navratri

Hey everybody...decided to pen down a few words on the auspicious first day of navratri...I so miss the hustle bustle of Durga puja celebrations :-( ...still remember the good old days of my childhood spent at Bokaro...a sleepy town back then....and the Durga Puja festivities....didn't observe the navratri fast back then.....was just content with buying new clothes and visiting Puja Pandals to worship Maa Durga....Papa was the guiding force behind the religious feelings we have nurtured all these years..he would painstakingly teach us each and every shloka and mantra with huge loads of patience...every Puja I am flooded with those memories....listening to the dhaak at the pandal...decking up with our finery....gorging on the delicious food pepared by my mummy....The place in US where I live now is also quite sleepy ;-) unfortunately however, sans the Puja celebrations!!

Day 2

I noticed today that I had inadvertently started my blog on a very auspicious day on Hindu Calendar-Mahalaya. Yes, for those who are not closely associated with the Hindu Mythology, this day marks the beginning of Vijayadashmi or Dussehra (or Durga Puja). 

Several questions arise in the whirlpool of my mind. Is it necessary to pray? What do we pray for? Is there a definite way that we must follow for the prayer to be effective? Is our general behavior a form of prayer?  

I seek answers in the Bhagavad Gita. When Arjuna is distressed and morally confused on the battlefield, Krishna comes to his rescue and provides him with answers. He tells him to fulfill his duties as a warrior, differentiate between right and wrong, and realize the temporal nature of our physical self. Krishna also explains vedantic and yogic philosophies.

How does that relate to my initial questions related to prayer? It does, in a very subtle way. It is my understanding that prayer should be offered sans any materialistic demands. A prayer should help a person enlighten his/her immortal self (soul), strengthen his/her conscience. Why? Because conscience governs our ability to determine between right and wrong. It helps us to make the right choices. Duty, to me, is a form of prayer as well. Each of us has a duty to perform, duty as a son, a brother, a wife, a husband, a mother, a father, a ruler, and so on. How many of us do it successfully? 

Today, we have a lot of people with decayed conscience. Thats because our prayers have become superficial. And as a result, we have grown outwardly. Instead of getting closer to our inner self, we have grown away from it. The more obsessed we have become with the materialistic pursuits, our general behavior has spiraled for worse. Ironically, human beings were never so far from humanity in the history of time.      

Day 1 - The beginning

I decided to blog after dilly-dallying for a while. The decision was big and I was beginning to get wary of a multitude of thoughts that had stopped me until now. How would the netizens look upon my irrelevant musings? Would it be a target for people to vent their general frustrations? Would I be able to consistently blog or would my blogspot simply slip into the world wide web oblivion? The concerns were innumerable and problems incessant. The first step had to be taken. I took it.