Monday, October 22, 2012

Navarathri: Saraswathi Pooja

The final stage of Navarathri has begun. These are the last three days, and by this time we should all be ready.
 Today we start the journey to acquire divine knowledge. We started with Durga in the first 3 days, to give up all our vices of arrogance and attitude. In the next three days we worshiped Luxmi to develop prosperity and move forward toward spiritually to attain wisdom and knowledge. Today we start the three days of Saraswathi pooja. During these days, we are supposed to be reading scriptural texts and books. We are supposed to be studying. If you look at the bigger picture, our rishis knew where to designate the Saraswathi pooja – just before your exams! This was done so that you can have the confidence that God is with you during your exams.
Just believe in God. Fall in love with God and make God your lover. If you do this you will never go wrong. The bhakti that so many of us have for cell phones, take some of that bhakti and let it be for God. Most of us don’t know a spiritual or social life because we have this thing called a Blackberry. Even at a social function we are BBMing. I remember at school we had a little black book. Whenever you were taken to the office or did something wrong your name was put in the black book. If you go to any spiritual being or priest he will tell you black is a bad colour. For Hindus, black is especially bad because it is the colour of Sani. We shouldn’t even be wearing black. Yet, each one of us has a thing called a BLACKberry...
Today you should start this journey, nurture this journey of falling on love with God. I can personally tell you that nothing is better… you can place your head on the pillow at night and have a good sleep. You can wake up the next day with no worries because God will take care of everything -  your good and your bad.  
Tomorrow I won’t see you. I’m going home to Sri Lanka. I will be there for twenty days, so please continue the next three days – keep your fast and as I said just believe! That is where I started and it works!  
Hari om!