Godmen & Godwomen in India

Talking about Godmen and Godwomen is now the trending thing on Indian Channels after the Radhe Ma issue. Unfortunately there is either extreme support or extreme hatred shown. Regardless of whether she has committed a crime or not, people should know the following.

• You can call your godmen/godwomen in any lovable way or not (calling someone maata or maa or sri or guru)
• What they wear doesnt matter. i.e. someone wearing a saffron robe doesnt make them pious and someone wearing skirts/jeans doesnt make them un-pious.
• There is nothing called "new age guru". Whoever you follow or want to be like can be your guru. 
• Any guru can give only if they get. If people give, ask the people why they are giving and not the guru why they are taking.

Yoga, Meditation & Other Courses

Back in India, yoga & meditation is associated less with athleticism and more with spirituality and health. I have seen elders in my family, through repeated practice, claims to have come to clarity with their place under the gods and in the world, and at 80+ years old still possesses the limbs and lungs of a much younger man. Yoga was the collection of asanas and pranayamas that my people had crafted and curated and concocted to promote health, harmony, and spirituality. This cultural discipline turned into a billion-dollar industry featuring yoga pants and various meditation courses.

In the recent few months, I have had many people ask me if I have done any meditation courses (from various organizations, not mentioning names here). I have always loved listening to people talk about meditation and got answers for some questions which I had about meditation. Personally, I m not a big fan of meditation and yoga because of the way it has turned itself into a business. Some people have questioned me why I think it that way because we pay similar amounts for temples, educational institutions etc., which I think is a valid question.

People go for these courses, paying a lot of money, because they want a quick solution for relieving stress in their lifestyles, in which case, this is perfect. For someone like me, I look at spiritual education to be free of expectations i.e. something where I go to learn and, not learn because I want to gain something or not because I paid something and I expect something in return. Each of our actions these days have their own expectations tied to it. Expectations will lead you to happiness or disappointment. I think the happiness or disappointment is acceptable to receive if it is on materialistic things, but I dont want that for spiritual things.

Why did I write about this? I had a conversation with a friend, where I mentioned a few points which I wanted to share.

....
Me: How much did you pay for USC to get your Masters degree?
Friend: Lots. :(

Me: Why did you pay that?
Friend: To get a degree.

Me: Why did you want that degree?
Friend: Because it was aligned to my goals to move to the US i.e. get a job, get the exposure and experience.

Me: What if you didnt get either of those (say you didnt get a job)? Would you have been disappointed that you spent so much for the new experience and you didnt get it?
Friend: Yes. I would be disappointed that I didnt get a job, but will still go with my experience I gained.

Me: So, the motive of coming to USC, paying so much money is for the job and experience.
Friend: Yes.

Me: In this case, you needed a job which is capable of paying back all the money you spent on the education experience. This is called "expectation'.
Friend: Yes.

Me: And what you have now is "return of expectation" in multiple expectations. Even if one didnt go the way you wanted, you would have had a feeling "why did I spend so much money on this?". This is what happens on a day to day life of every person.
Friend: But then, I got so much. If something doesnt work out, then it doesnt right? Be disappointed and move on.

Me: When people's expectations are not fulfilled, instead of learning about it, people seek other means. Every person has a different solution for it. When I want to do the meditation/yoga course, I want to do it for learning and not with the expectation that it will solve my problems since I have paid for the course.
Friend: That's the thing about going inward right Bat, none of the rules of the outside world apply. When i get into difficult times, i have the patience to wait. Outside u need to plan, u need to prepare, Inside, u need to relax, to let go.

Me: You cant live a world just inside life is about both smile.
Friend: Yep. Definitely can't! Exactly. But how is the balance at the moment?

Me: Very much perfect. Imbalance is for people who worry about their problems in life. Balance is for people who work in finding solutions to their problems in life.
Friend: he he. No I mean balance in the amount of effort u put in to keep the inside and the outside happy.

Me: You dont need to put an effort for it. It is like "trying to quit smoking". When u say u r "trying",
u r already not confident that u can do it
Friend: Effort isn't the word. time maybe? Attention that's better, I think. See, what I am getting at is that, just take something simple. cooking. We spend at least an hour everyday to feed ourselves. If u think about it, if u skip a meal, or you skip 2, or 3, or 4. we will live.

Me: Yes.
Friend: Now stop breathing. 1 min, 2 mins, 3 mins. That's it. you can't hold it longer. Just like breathing. we do it like 30 times every minute, but have u ever done that consciously. How much time do you actually spend to ensure your breathing pattern is right?

