On rituals and traditions

On Dassera

Note : Please also refer to posts dt:

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Friday, November 8, 2013

Friday, November 29, 2013

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Thursday, November 28, 2013

to understand about rituals and traditions of Indian culture and as to why we celebrate the festivals.

As already explained in the previous blogs, festivals are celebrated with physical, psychological, social, financial, cultural and spiritual benefits kept in view. Other benefits are already discussed earlier. I’ll just explain the spiritual meaning behind it this time.

Creation

Dolls are arranged on steps of odd numbers for 10 days during Dassera by some sects and during Diwali and Sankranti by other sects of people of South India.

Dolls did not exist on the steps before start of Dassera. (The same explanation applies if applied for Diwali and Sankranti too!). but, they did exist – some in loft of the house-holder or in the shops before that. That means they existed even when they didn’t. It means they weren’t seen on steps and hence were not seen by all but they existed elsewhere.

Likewise, souls exist even when not manifested in this world as the unmanifest in the God – Brahman.

When He decides to create they are placed on various steps. Various steps represent various time zones of creation – or various yugas. They also represent the various levels of spiritual growths of the soul.

Finally after 3/10 days depending upon the sect, the entire exhibits are packed and kept on the loft till next year same time. Like-wise, after completion of 4 yugas, the great deluge called Maha Pralaya submerges the entire universe and the entire universe is under water for millions of human years but which in actuality is only one night for the Almighty.then the entire drama of creation starts all over again.

Now, this ritual/tradition is a remainder that the entire creation is just an artistic creation of the Divine. At what steps of evolution or spiritual growth am I? this is the question that one should pose to self every year around this time and assess one’s growth in the last one year and make note of necessary resolutions to speedup this process in the coming year.

....contd.....