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Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -11.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-11.  A total transformation, a transfiguration of all values is brought about in His activity and life, and also in His teachings, so that His life and teachings are a sort of a superhuman presentation before us. And we know how difficult it is for a human being to confront a superhuman presentation of any kind. But, this is the ideal before us and this is our goal. Whether or not we are able to understand it, this is what the life of Sri Krishna tells us. The Bhagavadgita, the cream of His teaching, also conveys to us that things are not what they seem to our senses. This is what we learn from His life also. There is something quite different from what we sense, feel, think and understand as valuable. This is the Truth behind things for which His life and teachings stood and which He Himself embodied in His own life. This is the message for us today, which we should try to imbibe into our lives by invoking

Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -10.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-10. The peculiarity and the speciality of the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna was that, as I have already hinted, He was an all-comprehensive personality. He was a householder and not a Sannyasin. He had wife and children. He was a politician and a statesman. He was a soldier and also a servant when the time demanded that kind of attitude from Him. And at the same time, He was a person with a comprehensive understanding of the various shades of the difference which relationships put on among things. Therefore, it is difficult to understand, ordinarily, the significance behind many of the things that He did and also many of the things He said, especially in the Bhagavadgita. The Mahabharata and the Srimad Bhagavata are the monumental records of His life, His activities and His achievements. The Bhagavadgita may be regarded as the great gospel that He gave to mankind. It is as difficult to understand His teaching as it is to understan

Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -9.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-9. Thus to worship God is to worship the whole world and to serve God is to serve humanity, and vice versa. That is why we are sometimes told, "Janata janardanah; manava seva madhava seva," etc. These sayings have a great significance and a meaning behind them. Janata and Janardana, Manava and Madhava cannot be identical except in terms of the perfection or Purnata of God. Thus our communion with God is simultaneously a communion with everything in the world. Thus, this is an occasion for us to strengthen ourselves spiritually. Spiritual strength, of course, is the real strength and real power that we are seeking. And in this particularly specialised form of worship and communion with the ideal of Bhagavan Sri Krishna on this holy day, we have, no doubt, made a very vast and comprehensive achievement which will ensure prosperity in every walk of life. Swami Krishnananda To be continued  ....

Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -8.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-8. There is a difference between contact and communion. You can never commune with any object in this world, but you can only come in contact with it. What is the difference between contact and communion? In contact you really do not imbibe the characteristics of the object, and you are not really in possession of the object. In contact, again, you do not receive into yourself the power of the object, and, therefore, you cannot also enjoy that object or have control over it. This would also give an idea of the generally unknown fact that our daily efforts at coming in contact with things, including persons, with a desire to possess and enjoy them, is a futile effort. It will not bring any fruit at all, except pain. The Gita says, "Ye hi samsparsaja bhogah duhkhayonaya eva te": The pleasures born of sense-contact are wombs of pain. Every contact brings pain and suffering and ultimate ruin of ones

Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -7.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-7. You are as though possessed by God at that time. You yourself become a sort of Avatara, to put it in a meagre sense, at the time of true worship. The invocation is made in such a complete form, and with such method and system of rituals, that you assume in your body, mind and soul, in your total personality, the various aspects and manifestations of the personality of the Divinity, God. So, on this day we have such an occasion for worship of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, which means to say that we have to put on in our inward character and meditation, a deep sense of our unity with the various aspects of His personality which are co-extensive with all that is external to Him and all that is transcendent as well as immanent. This is to give you an idea of 'Purnata', what Purna-Avatara would mean and what it also means to worship and meditate and adore such a Purna-Avatara. If meditation is difficult, worship

Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -6.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-6. Our meditations and our worships are really silent invocations of the characteristics of the Object of our worship and meditation. Every worship is an invocation, and every form of meditation is an invocation; and invocation means the calling of the force into our own being and the planting of the power of the Divine in our own personality. We have, in ritualistic or Tantric parlance, what is known as Nyasa, which is performed during the time of worship. The Pundits and Archakas who perform worship in temples know what Nyasa means. Nyasa is a Sanskrit word which means 'placing', 'stabilising', 'fixing', 'invoking', 'stamping'. All these meanings are conveyed by the word 'Nyasa'. At the commencement of the worship, whether it is done in one's own private sanctum sanctorum in the house or in a public temple, Nyasa is performed by every worshipper. In thi

Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-6. Part -5.

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Chapter-6. Lord Sri Krishna – The Purna-Avataram Part-5. All this teaching is like pouring water on a rock. It has made no impression upon us. The infinite is the Fullness, the Purna; and the finite is the Apurna. We individuals, the Jivatmas and everything in this world are Apurna, finites, but we enshrine the Infinite in our bosom. And the manifestation of the Infinite in the finite, the birth of God in man is possible, practicable and inevitable when the obstructions to Its manifestation are obviated totally. To speak from the point of view of the historical life which Bhagavan Sri Krishna is said to have lived thousands of years ago – let alone the spiritual or the mystical – we see a wholeness manifest in Him. His life was a fullness right from childhood up to the maturity of life. He was a completeness in every respect, even in his babyhood or childhood, a completeness in his adolescence, a completeness in his youth and maturity. He was a fullness of bo