Me: When u spend 1 hour to cook, how much time do u spend eating it? Do u eat it with a spoon or by hand? Do u look at ur food and eat or ur tv/comupter screen?
Friend: Bat, I understand what u r saying. that life is simple, focus energy on the stuff that needs it.

Me: Eating with ur hand is ur physical connection. Looking at ur plate and eating is ur visual connection. Relishing it and eating is ur mental connection. Realizing the energy of the food which u eat, which makes u live is the spiritual connection.

.......

Education is one of the most precious things in our lives. And spiritual education needs sincerity and focus and the interest to learn. Unfortunately, these days, people do not have the patience to learn things sincerely. Each of us have lots of expectations and get disappointed/stressed very easily because we have too many points of failure (i.e. expectations). For people who seek these yoga and meditation courses, go there with the interest to learn and not because it is trending or cool. And that time, this will have a much bigger impact on your lives.

Why Do We Perform Abhishekam? Is it Performed In The Right Way?

We have been to a lot of Hindu temples and for most major occasions we will be witnessing an abhishekam process before the archanai and aarti. So what is an Abhishekam?

Abhishekam - Definition

An abhishekam is a religious bathing ceremony. The word abhisheka means a sprinkling. It is derived from the root sic, to wet, and with the prefix abhi, "around," abhisheka is literally, "wetting around." An abhisheka is the bathing part of a puja that usually is done with sacred water. In puja, a Deity is called, seated, greeted, bathed, dressed, fed and praised. The bathing of the Deity is the abhishekam part of the puja. In some cases, the main focus of the puja is the bathing ceremony itself. This is especially the case with the worship of the Shiva Linga. During an elaborate bathing ceremony a Deity is bathed not only in water, but also with milk, yogurt, butter milk, honey, clarified butter, sugar, and all kinds of fruit juices. After this bathing, the sacred image is dressed, ornamented, fed and praised with hymns accompanied with bells, drums and other instruments.

Scientific/Moral/Ethical Meaning Behind Abhishekam

Here is the actual scientific/moral/ethical reason behind Abhishekam. The idols/statues of the God for which we perform abhishekam are made up of various materials. Some of them are made up of granite (through a special process), some made of gems such as Emerald etc., some are made up of a mixture of materials which are capable of curing various diseases. So when we perform abhishekam on these idols, the water/milk/etc. used extracts a bit of the constituents/essence of the idol's materials which eventually get distributed as prasad. Since the temples are the place where people from all castes and socio-economic classes visit, it becomes the perfect place to distribute along with a spiritual feeling.

Why am I Writing About This?

In the past few months, I have been attending various Hindu festive celebrations and I find that in most temples, the milk, water etc which is used for the abhishekam just goes into the drain. One of the days, I saw more than 200 gallons of milk used for abhishekam and I saw it with a heavy heart as I was reciting the mantras for the pooja. One of the major things which I did for my poojas which I conduct at USC (University of Southern California), I use a glass of water (at max) for the abhishekam, which serves like a cleaning/bathing process for the idol. I encourage the students to bring fruits or any other prasad which eventually can be distributed to everyone who attended the pooja. Some of them even take a portion of the prasad for their roommates/friends who couldnt make it to the pooja.

My Request

All we need to do is to bring stuff to temples which can be distributed to everyone. Whether the milk/honey/anything else which you bring for a pooja goes as part of the abhishekam or not, the mind of giving something which can be given to everyone in the temple itself is a noble thought. Instead, take the items and provide it to the needy, if the temples drain these materials as part of the abhishekam.

Feel free to give your views on this page. I would like it to be a constructive comment. Also do share this link to others. More articles like this will be coming soon.

Loka Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu

Incorporating Hinduism In Our Daily Life

I happened to go for the weekly Aarthi organized by the Hindu Students Organization (HSO) at USC. Swami Sarvadevananda had come to lead the discussion for today. The topic was "How do we incorporate Hinduism in our daily life". It was a very interesting discussion and I relished every minute of it. Here are some of the extracts from the dicussion.

"What is our final goal of life?" was the first question asked by Swamiji and everybody was silent. I then told "Mukti". This started off a very interesting reply from him. Eventhough what I told was a good answer, it wasnt the simple answer. The simple answer was that our goal of life is to live peacefully. That is something which we are all searching for.

An example: If we go to a person who takes drugs or drinks heavily and ask him why hes drinking/taking drugs, his reply would be that hes going through a lot of struggles in his life and he wants to forget all those and be peaceful.

