Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals -13-11.
Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-11.
Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980.
They had to invoke God Himself. And I may tell you that the solution for all the evils of the world today is God only and not anything that man can do. Not I, not you, not anyone can solve the mystery of the evils of the world. Unless God is invoked, there is no hope. Lord Siva, the great Master of Yoga who was immersed in Samadhi, the abysmal universality of experience, was the only succour and the source of hope to the gods and angels, in the war depicted in the Skanda Purana.
When this triple force, Surapadma, Simhamukha and Tarakasura, attacked the celestials from all sides, they did not know whom to appeal for help. They ran to Brahma, the Creator. He said, "There is only one solution, which is difficult to conceive, but there is no other alternative. The force, the energy, the militant expression of Lord Siva is the only answer to this problem of yours." When God becomes militant, nobody can stand before Him.
When the lion stands up, you know that there can be none who can face it. God always keeps quiet. He is always in a state of Samadhi, as it were. He gives a long rope to everyone and never interferes with anybody's affairs. You may do anything that you like, you can hang yourself if you like and God is not bothered about it. But, when things become too bad and intolerable, when the whole world begins to cry, these great incarnations take place.
If you or I cry individually in a corner, that may not be sufficient to bring down the Incarnations. God tolerates when one man cries or two people cry, because many others are happy. But when everyone starts crying, He cannot bear it anymore. This was the condition before the birth of Skanda. The whole world was in a state of travail, turmoil and agitation. The birth of the War-god Kumarasambhava, as Kalidasa puts it, is the story behind this religious festival called Skanda Shashthi.
Swami Krishnananda
To be continued ..
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