QNA WITH SRI SRI

POSTED ON: THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2017

Q: Gurudev, what is the significance of Pongal, Sankranti, Lohri and how to celebrate it?

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You know, harvest season is a part of the world. So, when there is harvest, the first crop that you get, you share with everybody, you celebrate. You are getting the benefit of all your labor, your hard work. In villages, at home, people used to get the first sugarcane, the first bag of paddy and all this. So, you share with everyone. Celebration cannot happen without sharing. And in this country sharing also has some knowledge & wisdom along with it. Every celebration is bringing some wisdom. That’s the beauty here.

In Maharashtra, they give sesame seed and jaggery balls (laddoos). Sesame seed is the oil grain; sesame oil is the main oil that people use. Sesame, for some reason, is considered very precious. Sesame seed and jaggery are distributed to everybody and they say ‘You have this and let sweet words come out of your mouth’. This is the wish or greeting that we say. This tradition has been there for a long time. This is also philosophically connected. When the sun enters Makar rashi, Capricorn, that is when ‘Uttarayana’; when winter is over and there will be longer days.

In the southern hemisphere, you must be celebrating Kark Sankraman and not Makar Sankraman. Just the opposite. Our beginning of ‘Spring’ is beginning of ‘Fall’ for them and our ‘Fall’ here is beginning of ‘Spring’ in Australia.

So, the celebrations are also linked to seasons. Makar Sankranti is celebrated when you come from harsh winter into a pleasant sunshine. Mainly festival of harvest.

One more thing I just remembered, you know ‘Til’ or the Sesame is the smallest grain. When people in India die, there is one prayer for the soul. They take Sesame seed & some water and tell them ‘be content, be content, be content’. The children tell their parents or other deceased people ‘your desires are like this sesame seed, just drop them, the world is so big, you move on, the universe is so huge, drop your small earthly desires, we are here to fulfill them, you become content.’ This is called ‘tarpanam’. ‘Triptiyataam, triptiyataam, triptiyataam’, three times we say ‘be content, be content, be content’. We tell the deceased ones, that if you have any unfulfilled desires then just let go of those and move on. We get stuck in small-small things, or anger or jealousy on somebody, we tend to hold on to some thing, some person or situation. If we hold on to such things then we will not be able to move forward on our journey. That is why it is said that drop all these desires and be content, be content, be content.

Be like a sesame seed; very humble, small and be sweet like jaggery. Let your ego be small like sesame and words like jaggery. This is the greeting or wish you make to each other. Not only give or exchange some material thing to other but also some wisdom.

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