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| Wishing you all very Happy Durga Puja 2013
Triumph of Good over Evil:
Hindu mythology is full of stories where we see the ‘Triumph of Good over Evil’. The ‘Durga Puja’ in West Bengal is one of them – it is celebrated over four days and by all families – rich or poor. This festival is regarded as the second biggest festival in the world – after the Brazilian street carnival. Hindu Bengalis celebrate this festival more than any other group – even in abroad, whenever there are few Bengali families living near each other, they club together, hire a public hall and celebrates this puja. Although we celebrate this puja each year and we do it with great passion and enthusiasm but we never questioned our motive and purpose in pursuing this spiritual journey until one year.
On the first day of the puja, the priest comes with ‘Narayan’ – a small brass throne with a ‘sila’ (a small piece of rock) – with stored energy. Hindus believe that pouring ganges’ water on a piece of stone over many years, you can transfer the energy contained in the water to stone. Often this ‘Narayan’ is many hundred years old – thus it is full of energy. The priest uses Sanskrit mantras – rather the vibration of the mantras to transfer the energy from ‘Narayan’ to the clay model. This is how the process works – we Hindus have accepted that process over centuries without question. Again at the end of the festival (on the fourth day), the priest uses a different text of mantras to withdraw the energy from the clay model – then it becomes useless and could be sent for emersion in the river” Hearing this explanation, our young German relative seemed quite happy and we all learnt something we did not know before.
Are we born to believe in God? Some scientists in UK, Canada, and USA seem to think – we are. Through brain-imaging process they have discovered that when we engage ourselves in spiritual thoughts – the brain (Temporal lobe part) is activated and releases electrical pulses to other parts of the brain. They also observed that the Frontal lobe part of the brain also has a part to play in religious activity – it becomes active during deep religious experiences. Thus it seems that humans are hardwired to generate religious feelings and experiences – ‘Durga Puja’ provides a perfect scenario for Hindus particularly Bengali Hindus to experience this unique feeling of ‘with God’ without declaring their faith in God.
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শারদ শুভেচ্ছা ২০১৩ - Wishing you all very Happy Durga Puja 2013
Posted by Mousumi Mukherjee
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