Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Nithyotsava - Eternal Celebration

December 25 is a holiday in all parts of the world. Just today, I came across an article which talks about Christmas around the world. The lightings, the festive atmosphere, cakes, chocolates, Christmas carols etc. etc., people in every corner of the world celebrate it.

People think there are so many Christians around the world, obviously it is celebrated by everyone. But even non-Christians celebrate it with the same excitement and enthusiasm. We (not Christians by religion) too celebrated it like many others whom we know. We set up a nice big Christmas tree, decorated it with shimmering colorful balls, bells and lights. The setting up itself was super exciting.

We went to Ramakrishna Ashram on Christmas eve and we were pleasantly surprised to see Christmas carols being sung in bhajan (Indian devotional music) style :) It was amazing to see celebrations in the Ashram.

There are many of us who restrict ourselves to our petite thinking. There are many Hindus who do not celebrate Christmas or Buddha Jayanti. There are Christians who do not celebrate Deepavali or Pongal and so on and so forth. In fact in Hindus itself there are Shaivaites (followers of Shiva) who do not celebrate festivals of Lord Vishnu like Ram Navami (birthday of Lord Rama) or Krishna Jayanti (birthday of Lord Krishna); and then there are Vaishnavites (followers of Vishnu) who do not celebrate festivals of Lord Shiva like Shiva Ratri or Ganesh Chaturti.

It is our ignorance to see Shiva, Vishnu, Jesus, Buddha etc. as different people. It is simply our stupidity to see it that way. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says beautifully,
When Jesus and Krishna meet, they will hug each other but when the sheep of Jesus and cows of Krishna meet, they fight against each other.
When we showed the Christmas tree at our place to some of our friends, they were shocked. They had a big question mark - why are you celebrating Christmas?

Christmas celebrates the birth of one of the greatest enlightened masters to have happened on planet Earth, one who fought all odds to preach nothing but the Truth. Instead of looking at it as a mere festival of one religion, it is an opportunity for us to connect to Jesus's Consciousness atleast on this one day.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'let our celebration not last for just one day. Let the whole life be a nithyotsava - eternal celebration. Let us not restrict ourselves to just select few days to celebrate our happening on earth. Let us enjoy every moment of our life and shed all our negativities and flow with nithyananda - eternal bliss.'

Finally, we leave with some pictures of our Master's on-going birthday celebrations where we see him dancing and singing with full grandeur. Wishing you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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