We are almost always in a celebratory mode. We are ever commemorating, recounting and replaying glorious events of the past. We are zealously observing these celebrations & festivals. Holi, Deepawali, Dussehra, Shrikrishna Janmashtami, Buddha Jayanti or Ram Navami, we often celebrate with great divinity & fervour, with accompanying pageantry carrying colours and sounds of crackers and flashy lights.
However, amid grandeur and celebrations, lights & crackers, we are mostly overlooking the true purpose of the festivals.
We have made celebration of festivals a ritualistic affair while the true way of observing festivals has been performing actions that will bring transformational changes in the society for the better. While remembering great men of the yore like Bhagwan Krishna on their birth anniversaries, we need to not only think and talk of their sublime qualities and deeds but also, inspired from their lives, make a blueprint and a renewed commitment to improve our personal and national character. We need to strengthen our moral compass and devotion to family, society and the nation.
Festivals are an occasion to ruminate, reflect and reform. They are the solemn events to be marked by fresh vows for self-improvement in areas where we are deficient, taking cue from the message underlying the festival. They are the days to chart out new plans for bringing beneficial changes in our institutions, drawing upon the principles practised for ages.
Shrikrishna Janmashtami is the day we celebrate the birth of Bhagwan Krishna, the hero of Mahabharat, the accomplished Yogi of the Dwapar yug, the rare human imbued with the superhuman qualities of valour, erudition, statesmanship and diplomacy of the highest order. We have to look at our present lives and see how far removed we are from the ideals practised by Bhagwan Krishna.
We have to introspect and formulate plan of action that will enable us to forge brotherhood and unity in the society, decimate the enemies of nation and humanity through karma yoga. We need to take fresh vows to become karma yogis in our individual lives. A large majority among us has been celebrating the birthday of Bhagwan Krishna by bringing out pageantries and his worship as a God incarnate. They have been singing encomiums in his praise and out of devotional obeisance to him. But little do they realise how much efforts they have been actually making to absorb his sublime human attributes.
Krishna was a super accomplished human being, with no blemish of character. His single-minded commitment to the cause of his nation and his actions for the establishment of peace and order in the society of his times are an object lesson for the present generation too who is steeped in superstition and compromised in observing many principles of universal dharma.
The present generation is ideologically divided and overly materialistic. Taking guidance from the life and actions of Shri Krishna, we need to brace ourselves up for removing obscurantism and religious bigotry from the global society. We need to understand true universal dharma and take steps to restore peace and harmony in the world, disturbed as these are in the wake of huge ideological divides in the society and nations at loggerheads with each other.
