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Showing posts from November 5, 2009


Annaprashan Ceremony or Annaprasana Sanskar

Annaprashan ceremony, also known as Annaprasana Sanskar, is a Hindu ceremony in which a new born child is given solid food. For boys, Annaprasan is formed when they are between and six and eight months and for girls it is performed when they are between five and seven months. Annaprashan literally means taking ‘sanskari food’ – solid food eaten by adults. For many Hindu families, Annaprashan is a very important ceremony and it is performed at an auspicious time of an auspicious day based on Hindu Vedic Astrology. Special pujas are offered to Lord Ganesha and other deities in the Hindu pantheon that is worshipped by the family. Some people also offer special pujas to goddess Annapoorna on the day. The food that is given to child on the day is pure vegetarian and is mostly semi solid food like kheer etc. A child can take solid food from this day on words.

Mahakumbha of Arya Samaj in November 2009

A three-day Mahakumbha of Arya Samaj at Mathura , Uttar Pradesh, organized to commemorate the first meeting of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, with his teacher Acharya Virjanand 150 years ago will begin on November 6, 2009. The historic meeting between Swami Dayanand Saraswati and a blind Acharya Virjanand sowed the seeds for the formation of Arya Samaj - Hindu reform movement founded in 1875. When Swami Dayanand arrived at Mathura to study from Swami Virjanand - after introduction and asking about the study done by Swami Dayanand, Swami Virjanand told him to go and throw all his books in the river Ganaga and come and learn with an open mind - to improve your knowledge one has to start with an open mind rather than pre-conceived mind; one has to be like a dry sponge ready to absorb the waters of knowledge. Some of the important teachings of Arya Samaj are: God is the efficient cause of all true knowledge and all that is known through knowledge

Words of Wisdom from My Guru in Disguise by Priya Mookerjee

All creation arose from the desire of the cosmic mind to create. Desire, therefore, is the fuel behind the manifested universe. Everything we perceive from the simple to the very complex arose from desire. However, that is very different from ego-based desire, which is only motivated by selfish fulfillment. Ego-based desire is the root cause of all suffering. Therefore, constant feeding of desires is not the key to happiness, but renunciation and discrimination provide the answer. That simply means giving up the lesser for the greater, and, the uncertain for the certain. Meditate in solitude and try to perceive the fleeting nature of the world. Gradually discrimination will awaken to remind us to be effortless in our quest and to finally dwell in a state of unchanging oneness... My Guru in Disguise by Priya Mookerjee The book My Guru in Disguise is a daughter's compelling account of being a witness to the profound inner changes that her mother goes through.