Vinayaki vs Sankashtahara Chaturtis & More on the Metaphor of Rathas!

Wish you a fulfilling Vinayaki Chaturti all around & an invigorating Muchakandi Veera-bhadra-eshwara temple ratha in the vicinity of a 138-yr old lakeside dam in Bagalkot, Karnataka!

Unfortunately, most of us don’t recognise that, many a times in our lives, trouble is inevitable & thus its occurrence is not fully under our individual control but most definitely the suffering (due to such troubles) is always optional for everybody. Luckily, to deal with such troubles, many of us are aware of external troubleshooting mechanisms/rituals/opportunities/occasions like the monthly Sankashtahara Chaturti. While that’s the well-known fourth day of the waning phase of the moon 🌓, the Vinayaki Chaturti 🌒is its lesser-known equivalent in the waxing phase every month. One such VinayakI Chaturti occurring in the lunar 🌒 month of Bhadrapada is what becomes the well-known VinayakA Chaturti & is therefore grandly commemorated by most. But the other eleven such VinayakI Chaturtis occurring in the remaining eleven months, such as the one today, also deserve rightful recognition & celebrations. Let’s explore how & why.

While the 🌓 waning/Sankashtahara Chaturti is a day occurring (soon after a bhakti-endowed Pournami🌕) every month for us to surrender like a 🧒 child 👶🏻 to the omnipresent divinity 🕉 all around us transforming itself into our unfailing troubleshooter, the waxing/Vinayaki Chaturti 🌒, on the other hand, is a day occurring (soon after a jnana-endowed Amavasya🌑) every month for us to recognise the omnipresent divinity right within us & hence become the omnipotent troubleshooters ourselves!!! That’s the vibe of the day today... so let’s all endeavour through our sadhana today (& in its recurrence every month) to be limitlessly responsible troubleshooters ourselves for everything in LIFE, period... not in a narrow-minded ‘our’ life or ‘their’ lives!

Moving over to the other special occasion today, namely the Muchakandi Veera-bhadra-eshwara temple ratha about 400km away from namma Bengaluru, it is also a rathafestival like yesterday’s Puri Jagannatha ratha yatra inaugural. Hence, it’s an opportunity to share with you a profound discussion I had yesterday with one of my IIT Madras BTech classmates, now a successful entrepreneur in the educational sector based out of the US, but serving Bharat🇮🇳 too.

In relation to my post yesterday, he replied “Dinesh - thanks for sharing. Let me provide a complementary interpretation. Instead of ‘chariot ride,’ you should replace with ‘ratha yatra’ & the yatra or journey is a figment of your own imagination... which gives rise to the term "ratha kalpana." The juggernaut can be thought of us our own ego, which is really bigger than most of us realize. Introduced in the Katopanishad, this metaphor explains the different levels of our own existence & can describe the relationship between the senses, mind, intellect & your own SELF (you had referred to BMI last month). The significance of the chariot pulling has probably been lost through the ages. In Kerala, my village has 3 chariots (small, medium, large) that are pulled every year. 🙂 😀 I ask people why are you pulling but no one has an answer.😀“

I responded: “Venkat, it was quite interesting to read your interpretations. It’s actually quite an eye opener to see about a hundred different takes on each of my posts from readers in different walks of life & exposure to spirituality. It beautifully demonstrates our Vedicassertion of one truth manifesting in multiple ways: 'Ekam sat, viprah bahudha vadanti!' And none of them are wrong. It all depends on which rung of the spiritual ladder each of us are on.

At Varthuru (known as Vara-Puri in ancient times!) where I stay & you’ve visited, we’ve a Bhu-Neela-sameta Channa-raya-swami (Vishnu) temple, amongst a dozen others.

This temple’s major annual rath yatra draws lots of devotees from far & wide, every Ratha Saptami. We feel very humbled & blessed that it passes by our home 🏠, with a scheduled long stop right in front of us as we live at a road turning. I’ve participated in harnessing this Ratha & other associated week-long festivities 🥳whenever I’ve been in the country🇮🇳.

