Happy Mahashivratri - Maha Kumbh Mela 2013

Festivals mark a significant milestone in one's life. It is a ritual to transform oneself from being one to the purified one. Hindus believe taking a dip in the Holy River Ganges washes their sins off and renews their spirituality. It’s akin to Christians walking Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem during Easter, or the time at the Wailing Wall for the Jews and doing Hajj for Muslims.

One has to focus on the essence of each religious activity; there is devotion, beauty and wisdom in it for those who believe.  You can wish Happy Shivratri, Happy Maha Shivratri to your Hindu friends.

Nearly 9 million people have already taken a dip in the Holy Sangam, the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers on the auspicious occasion of Maha Shivratri, bringing the Maha Kumbh, the great gathering to a close on Sunday, March 10, 2013. Kumbh mela is an annual event but the Maha Kumbh is every 12 years.

Click the picture to see larger version

Interesting stats and photos, courtesy New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/10/magazine/look-india.html

The Sanatana society writes, “Shiva is the god of the yogis, self-controlled and celibate, while at the same time a lover of his spouse (shakti). Lord Shiva is the destroyer of the world, following Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver, after which Brahma again creates the world and so on. Shiva is responsible for change both in the form of death and destruction and in the positive sense of destroying the ego, the false identification with the form. This also includes the shedding of old habits and attachments. “

“All that has a beginning by necessity must have an end. In destruction, truly nothing is destroyed but the illusion of individuality. Thus the power of destruction associated with Lord Shiva has great purifying power, both on a more personal level when problems make us see reality more clearly, as on a more universal level. Destruction opens the path for a new creation of the universe, a new opportunity for the beauty and drama of universal illusion to unfold. As Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram or Truth, Goodness and Beauty, Shiva represents the most essential goodness.”

Shiva is a Hindu deity, one of the three most influential denominations in Hinduism. He is "the Destroyer" or "the Transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.

About a decade ago, on my daily Radio show called Wisdom of Religion, all the beautiful religions,  Swami Nityananda my weekly guest described  the  Shiva Sahasranama (1000 names) in greater detail. Every aspect of nature can be broadly defined in 1000 different names and those names reflect the God qualities that one can acquire through mediation and destruction of ego within. 1000 is not a finite number, it is a metaphoric number, just as Muslims have 99 names of God to denote infinity.

Note: I have been focusing on the essence of each religious festival for over 20 years, we wrote in Asian News since 1993, then broadcasted on Asian News Radio through 2000 and since then, it has been published in forums, blogs, sites and news papers. If we all can learn to see the beauty of each faith, then we have transcended in to the realm of getting closer to God, which means in tune with the universe to function cohesively and effectively with the entire creation.

URL -http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/03/happy-mahashivratri-maha-kumbh-mela-2013.html

Happy Shivratri !

....... Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.