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Today is Ugadi, the new years day and the start of the Navratri as well. This is the New Year as it was celebrated originally in India and many other cultures which followed the lunisolar calendar.
Ugadi is celebrated on the first day of the waxing moon after the first new moon succeeding the equinox.
As per the yogis, this signified a change in the energy and the seekers could use it to their advantage. It was the beginning of a new season.
In India, when one looks at the current situation, one finds that the country is indeed in need of a new energy. An energy that stands by the culture that has been shaped over thousands of years. Not because of some whim, or belief, or scripture but because of pursuit of the highest kind – to help a human being blossom in such a way that he himself is a reflection of the Divine. It was understood that the faculty of intellect also brought with it the ability of Choice and Discrimination – or Vivek. Choice and Discrimination, not between any moral positions, but between what is eternally true and what is of temporal existence. The understanding was that only something that is existentially eternal can be a Cosmic Truth. Something that shifts and changes is a temporary state that will eventually pass. If one was to look for immortality or to manifest the Divine – a Divine which is fundamentally primordial in nature – then one needs the pursuit of the Eternal and nothing else.
It was the ruthless pursuit of the Eternal to manifest the Divine in oneself and the understanding that Divine is not something that only privileged few can access but is available to every sub-atomic creation – which created the Indian civilization. When Divine is infinite, eternal and primordial then it IS everything and everyone. Therefore access to it could never be a privilege of any one person or being. Everyone was a Krishna and everyone was a Shiva essentially. Only realization of its immensity was missing. Like a seed unsowed and unflowered. Flower and you are Divine!
In such a culture where methods and sciences evolved around this basic understanding, we built ways and means for everyone’s well being. When Romans enjoyed seeing slaughter of human beings as entertainment, those in the sub-continent looked for ways to enhance their perception and understanding of the existence.
Between the Plastic Flowers and beautiful fragrant roses, one is convenience and another life. One is make-believe and the other an experience. You can keep believing that the plastic rose in your room is a rose, but it will never be able to fill you with the wonder and joy that the blossoming of an actual rose in the season provides you with. Yet, this plastic one can easily destroy the real one in one swift hit. That is the unfortunate part of the encounter of Belief and Experience. Between Gross and Subtle.
Over the last many centuries, the onslaught of the Gross and Belief have taken away a lot from the world. Specially Indian and its mystic wealth. It has rendered Indians, who were ruthless seekers once, into self-seeking easy-going and ignorant believers. When Belief sought to destroy the subtle mysticism of the Oriental, believing something without experience became the easy way out. No lazy person wants the effort of caring for a real rose, when the vicarious beauty of a plastic one will suffice. Fooling oneself and others is the easy way out.
Today, when we have two situations – one in Jawaharlal Nehru University where the students who shout for destruction of India are installed by media as heroes; and the other in NIT, Srinagar, where students who protest to uphold the Indian tricolor while they are beaten down are completely ignored by media despite requests for attention – one wonders. Where did we go wrong?
What makes Self-indulgence coupled with hatred for nation, the pre-requisite of being the hero in the new India? And how does fighting for the Indian nation – and its civilization that is unique and embracing – make one persona non grata?
What is amazing and often depressing for many is how the India-hating elements are completely in control of the media. It is as if they read and act to the same script. Those who fight for India and its civilizational character seem to be few and seemingly having lost the battle. In such a time, when those who want the centuries old civilizational wealth built on ruthless spiritual seeking to be saved and built upon, it is a moment of taking stock of the situation to chart the way forward.
In the yogic lore, between the Asuras – those who valued self-indulgence and gross level of existence – and Devas – who had through self-realization seeked for humanity and not self – a churning happened. In that churning – or Manthan – lot of effort was expended. When it seemed that Asuras – the all too powerful – will win, the Samudra Manthan – which ended up with the gift of immortality – was garnered by Devas and consumed for eternal life through strategy and tactic.
This story is central to most ancient lores. Despite the fact that it is known that immortality is impossible. The only immortality is in merging in the Divine fully by leaving one’s petty and limited existence. Then why would strategy needed to get that gift of self-realization?
Asuras had made the dissemination of the spiritual work almost impossible. It was by aligning with the Asuras and creating a space for the gift of Spiritual seeking to manifest that Devas – those who sought a higher consciousness – were able to realize themselves.
It is not the first time when blossoming of beings has been held hostage by those who seek to destroy life. It is also not the first time that this battle has been fought. It was fought by the Devas, it was fought by many enlightened beings and it was also fought by Guru Gobind Singh some centuries ago.
There comes a time when survival of the quest for blossoming is essential for fighting those for whom survival is the only quest!
One cannot at times let the Gladiators of gore have to be fought back so a garden of tulips and lotuses can be created and saved. It is a time of new beginning. When the past has to be let go with the new revived energy for self-enhancement.
This Ugadi is that time. When the blood of the NIT Srinagar students should be made to mean far more than the blood-curling cries for destruction of the nation which has defied the gross to nurture the subtle. Let us root for the real rose this new year!
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