You mentioned the Kathopanishad. I’ve an infinitesimal exposure to our infinite scriptures. Most of what I write, however, is from an inner inspiration experienced during my daily sadhana rather than any bookish knowledge or hearsay. So, at my current level of evolution, I perceive Jagannath as THE parama-atma or Supreme Self (rather than ego, as you suggested!), his main temple as the universe & the rath itself as my breath or prana. The mostly empty Gundicha temple is me, the jiva-atma.

The first inhalation that I took when I was born in this lifetime was thus a journey from the universal paramatma in the main Jagannath temple to the individual jivatma in the Gundicha temple, my empty shell 🐚.

The last exhalation at my passing away from the body currently housing me would be the return journey of the ratha (prana) from Gundicha 🐚 to the main temple (universe).

The fact that Jagannath stays in Gundicha only for one of the 52 weeks every year, showcases to me how fleeting my life is & how long it might be before I reincarnate. Hence, my dire need to fully utilise this short span of precious time available in the best possible way to evolve further & inspire everyone around me too.

As I already explained in my previous post, the people who clear the path & pull the ratha/prana in & out almost involuntarily are my karma-indriyas, the 5 actuators, in healthy collaboration with my jnana-indriyas, the 5 sensors, while the royals 👑 engaged in the same seva are my manoh-buddhi-ahankara, the robotic PID controller, operating in an environment called nature (inner & outer), prakriti.

This brings us to the point you made about people not realising how big an ego they have. In my current perception, however, there is no such thing as an ego! He’s just the “bad fall guy” we’ve made up in our imagination just to shift all the blame from ourselves onto him. Poor guy doesn’t even exist & this is thus a surefire way to fool ourselves. As individuals, we’re actually indivisible (the etymological root for individual!). Else, we’re either schizophrenic or possessed, needing help from a psychiatrist or exorcist, respectively. If only we just wake up & recognise our absolute responsibility for everything, everybody & every situation in our lives, then we’ll never ever play this blame game by imagining a non-existent ghost ego!

However, in my PID controller, I do have a ‘P’ = proportional gain, which is my aham-kaara. Unfortunately, most people translate this as ‘ego,’ hence causing the confusion. In reality, aham-kaara is merely the set of various temporary identities that we need to take up in full awareness to conduct our daily business in interacting with the world around us, be it family, friends, colleagues or society. My aham-kara is thus like the roles 🎭 played by an actor, who is always inherently conscious that he isn’t one of those characters that he’s playing. But, having been an enthusiastic part of live theatre🎭 for quite a while myself, I’m aware there are many crazy actors who start fantasising about actually being the characters that they play, even beyond the play 🎭! Such over-enthusiastic actors are some of our best teachers, who teach us how not to be! Unmasking is occasionally required even in these challenging times with masks as the most sought after heroes!!!

Another thing which you mentioned is that the “yatra” in the “rath yatra” is a figment of our imagination. But as I pointed out above, the round trip yatra is the two-way flow of breath, which for me is a ground reality at this stage. Maybe when I evolve further, I could experience it as imaginary too, because it’s temporary, while the real & highest truth has to be everlasting! Right now, it’d be mere theoretical knowledge as far as I’m concerned. Pranayama plays a critical role in my daily sadhana & I can’t yet conjure up that the rath/breath is my kalpana/imagination, as you point out!

Finally, you were laughing 😂 at the simpletons in your Kerala village who aren’t aware of why they’re pulling the ratha & yet doing it enthusiastically. That’s the beauty of the amazing rituals designed & devised in our Sanatana Dharma. It just doesn’t matter why we do something prescribed in our shruti as long as we do it with full involvement & dedication. It still works. It’s like how gravity worked even well before Newton ‘discovered’ it! It’s also like how digestion of food🥘 occurs even for those who haven’t yet studied biology, anatomy or physiology! Most of our ancient scripture-based (Vedic) rituals are basically aligned to the natural laws & thus work automatically, like our bodily involuntary systems. Some of us, as scientists, intellectuals & researchers, of course would like to understand why these rituals work & we may even be able to explain a few of them with our limited intellects. But the real proof of the pudding is in eating it😉. For a sadhaka, like me, seeking answers to the question of how is far more significant than to the question of why.”

He retorted, “** never laughed at anyone 😀 😀 I only put lots of smileys! I also enthusiastically pull the "theru.”

Thumbs up 👍 to him & to y’all!