Yes. What he does is right i.e. searches for peace, but the means of going about it is different. When his intoxication comes down, he goes further depressed. This is because he is already quite unhappy, and he gets more depressed because he has come back from so much joy to the unhappy situation. Hence, this isnt permenant peace.

And so on, the discussion progressed.

Then came the question, what is actually a Hindu way of living? The way we are on track with our final goal i.e. peace, is the Hindu way of living. When we compare with the other cultures, they have short term goals and they achieve it. Then they go in search of the next goal. But what happens here is that, when they reach close to the end of their life, they have no clue about what they were trying achieve overall. Hence its always important that we focus on short term goals that will go in the path of our final goal. So, in the way we are grown up, we are trained to live a life where we set peace and happiness as our top priority and the actions which we do revolve around it.

Then propped the question of whats the use of living a life like that? Every person is respected around for his character whether its Christ, Buddha, Krisha or Rama etc. When you are able to do actions which would not just serve you, but a group of people, it brings in happiness and satisfaction. It makes you realize the positives in everything and will make you more focussed. It helps you learn more things and admire them. And so on..

Finally, we ended up in the last question talking about Reincarnation. At that time, Swamiji explained to us, how rebirth of any soul is in search of the higher truth from the lower truth. He told us that no one is a sinner and whatever actions we do, its an experience for us to proceed in the path towards the infinite truth.

And there ended a lively and wonderful discussion today. I thought it was something which I should share with all of you. Hence I m posting it right away.

Is This Really Hinduism?

(Reposting an article which I wrote in 2008. Since I have a dedicated blog on Hinduism now, I thought I can share it again)

Today I had received an email with the subject "Save Dharma" from an unknown person who had managed to get my email id through someone. Of course, this wasn't a spam email which was sent by any automated script. The email had a message

"Dear all,
Kindly save sanathana dharma from being destroyed as shown in the attachment. Forward this mail to all and protect dharma.

DHARMO RAKSHATI RAKSHITAH
PROTECT DHARMA AND IT PROTECTS YOU".

It was indeed great to see a good line of sanskrit in the body of the email, but then when I saw the attached file, I got quite angry. The name of the file was "The Death of Hinduism" and it had presented a very extremistic view on how many hindus got converted to christianity, how politicians support these moves, etc.

I had just sent that person a small email with the following message.

"I dunno who you are and how you got my email Id. But I totally condemn this email. I m a born Hindu and I follow dharma. Whether people get converted or not, or whether the politicans support or not, its finally we who should take care of ourselves. I m living out of the country and I follow Indian tradition and values. I cant go and ask another fellow Indian why he/she is not following it. It just depends on themselves. I can find a lot of extremism in the attachment. Hinduism is all about acceptance and tolerance. That's where we tell "Hindusim is a way of living".

Anyways, I dont wanna give a lecture or explain this thing. But please do not send it across to all of us. This is again a request. Its upto you to follow it or not.

Thanks."

Many of you friends would have received emails like this. The reason for me to write about this event in my blog is because I wanted to express my views on such emails and also request all of you not to spread this kinda message to anyone.

(Update: 7th Nov, 2008)
Animesh Pathak, my senior at USC, had posted about this in his blog after reading this article. Thanks Animesh. Click Here to read it.

Good Collection of Explanations

I found this information forwarded by my uncle. It was quite interesting and meaningful and hence I wanted to share it with all of you.

To the awe and amazement of his devotees, Paramacharya of Kanchi often discussed about down-to-earth laukika matters with keen interest, deep understanding and knowledge. In this lecture, he explains the origin and meaning of the names of common Indian dishes and their connection to spirituality. In these explanations, I have mostly used the translated words of what Paramacharya actually spoke, extracted from the Tamil publication titled Sollin Selvar (The Expert of Words), Sri Kanchi Munivar by Sri Ra. Ganapathy.

A South Indian Meal

A typical South Indian meal is served in three main courses: sambhar saadham, rasam saadham and more (buttermilk) saadham. Sambar is also known as kuzhambu in Tamil, a term that literally translates to 'get confused'. Paramacharya explains how these three courses are related to the three gunas of spirituality: the confusion of sambar is tamo guna, the clarified and rarified flow of rasam is rajo guna and the all-white buttermilk is satva guna. Our meal reminds us of our spiritual path from confused inaction to a clear flow of action and finally to the realized bliss of unity.

Saadham

Cooked rice, the main dish of a South Indian meal is called saadham. That which has sat is saadham, in the same way we call those who are full of sath, sadhus. We can give another explanation for the term: that which is born out of prasannam is prasaadham. What we offer to Swami (God) as nivedanam is given back to us as parasaadham. Since we should not add the root 'pra' to the rice we cook for ourselves, we call it saadham.

