Strive, Yearn, Struggle…and Win Victory

As we immerse ourselves singing the names and glories of Lord Shiva, let us not forget that the goal of Shivarathri is not just doing bhajans or staying up whole night. Shivarathri is a huge opportunity for us to cleanse our minds and climb up the spiritual ladder so that life becomes for us not a journey of intermittent joys and sorrows but a celebration of love, purity and bliss.

On this day, in 1977, in a beautiful discourse Swami very clearly stated the purpose of Shivarathri delineating how to make best use of this spiritual festival. Here are a few excerpts of that elevating message delivered more than three decades ago:

The spiritual path is the path of detachment, of sense control and rigorous mind training. Mother Parvathi sought to win Lord Shiva first by the glamour of physical charm; she tried to allure Shiva through the stratagems of the God of Love, Manmaatha. But Shiva reduced the God of Love to ashes and rejected her advances. Thereafter she entered into an arduous period of ascetic austerities, and through them was able to win Shiva’s grace to such an extent that she became the left half of His sacred body.

Man must first decide, after vigorous self-examination and continuous discrimination, the path that he wishes to traverse. Moksha (liberation) means the removal of the bonds of ignorance that cloud the Truth and create a mirage of untruth. In fact, living is only another name for the process of achieving alternate misery and happiness, hunger and contentment, illness and health, desire and fulfillment. Man reaches out to a new desire the moment one is realised. He is ever struggling and ever unhappy, for he does not seek the eternal, the lasting, the Source and the Substance. He is content with the transient, the trivial and the temporary.

Use the body as a chariot for attaining liberation through Truth. It is your duty to see that on the four wheels of Sathya, Dharma, Shanthi and Prema (Truth, Righteousness, Peace and Love) the chariot moves along the road to the goal. It will travel smoothly only if it has less luggage, that is, less desires, less worries and less fears. Desires, worries and fears are multiplied when man thinks he is the body with all its appurtenances and not the owner of the body. Karma, Bhakthi, Jnaana (Work, Worship, Wisdom) – these are the three paths to God. But through kama (desire), karma (action)is warped; through lobha (greed), bhakthi (devotion) is vitiated; through krodha (anger) jnaana (spiritual wisdom) is befogged. But through Prema (love) one can easily conquer desire, greed and anger.

Learn a lesson from the insignificant ant. When an ant spots a lump of sugar, it does not hide the fact and consume it all alone. Instead it moves round to collect its friends and kinsmen, for it loves to share with others the feast it has come upon. The crow, a bird that is despised and often outcast, when it discovers a little heap of food, caws repeatedly until its kith and kin gather at the place. What is shared is tastier; what is held back is bitter. Life is short and full of misery, so do all you can to derive joy from making others happy. If others are miserable, how can you be really happy?