VILLAGE DIARY : BHAGWAT PURAAN PAATH AND IT'S ALL IN THE GENOME

Bhagat Puraan Paath - 7 days of rituals and to cap it all some memories from there...

An amazing celebrations of Ram Navami with the Bhagwat Paath my mother wanted to do for ages, so my younger brothers K K The King and Animesh got together and made it happen. So I went to my ancestral village on 23rd March and I am back in Chennai after a week of rituals, story telling, meditation and mantra chanting but still the hangover continues.. it was an amazing time to connect with the soil of our birth, where we have had spent our childhood...

Baal Krishna

WHAT IS BHAGWAT PAATH?

The Bhagavata takes the form of a story recounting Vyasa's work being recited for the first time by his son Shuka to the dying King Parikshit, who owes his life to Krishna. Longing to hear of Krishna before he dies, Parikshit hears the Bhagavata recited by Shuka, including questions by the king and replies by the sage, over the course of seven days.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Devanagari: भागवतपुराण, also known as Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam or Bhāgavata, literally meaning Divine-Eternal Tales of The Supreme Lord) is one of the maha (Sanskrit: 'great') Puranic texts of Hinduism, with its focus on bhakti (religious devotion) to Supreme God Vishnu (Narayana), primarily focusing on Krishna. The Bhagavata Purana includes many stories well known in Hinduism, including the various avatars of Vishnu and the life and pastimes of his complete incarnation, Krishna or Svayam Bhagavan. It was the first Purana to be translated into a European language, with three French translations made also between 1840 and 1857.

Krishna giving the Bhagwat Geeta paath to Arjuna @ Rishikesh 2014

TEXT SOURCE : Wikipedia, to read more click here...

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Thinking about those days spent so beautifully does not cover it... so I will leave you with some images... and of course the videos

So here it goes... let me start with the symbolism... 

Invoking the Sun god before the homa...

To begin with there's our Durga Ma, who has been with us over the ages, helping, supporting and guiding us, where ever we are...

Our ancestral temple of Durga ji... where we all performed the final Homa

And the place across the canal, from where She came to our house centuries ago.... The original Swayambhu Durga Ji sthan (The self appearing Goddess Durga place) we are now reconstructing as another temple...

The Durga Temple across the fields...

And the beauty surrounding it...
There are hundreds of peacock around the Durga temple that we have made
across the village where we have our fields...

Now with this introduction and giving you the feel about the place, let me come back to the Bhagwat Paath....

A very popular pundit who undertook to read and relate stories from
Bhaagwat Puraan for 7 days....

And the audience...

The fun and bhakti went hand in hand...

Along with the devotion...

There were the moments to capture...

And then there were times to pray...

The Purnaahuti - Havan, culminating the closure of Bhagwat Paath

The whole gang was there to celebrate the closure...

And it was a pleasure to have Bhabhi and Chachi
together, and as Animan said...
"The most elegant presence"

And I was there too...

And with this, Bhagwat Paath came to an end, graced with the rare presence of stalwarts of our family....

The cherished moments of togetherness..

And there were us, with our daily ritual of taking pictures before
the puja started every day...

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Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Wanderlust in my village - Kushinagar                 Village Diary II

HAIKU MASTER SERIES - Sōchō & Sōgi

A series on discussing Haiku Masters and their poetry. This is the first one of the series. Hope you would like it.

VERSE ONE

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What could be the cause of it – 

That I should feel such love again? – Sogi 

While I still have you,

Why think of anyone else

Why this discontent? – Socho

At certain juncture in renga, love or yearnings (omoi) had to be touched on before moving to other pre-designated topics of poetic converse. The Master Sogi (1421 -1502) here poses a riddle: Why do I love when already I love? Socho (1448 – 1532) caps his masters verse cleverly by referring to the enigma of infidelity.

“ Three poets at Minase” from where the above stanza is taken, was composed by Sogi and two of his disciples: Socho, a blacksmith’s son, and Shohaku, a nobleman and son of a minister of State. The entire work was written in six hours, with each poet inventing a stanza every three minutes.

Paragon of renga (linked verse) Masters, Sogi (1421 -1502) was of humble origin, so much so that he kept his birthplace secret. However, as a great poet, he moved in highest circles. Perhaps the most famous Hokku in renga literature, written by Sogi, in 1488, when he was 67. 

Despite some snow
the base of hills spreads with Haze
the twilight scene

Text : The classic tradition of Haiku 

Image: Pondicherry Beach

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Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Haiku Tea Session - Renga                         Haiku Master Series II

GOOGLE PLUS 10K CLUB, 3.7 Million Views & 400K hits

THANK YOU 10K PLUS FOLLOWERS
... And 3.7 Million views and 400K hits on the blog
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Being a common man, with some common ideas, thoughts and things to share, it's a pleasure to see that there are so many people want to read what I write; share my passion and travel with me through various images, photographs and my words.

I am grateful for 10K plus friends and 3.7 Million Views . Thank you .

Its makes me feel connected to all, who  have followed me through my various spiritual journeys, some of the verses Haiku that I have had penned, and read through some of the books that have hit me hard with their clarity of thoughts, power of their ideation and life altering stories, that I have shared here. 

Here I need to give a lot of credit in reaching out to so many people in all of my journey on...

Google Plus- https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ShashiS/posts
Face Book- https://www.facebook.com/ShashidharSharmaChennai
Twitter - https://twitter.com/VerseEveryDay

...to my "*Shadow Dancing With Mind*' blog too,
http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.in

...which provided my skeletal thoughts, ideas and journeys (shared across the social platform) with a soul and body to go back to. With more than 400,000 hits and chosen last year as one of the best blogs on spirituality in India (By IndiBlogger), it has also given my self a place to express, share and learn .

Looking forward to more and more friends to discuss and share common passions in years to come.

Cheers!!!

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Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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300K HITS                                                   Top Spiritual Blog of India

BOOK CLUB READING: Flora by Gail Godwin

Flora by Gail Godwin

A book about self obsessed child, Helen who is not able to look beyond her own nose to see what's happening around her and still able to hold on her own, when her mainstay of the life, Grand Mother dies. In the small cottage she comes to live with her relative Flora, while her father is working elsewhere... This is a story about her summer days with Flora, who is quite unassuming and her coming of age.

The language is beautifully simple and a child's psychology is truthfully portrayed. I love the way, there are slashes of revelations and how the tragic end cuts across the story line. The constant presence of her Grandmother in her thoughts and the subtlety with which her crush is revealed in direct contrast with the love affair that's taking seed right in front of her nose... which she so childishly refuses to see as usually the self obsessed children do.

I have two things to say on the story... I felt that the story should have ended with the tragedy and it should have been named as Helen rather than Flora.

I liked it, yes, It was a soft read but worth time spent on seeing a grown up truthfully portraying a child.

IMAGE : NYT click here to read the New York Times Review..

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Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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