Rasam

Rasam means juice, which is also the name of filtered ruchi. We say 'it was full of rasa' when a speech or song was tasteful. Vaishnavas, because of their Tamil abhimAnam, refer to rasam as saatthamudhu. It does not mean the amudhu (amrita) mixed with sAdam. It was actually saatramudhu (saaru or rasam + amudhu), which became saatthamudhu.

Vaishnavas also have a term thirukkann amudhu that refers to our payasam. What is that thirukkann? If rudraksham means Rudra's eye, does 'thirukkann' mean Lakshmi's eye? Or does the term refer to some vastu (article) added to payasam? No such things. Thiru kannal amudhu has become thirukkann amudhu. Kannal means sugercane, the base crop of suger and jaggery used in pAyasam.

I was talking about rasam. If something is an extraction of juice, then would it not be clear, diluted and free of sediments? Such is the nature of our rasam, which is clear and dilute. The other one, served earlier to rasam in a meal, is the kuzhambu. Kuzhambu contains dissolved tamarind and cut vegetable pieces, so it looks unclear, its ingredients not easily seen.

Buttermilk as our dessert

A western meal normally ends with a dessert. In a South Indian meal, desserts such as payasam are served after the rasam saadham. Any sweets that were served at the beginning are also taken at this time. After that we take buttermilk rice as our final course. Paramacharya explains that since sweets are harmful to teeth, our sour and salty buttermilk actually strengthens our teeth, and this has been observed and praised by an American dietician. We gargle warm salt water when we get toothache. The buttermilk is the reason for our having strong teeth until the end of our life, unlike the westerners who resort to dentures quite early in their life.

Vegetable curry

Although cut vegetable pieces are used in sambar, kootoo and pacchadi, in curry they are fried to such an extent that they become dark in color (the term curry also means blackness or darkness in Tamil). May be this is the origin of the name curry.

Uppuma (kitchadi)

If the term uppuma is derived from the fact that we add uppu or salt, then we also add salt to iddly, dosa and pongal! Actually, it is not uppuma but ubbuma! The rava used for this dish expands in size to the full vessel where heated up with water and salt. The action of rava getting expanded is the reason for the term ubbuma.

Iddly

The term iduthal (in Tamil) refers to keeping something set and untouched. We call the cremation ground idukaadu (in Tamil). There we keep the mrita sarira (mortal body) set on the burning pyre and then come away. The term iduthal also refers to refining gold with fire. The (Tamil) term idu marunthu has a similar connotation: a drug given once without any repetition of dosage. In the same way, we keep the iddly wet flour on the oven and do nothing to it until it is cooked by steam.

Idiyaappam

(This is rice noodles cooked in steam). Brahmins call it seva while others call it idiyaappam. But unlike an appam which is a cake, this dish is in strands. The term appam is derived from the Sanskrit ApUpam meaning cake. The flour of that cake is called ApUpayam. This word is the origin of the Tamil word appam.

Appalaam (papad)

The grammatical Tamil term is appalam. This dish is also made by kneading (urad dhal) flour, making globules out of it and then flattening them. So it is also a kind of appam. Because of its taste a 'la' is added as a particle of endearment!

Laddu

Ladanam (in Sanskrit) means to play, to throw. Ladakam is the sports goods used to play with. Since the ball games are the most popular, ladakam came to mean a ball. The dish laddu is like a ball, and this term is a shortened form of laddukam, which derived from ladakam.

Laddu is also known as kunjaa laadu. This should actually be gunjaa laadu, because the Sanskrit term gunjaa refers to the gunjaa-berry, used as a measure of weight, specially for gold. Since a laddu is a packed ball of gunjA like berries cooked out of flour and sugar, it got this name.

The singer of muka panca sati on Ambal Kamakshi describes her as Matangi and in that description praises her as 'gunjaa bhoosha', that is, wearing chains and bangles made of gunjaa-berries of gold.

Pori vilangaa laddu

Made of jaggery, rice flour and dried ginger without any ghee added to it, this laddu is as hard as a wood apple, though very tasty, and hence got its name from that fruit and the original pori (puffed rice) flour used to make it.

Indian Dishes of Turkish Origin

Our halwa is a dish that came from the Turkish invasion. Bahu kalam (long ago) before that we had a dish called paishtikam, made of flour, ghee and sugar. But then the Arabian term halwa has stuck in usage for such preparation.

