21 February 2020, Shabad Surat Sangam Ashram, Malke, Moga: Since ages we have been observing fast or some form of anushthana on the occasion of Shivratri. However, do most of us actually sit and pay some heed towards the significance of this occasion?
Sadhvi Chaitanya Puri Ji shares a powerful & practical side of celebrating the much-beloved festival signifying its importance in the journey of a sadhka who single-mindedly chooses to focus on ‘Shivoham, Shivoham, Shivoham!’ Let us too collect the divine message and make it a part of our life, our journey towards the eternal, towards our real self!
A glimpse of the discourse by Sadhvi Ji:
The story of Samudra Manthan is very well known amongst the Shiva bhaktas. It is said that to get the elixir or nectar (upon having which one was to become immortal) from the bottom of the ocean, once the devas and the rakshasas came together to churn the ocean. While the churning was in process, a lot of divine things emerged out of it. Amongst those, a deadly poison named Halahala also surfaced. Lord Shiva, who on being requested, came forward and engulfed thus, let that poison stay in his throat (kanth). As a result, his throat became blue colored and is therefore preached as ‘Neelkanth’. Now, pondering over the message lying therein can be well understood through the shloka stated by Lord Krishna in Bhagwat Gita (2.15) i.e. ‘yam hi na vyathayantyete purusham purusharshabha sama-dukha-sukham dhiram so’mritatvaya kalpate‘. In the contemporary world, one is seldom tolerant. That very moment someone points out a finger, we almost instantly react in rage. If we, watchfully cannot make an effort to rise above and beyond these, forget about the nectar; be far from having it.
So what do we ought to do so as to have it? Gurbani proclaims, ‘sarv rog ki aukhad naam‘, i.e. be it anything, the eternal solution lies in holding onto Guru-mantra. Day in and out, 24×7, one has to be careful about every passing second and connect it with the ultimate goal. There is absolutely no place for a word like ‘holiday’ in the dictionary of a sincere aspirant of the divine journey within. Step by step, we must strive to thrive the sole goal.
This absolutely doesn’t imply that one has to renunciate it all to have the goal. We can certainly do our job being non-selfish, can raise kids being non-attached, earn money being non-greedy. Because if somewhere we have this notion of taking one step towards our real self and the rest 23 steps in the opposite direction, we are smart enough to calculate the output we are to arrive at.
A tip: ‘Dharna’ is an important helping hand while we are at it. Recitation of His name just the way a parrot does is not going to take us anywhere near our goal anytime sooner. Therefore with the help of ‘dharna’, i.e. ‘I am not merely a compilation of flesh and thus bones beneath that, but an excerpt (ansha) of the divine. That supreme force is although omnipresent but for me, it resides in its absolute form in the tenth door within me…’ and so on, one can fasten up the process. Har Har Mahadev!
