Above pic courtesy: http://www.artofliving.org
July 9,2012: The pavitra month of Saawan has begun, and today was the first Somvar (Monday) of the same.
As per ancient texts when Lord Vishnu incarnated as Lord Rama, he established Shiva Lingam at Rameshwaram before crossing the sea. He performed Rudrabhishek to express his devotion towards Lord Shiva.
This Pooja, where Lord Shiva is worshiped in His Rudra form, is known as one of the greatest Poojas in Vedic scriptures to remove all evils, attain all desires and for all-round prosperity and peace.
In this puja Lord Shiva is worshipped in the form of Linga or Lingam and abhishek is performed with different materials like panchamrit, flowers, belpatra, milk, coconut water, honey, curd sugarcane juice etc.
The ancient mantras that are chanted by the Veda boys, get absorbed in the environment and the offered materials.This is then offered to Shiva with love, devotion, reverence, and gratitude.
The world is a play of energy: negative and positive. When we pray to Shiva – the Lord of transformation - the entire negative energy around us in form of disease, depression, and unhappiness gets transformed into peace, prosperity and joy. Then peace surrounds us in body, mind and soul.
I, with my family, got the opportunity again to be part of an amazing Rudrabhishekam at Guru Kuteer, Noida on July 9, 2012.
In all my years at Art of Living,I have loved the concept propagated - that of One-world-family and this is evident at any event organised at Ashram, or outside. People known, unknown work towards a common goal with Seva bhavna which ranges from invitations to actual event management - including setting up decorations, and post-and pre-event chores.
My eyes quickly looked for the lovely, smiling picture of Guruji, found it and we started preparing for Gurupooja.
After inviting the Guru, the beautiful chanting of the auspicious ancient mantras started, and
soon after the chanting began, I dipped into deep transcendental meditation ( YES, the powerful chanting has that mesmerizing effect :) ), soaking in the rain of Shiva tattva and Guru tattva, my eyes opened with the start of the awesome bhajan singing ( our very own Lokesh aka Lauki bhaiya as we lovingly call him sang many beautiful bhajans and kept the bhakti flow going:):) Pavitra shravan rudrapooja completed,
Wish it just keeps continuing...
The beautiful shiva arti was circulated to all attendees, and then Swamiji gave prasadam and blessings to all.
About 200 people from all over Delhi NCR attended the Pooja with around 51 Sankalpas wih reverend Swami Tejomaya Ji.
It was great to find so many AOL teachers like Vanika Gupta, Mamta Singh, Preeti Bhatnagar, Gunjan Narain , Radheshyam Yashi , Neerav Narain, MehraJi, Mandakini, Alka , Lokesh pandey, Ghanshyam, Poornima Ji to be around.
While writing this short note, my mind still wanders back to Yagnashala at Art of Living International Ashram at Bangalore, where it takes place at a much larger scale every Monday morning.
The memories of this out-of-body experience still lingers on thinking of the benevolent Lord Shiva....
Do attend it if you have not yet:)
Om Namah SHivayah!