Sojji

Sooji is another name from the Turkish. It has become sojji now. It is mostly referred to these days as kesari. In Sanskrit, kesaram means mane, so kesari is a lion with kesaram. It was a practice to add the title 'kesari' to people who are on the top in any field. Thus we have Veera Kesari, Hari Kesari as titles of kings in Tamilnadu. The German Keisar, Roman Caesar and the Russian Czar -- all these titles came from only from this term kesari.

What is the color the lion? A sort of brownish red, right? A shade that is not orange nor red. That is the kesar varnam. The powder of that stone is called kesari powder, which became the name of the dish to which it is added for color.

Vada

A Tamil pundit told me that the name vada(i) could have originated from the Sanskrit maashaapupam, which is an appam made of maasham or the urad dhal. He also said that in ancient Tamilnadu, vada and appam were prepared like chapati, baking the flour cake using dry heat.

Dadhya Araadhana

Someone asked me about the meaning of this term. He was under the impression that dadhi was curd, so dadhiyaaradhana(i) was the curd rice offered to Perumal. Actually, the correct term is tadeeya Aradhanaa, meaning the samaaradhana(i) (grand dinner) hosted to the bhagavatas of Perumal. It got shortened in the habitual Vaishnava way.

Vaishnavas offer the nivedanam of pongal with other things to Perumal in their dhanur mAsa ushad kala puja (early morning puja of the Dhanur month). They call it tiruppakshi. The original term was actually tiruppalli ezhuchi, the term used to wake of Perumal. It became 'tiruppazhuchi', then 'tiruppazhachi' and finally 'tiruppakshi' today, using the Sanskrit kshakara akshram, in the habitual Vaishnava way. It is only vegetarian offering, nothing to do with pakshi (bird)!

The term dhanur maasam automatically brings up thoughts of Andaal and her paavai (friends). In the 27th song (of Tiruppaavai), she describes her wake up puja and nivedanam with milk and sweet pongal to Bhagavan, which culminates in her having a joint dinner with her friends. Vaishnavas celebrate that day as the festival koodaara valli, following the same sampradhAyam (tradition). The name of this festival is from the phrase koodaarai vellum seer Govinda, (Govinda who conquers those who don't reach Him) which begins the 27th song. It was this 'koodaarai vellum' that took on the vichitra vEsham (strange form) of 'koodaara valli'.

Paayasam

payas (in Sanskrit) means milk. So pAyasam literally means 'a delicacy made of Pmilk'. This term does not refer to the rice and jaggery used to make pAyasam. They go with the term without saying. Actually paayasam is to be made by boiling rice in milk (not water) and adding jaggery. These days we have dhal paayasam, rava paayasam, semia paayasam and so on, using other things in the place of rice.

Vaishanavas have a beautiful Tamil term akkaara adisil for pAyasam. The 'akkaar' in this term is a corruption of the Sanskrit sharkara. The English term 'sugar' is from the Arabian 'sukkar', which in turn is from this Sanskrit term. The same term also took the forms 'saccharine' and 'jaggery'. And the name of the dish jangiri is from the term jaggery.

Taambulam

It is customary to have Taambulam at the end of a South Indian dinner. In the North, Taambulam is popularly known as paan, which is usually a wrap of betel nut and other allied items in a calcium-laced pair of betel leaves. In the South, tAmbUlam is usually an elaborate and leisurely after-dinner activity. People sit around a plate of tAmbUlam items, drop a few cut or sliced betel nut pieces in their month, take the betel leaves one by one leisurely, draw a daub of pasty calcium on their back and then stuff them in their month, chatting happily all the while.

The betel leaf is known by the name vetrilai in Tamil, literally an empty leaf. Paramacharya once asked the people sitting around him the reason for calling it an empty leaf. When none could give the answer, he said that the usually edible plants don't just stop with leaf; they proceed to blossom, and bear fruits or vegetables. Even in the case of spinach or lettuce, we have to cook them before we can take them. Only in the case of the betel leaf, we take it raw, and this plant just stops with its leaves, hence the name vetrilai or empty leaf.

Have A Little Faith - Hinduism

(Dated May 15th, 2014)

We had a special guest who attended USC HSO's final Aarti for the semester. His name was Zach and he was from Soul Pancake. He wanted to meet the memebers of USC HSO and learn about Hinduism. So we had a video shoot of our discussion and answers for his questions on Hinduism. We heard that this would eventually get published in Soul Pancake's YouTube channel under Have A Little Faith section. We had a great time talking to Zach and his crew members.

Today that video went live and I m very proud to share it with all of you. This video starts off with a talk with Pavitra, who is an advisor and a past president of HSO. After that it shows our Aarti and then our discussion and Q&A begins.