Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals
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SPIRITUAL IMPORT OF RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS SWAMI KRISHNANANDA The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India Website: www.swami-krishnananda.org ABOUT THIS EDITION Though this eBook edition is designed primarily for digital readers and computers, it works well for print too. Page size dimensions are 5.5" x 8.5", or half a regular size sheet, and can be printed for personal, non-commercial use: two pages to one side of a sheet by adjusting your printer settings. CONTENTS About this Edition ..................................................................................... 2 Publisher’s Note To The Third Edition ............................................. 5 Preface ........................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ................................................................................................. 8 What is Religion? .................................................................................... 17 Sun—The Eye of the World ................................................................ 27 Siva—The Mystic Night ........................................................................ 37 Rama—The Apotheosis of Human Perfection ............................ 55 Sankara—The Genius ........................................................................... 71 Sivananda—The Fire of Sannyasa ........................................ 92 Knowledge as Means to Freedom ................................................. 104 Veda Vyasa—The Paragon of Power and Wisdom ................ 117 Saint—A Blend of Righteousness and Godliness .................... 129 Sri Krishna—The Purna-Avatara .................................................. 135 Lord Ganesa—The Remover of Obstacles ................................. 143 Sri Radha—The Divine Mystery .................................................... 154 Gurudev Sivananda—Physician of the Soul ............................. 159 The Esoteric Significance of the Devi-Mahatmya ..................... 168 The Sport of the Infinite .................................................................... 183 Yajna—Quintessence of the Culture of India ........................... 195 Lord Skanda—The Concentrated Divine Energy ................... 206 The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita .................................................... 218 Lord Dattatreya—Master par Excellence .................................. 231 Christ-Consciousness ......................................................................... 242 The Significance of Ekadasi ............................................................. 257 APPENDIX ............................................................................................... 264 The Awakening Message ........................................................... 264 The Purpose of Philosophy ....................................................... 273 To Thine Own Self Be True ....................................................... 281 Philosopher and Administrator ............................................. 290 PUBLISHER’S NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION As time passes, contexts change and the relevance of a book written many years ago gains new significance. So it is with The Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals. In this 21st century, as people have fully merged into consumerism, the intention and drive behind celebrating festivals has completely been erased, making them yet another occasion for celebration in the secular sense, an occasion to indulge in more clothes, more food, more adornments, filling the moment which was intended for spiritual ascent with noise and material—both antithetical to the original intention. This book is intended for anyone who wants to go deeper into why festivals came to be, their historical origin and, critically, their spiritual significance. Those who are already on the path spiritual will find terrific acceleration to their endeavors, enhanced meaning to their understanding thus far, and a new spirit to their pace. Others will find a clarification for why they need to alter their approach to ‘celebrating’ these moments in history that repeat year after year. It is very striking, even if obvious, that these events repeat year after year as if God Himself is giving us yet another chance to renew our relationship with life. This book is a compilation of the lectures on religious festivals, delivered by Swami Krishnananda on different occasions. Swamiji has only briefly hinted at the ‘story’ behind the festival while his effort has been entirely to stress the significance of the rituals of a festival for the spiritual ascension of man. As the Publisher’s Note to the second edition rightly observed, “There is a meaning behind every act, or ritual, in the religious field, even as there is a hidden purpose behind the implementation of any project or the doing of any work. Rarely are religions seen to awaken themselves to the spirit that they are expected to convey, the living flame which they enshrine and without which they remain forms without content.” Since these were lectures in their original form, the transcription seeks to retain the spoken word form in order to transport the enriching, divine flavour of Swamiji’s words and feelings to the reader. This is experienced distinctively in the lectures in the Appendix, which carry with them extra fire and intensity, especially since the subject matter itself was such. We are pleased to release this third edition of Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals on the auspicious occasion of the 5th anniversary of the Mahasamadhi of Revered Sri Swami Krishnanandaji. May his blessings and grace fill us even as we soak in the words of his messages. —THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY SHIVANANDANAGAR, 23rd November, 2006 PREFACE These random ideas which I expressed on various occasions have been brought together by the effort of my colleagues in the Ashram, and it should go without saying that this effort will amply be rewarded by the benefit that it is likely to render to spiritual seekers the world over. Being words spoken on the spur of the moment, they are perhaps more in the form of a visualisation or communication than a text deliberately written in any systematic manner. As it is well said that philosophy is the autobiography of the philosopher, students are likely to find here the infrastructure, the trend and the outlook that I sought to present to participants in religion, with a view to be of some aid to them in their efforts to find a meaning in religious life, or perhaps in life in its generality. Unprepared and unpremeditated as these disquisitions are, they will evidently carry a novel force of conviction arising from feeling and from a vision which can be considered as the framework of one’s existence. I shall be thankful if students, seekers and readers find here something which they would regard as their own. —SWAMI KRISHNANANDA INTRODUCTION The earliest statement of the Nature of Reality occurs in the first book of the Rig Veda: Ekam sat-viprah bahudha vadanti—the ONE BEING, the wise diversely speak of. The tenth book of the Rig Veda regards the highest conception of God both as the Impersonal and the Personal. The Nasadiya Sukta states that the Supreme Being is both the Unmanifest and the Manifest, Existence as well as Non- existence, the Supreme Indeterminable. The Purusha Sukta proclaims that all this Universe is God as the Supreme Person—the Purusha, with thousands of heads, thousands of eyes, thousands of limbs in His Cosmic Body. He envelops the whole cosmos and transcends it to infinity. The Narayana Sukta exclaims that whatever is anywhere, visible or invisible, all this is pervaded by Narayana, within and without. The Hiranyagarbha Sukta of the Rig Veda declares that God manifested Himself in the beginning as the Creator of the Universe, encompassing all things, including everything within Himself, the collective totality, as it were, of the whole of creation, animating it as the Supreme Intelligence. The Satarudriya or Rudra Adhyaya of the Yajur Veda identifies all things, the high and the low, the moving and the unmoving, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly—nay, every conceivable thing, with the all-pervading Siva, or Rudra, as the Supreme God. The Isavasya Upanishad says that the whole Universe is pervaded by Isvara or God, who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these. The Kena Upanishad says that the Supreme Reality is beyond the perception of the senses and the mind because the senses and the mind can visualise and conceive only the objects, while Reality is the Supreme Subject, the very precondition of all sensation, thinking, understanding, etc. No one can behold God because He is the beholder of all things. The Kathopanishad has it that God is the Root of this Tree of world existence. The realisation of God is regarded as the Supreme blessedness or sreyas, as distinct from preyas, or temporal experience of satisfaction. The Prasna Upanishad says that God is the Supreme Prajapati or Creator, in whom are blended both the matter and energy of the Universe. God is symbolised in Pranava, or Omkara. The Mundaka Upanishad gives the image of the Supreme Being as the One Ocean into which all the rivers of individual existence enter and with which they become one, as their final goal. The Mandukya Upanishad regards the Supreme Being as the turiya, or the Transcendent Consciousness, beyond the states