless. 

PRAYER

   I had written about a story by Tolstoy  on prayers. This one is similar to that. The massage is same but the story is better . One can look at this in many ways. 

   In a town there was a temple and there was a priest. One day he saw a young girl aged 4 years come to temple. She stood in front of  statue of the God . She closed her eyes and she was saying something . The lips were moving  and the priest could not hear what she was saying. But after couple of minutes she opened eyes and bowed down and left. This continued for several days. So the priest was amused . SO one day he asked the little girl as to what does she  say when she does prayer.? She told him that she did not know any formal prayer and so she would close the eyes and do the alphabets -A to Z 4 times and then tell God that he knew what she wanted to to say  and he will KNOW the prayer anyway.

   The priest was speechless. This is devotion One does not need to to knw the formal process of prayers or the chanting  of the so called Mantras . But this is true only if one has unconditional devotion and trust. As long as one is doing prayer for the Love and not Demanding things for himself or herself.

ASSUMPTION

   In life we have so many assumptions and we are correct most of the the time. We plan for tomorrow and next year and also many years down the road the retirement .In the brain  evolution from animals to human beings one of the qualities that has developed is the planning for the future. But in doing so we ASSUME many things . I had read somewhere that many people who have contributed to social security in USA , do not live long enough to collect it. So this is a short story abiut the assumption. 

  In Mahabharat, there is one incidence, Dharmaraj had designated time for donations . He would give money or grains or food etc to the people who came to him asking for something. The time was fixed as he could not do this randomly all the time as he was King  and had other work. So one day he was sitting with his brothers  and he was giving food . grain or money to needy people that came to him. The time expired  and he was still sitting  and a brahmin came in . He wanted some grain so he can take it home  and cook and eat. The time had expired and so Dharmaraj  told the brahmin that the time is over and he needs to come next day  and he will give him the grain. The Brahmin was disappointed and he started going back. Bhim was sitting next to Dharmraj and he smiled . So Dharmaraj asked him as to why he smiled. Bhim answered . He said ''By asking the Brahmin to come back tomorrow, you have assumed so many things . You have assumed that tomorrow You will be alive and he will be alive and you will still have desire -intension to GIVE . How do do you know all these things will be there.'' Dharmraj called back the Brahmin. and gave him the grains. 

  This the reason there is saying that what you could do TOMORROW do it TODAY  and what you can do TODAY do it NOW as in seconds there may be PRALAY - end of world and then you will be left with not doing it.