Friday, April 11, 2014

Yehey for Ekadasi

In Vedic culture, ekadasi has something to do with the 11th lunar day. It usually occurs twice a month.  The exact astronomical description eludes me, but it is said to be a very auspicious day for engaging in spiritual matters. Those who observe ekadasi avoid all grains and instead eat only fruits, vegetables and milk, and even this, in moderation.

I admit Ekadasi may be a little tough. Quitting meat and alcohol seem easier. Naturally, in an Asian country, avoiding grains is hard. Sometimes I forget it is ekadasi, and I would later realize that it is, too late. I would feel bad, not so much because I have failed to follow the practice but because I know I have displeased my Teacher.

Later, by faithfully hearing from him, I realized more what my Teacher is actually telling me about ekadasi. He revealed to me that ekadasi is not just about staying away from grains. If it were just that, it would be way easier. But it’s not just a fast, it’s actually a chance to not just be pleasing but to be more pleasing. Ekadasi is an opportunity to be more focused in the practice of the life-path my Teacher recommended for me to be able to safely cross this ocean of material existence. This is a good day to practice more restraint in our anger, in our lust, in our talking about nonsense. In the same vein, he said that one has not necessarily practiced ekadasi just by fasting from grains. A lot of people may not be eating grains at this time but that doesn’t make them pleasing.

Fasting from grains has a deeper purport. People following Vedic culture abstain from grains during ekadasi for a number of reasons. First, in order to perform more spiritual activities, rather than just eating, sleeping, mating, etc., people prepare food that can be cooked faster. Cooking grains take too much time so they drop it out of the menu. Another thing is that this is also the best time to wean our senses, especially the tongue, away from its fixations. Above all, ekadasi is sacrifice, even for a day, of giving up our own material pleasures for the pleasure of God. Being more pleasing depends upon the value of the sacrifice.

Isn’t this too a fair description of love? A hungry mother gives up her food to feed her child. Love burns away all self-interest. Ekadasi then is better described as a practice of love. You turn away from the urge of the senses abandoning your self-interest to please someone else. It is God’s desire that we be able to return to Him. When we work to detach ourselves from the clutches of this world we become pleasing to God. For in this way we have a chance to return to Him. Thus our sacrifice in ekadasi, when done in love, is pleasurable to God. This pleasure in turn is dependent upon the level of our love.

If you think not eating grains is a hard enough sacrifice, look into the Vedic scripture Bhagavad Gita, where the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna gave Arjuna a tough lesson in loving sacrifice. Arjuna was to choose between pursuing his own idea of happiness in this world—salvation, morality, and sense gratification--by not fighting his own kinsmen, or to lovingly obey the desire of Sri Krishna and fight in the battle of Kuruksetra as a dutiful warrior. How easy it is to slay your kinsmen whom you love? Hell awaits such offenders. What good is winning a kingdom when all you love and care about are dead? These were Arjuna’s arguments, these were his excuses at first. Sri Krishna told Arjuna that his decision not to fight won’t really matter as the battle will happen with or without him. Everyone in this battlefield has already been killed by Krishna anyway, in the form of time, so Arjuna will just be acting out the will of the Lord. And there’s no cause for lamentation either, for no one really dies--all the warriors, kings and princes in this battle are eternal spirit-souls, and only their carrier-bodies will perish.

Eventually, convinced by the absolute truth and out of his great love for Krishna, Arjuna picked up his bow and arrows and fought, not like a menial soldier, not for his own pleasure or glory, but for the pleasure of the Supreme Lord. In this way, Arjuna’s will has become one with Sri Krishna’s, and this oneness in love between the Lord and His friend and devotee is the actual meaning of yoga.

Today, I practice Ekadasi by being more conscientious with my chanting the Holy Names on my beads or japa, and chanting congregationally with friends or kirtan; I also give added effort in trying to engage people around me to say the Names of God more and get them to taste yoga or loving union with the Lord. These are pleasing activities, these connects me in some way with the Lord. But like I said, just being pleasing is not the goal when one can actually be more pleasing, or even most pleasing.  Sri Krishna said that when one considers himself to be His servant, this person is not actually His servant, but those who are servants of His servants are His true servants. So to be more pleasing to God we must be able to serve His servants.

Today, I meditate upon this truth and in my heart try to search for a snitch of desire to realize this. By myself I can never change my heart which only wants to serve itself.  Only by the mercy of my teacher who is a pure loving servant of the servant of the Lord will I be able to find in my heart the desire to serve selflessly. Only by his mercy will I be able to one day ask those who are hundred times the servant of the servant of the Lord, how I may serve them in love. And only by the mercy of such loving servants will I be able to actually consider performing this service to be my life and soul. Without my Teacher's mercy too will I be in anyway able to know these confidential truths. By pleasing the servant of the servant of the servant with our loving service would really please the Lord, and only when the Lord is pleased upon us will we be able to experience real happiness. 

With this wonderful things in store for today there is no reason to be glum, instead a great Yehey! for Ekadasi. Haribol!


April 11, 2014.

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