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Most of us visit temples. Most of us offer our prayers and take Pradakshina around the sacred deity of the temple. Do you know why you do this (Pradakshina)? Is it because our elders do it we follow them blindly. What ever be our existing notion about act, it’s important that we understand it right and its basic essence.
Based on a few books that I have read and the various spiritual discourses that I have attended, I am convinced on the following two explanations particularly in the order mentioned below:
1. We humans commit sins in three ways:
- Kaya : By Actions
- Vacha : By Words
- Manasa : By Thoughts
We go around the deity thrice for the atonement of each of the sins mentioned above. By this, we ask for forgiveness of our committed sins to the all pervasive, omnipotent lord.
2. We go round the deity in clockwise direction with the deity being on our right(for importance of right side, read the blog on The Left Hand) and also the central point of our path. By this, we demonstrate that God is the center of our existence and we all revolve around Him. He also exists everywhere. So when we do Pradakshina or circumambulation, we accept that our actions and thoughts are always centred around Him.
This is my understanding on this subject. If you disagree to what I have written or have something more to add, please feel free to comment.
-Sandeep Mahagaonkar.
I had traveled to Germany a few years back. As was the traditional practice of my project manager to take us out for a dinner before our departure back to homeland, this time too, it was no different. The only difference when compared to the outing on the previous occasion(s) was the number of people. Along with us three Indians were five non-Indians. With a soothing ambience and chilled wheat beer in long glasses gloriously arranged in front of us, it seemed like eternity. I was desperate to get started and we did so once the last glass was filled to the brim. The glasses clanked in harmony and ‘cheers’ came out the call unanimously.
This outing surely wouldn’t have been memorable had not a colleague in the group asked us a question on why we (Indians) consider the left hand inauspicious. There were many other topics that were discussed prior to this. However, this one question put us all in a fix. As we sat there, gulping beer, thinking of a response to a question fired at us, there was a sarcastic comment made on this practice by another colleague that was rather obnoxious. I would not mention that here but it surely made us feel miserable. The topic of discussion was changed, but the frustration of not having answered one of our followed practices remained deep inside me.
Later, a few years down the line, as my focus shifted in understanding our traditions, customs, practices and beliefs better, I got the answer to this bizarre question on the inauspiciousness of the left hand. The reasoning is that human body is divided in to two states. One is a demonic state and the other a godly state. We all get positive thoughts (happiness, motivation etc) and negative thoughts (anger, resent, greed etc). This is due to the two states that we possess. The left half of the body is considered to possess the demonic state and hence it’s considered to be inauspicious. Just to mention a few, when receiving money, it should not be with the left hand since it might me spent injudiciously and for an incorrect act. The food taken with left hand may cause negative thoughts and should be avoided. This is what our custom says. I wish I had known this earlier so that I could have defended our practice with a strong reasoning than rather having sat mum that evening.
Nevertheless, better late than never. I am in the process of understanding our customs and traditions so that I’m not a silent spectator again when it comes to defending our beliefs in the future. I have started, HAVE YOU?
-Sandeep Mahagaonkar.
This is another scintillating topic. I’m not referring to day dreaming here. I mean the visions that we see when we are asleep and our sub-conscious mind takes us through a journey that is sublimely mysterious and unpredictable. At the end of it, we wake up, flummoxed, trying to gather the fading glimpses of images that were so much a part of our inner state of memory. Sometimes we succeed in recollecting what we dreamt and sometimes we are denied of this.
Dream, perhaps is the mind’s way of unfolding its colossal potential. We humans, as science has depicted, use a very meager percentage of its power. I believe that the mind, in the shape of dreams, fulfills the void that we create by not giving it its desired workout.
Everybody see dreams. So do I. Sometimes, the dreams that I see influence me. I have dreamt of doing well in a game of cricket and I have done well in the field on the succeeding day. I have met sages in my dreams and I was molded towards spirituality based on the conversations that I had with them. I have dreamt demons and death and have woken up with unpleasant feelings. I have dreamt of strange romantic encounters with unexpected people and wondered the reasoning behind this. The dreams have been very diverse and I have reacted in different ways to these sundry dreams. Some made me get positive and some had resentful feelings and I had to overcome such thoughts.
Nobody knows why we see dreams. It could be some incident from the past life or it could be something that’s about to happen.
In the Vishnu Sahsranaama, we come across the following stanza:
|| Uttarano Dushkutiha PunyoDusswapna Naashanaha ||
Part of this means “One (Vishnu) who is the destroyer of bad dreams”.
So there we have it. It’s documented in the puranaas that dreams are inevitable and the almighty can relieve us of the thoughts created from bad dreams. We need to pray for good, positive dreams and take learning’s from them. Sleep well folks and more importantly, dream well!!
-Sandeep Mahagaonkar
This is a very intriguing topic for me. For years I have yearned to understand the factors that govern how friendships happen. How is it that in our lives, we meet a certain set of people and how a subset of these people, make a difference, forever?
We normally never take time to ponder over this phenomenal process. It’s perhaps due to the fact that, like many other things, it’s a natural process. But, observing this from a spiritual or philosophical point of view, this appears to be a very well formed and devised plan. Otherwise how could it be possible that just a few select people from the billions form your friend circle? Why is person X instead of person Y your good pal? Why do you like to spend time in someone’s company and not so comfortable with someone else?
In every situation in our life, we look for comfort with a friend’s presence. Be it happiness or grief, mind tries to pull in a friend to share the joy or agony. We have certain emotional attachments to certain friends and can go out of our way to help them. We care about them and are deeply influenced by their joy or grief. Why?
The reasons surely are far beyond our understanding. However, what we can at least imagine is that, there surely exists a connection between this birth and the previous. True friends could be the people who were among your trusted folks previously. It’s difficult to comprehend with the limited philosophical awareness that we possess, but reflecting deeply into this can probably help us understand this better.
All said and done, friends form the basis of our lives. It’s a solid foundation on which all the emotional bonding can be built up with ease. It’s said that we don’t choose our parents or our relatives, but we choose our friends. I would say, we are made to choose our friends by the divine laws of nature. God bless my friends !!
