This time, or the solar egress into Aries is the Sun’s best positon of the 360 Degrees it passes during the year. The Sun is the significator of the Atma , and the sun is exalted during the next 10 degeee in Aries, a favorable postion.
Here’s the ‘skinny’ on this time.
Vaiúâkha Mâhâtmya
Vaisakha (Sun’s transit of Aries), Vishnu’s favorite masa or month, is said to be the greatest, the most sacred of all months.
Maharshi Narada says that the months Kartika, Magha and Vaisakha are the finest months, but of these three, Vaisakha is the supreme. Vaisakha has the capacity to remove past influneces of past births and liberate the worshipper from worldly grief.
It is the best month for doing dharma, yagna, rituals and tapasya, as it is the most suitable compared to other seasons.
Vasanta or Spring is most conducive for worship for the common man and during this time, from Meena to Karkata, i.e. from Chaitra Sankranti to Shravana Sankranti,
The four ayanas, namely, Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha are most favorable during this period. At a more mundane level, it grants ayu (longevity), yash (fame) and pushti (sustenance) and the unending blessings of Vishnu. Vaisakha is the month par excellence for doing daana (charity), yagna (fire sacrifice), vrata (fasting ritual) and snan (bathing).
Daana is an important aspect . This can comprise the giving of any item in charity, but the highest among these is the daana of water or jaladaana. As the story goes, those who do not give water to a thirsty passer-by or a guest or a visitor to one’s home, shall be re-born as the bird, who had spent its life pining for water.
Bathing and meditation in brahma muhurta i.e., before sunrise, during Vaisakha is very favorable.
I hope you are in a postion to take advantage of the next 9 days as the cosmos reaches out to help the sadhu progress.
Frank,
You said:
“As the story goes, those who do not give water to a thirsty passer-by or a guest or a visitor to one’s home, shall be re-born as the bird, who had spent its life pining for water.”
What do you think of this? There are some who think that when we reincarnate we never go backward–we may not move forward and may get to re-live similar lessons to learn, but we don’t reincarnate as plant or animal once we are human.
I usually don’t spin cycles on things I can not know in this life, but I’m curious as to what others think and have studied on this topic. Do you think we ever re-incarnate as animal or plant after having incarnated as human?
Light, Life and Love,
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
My personal opinion on this in the past has been that we are constantly moving forward through reincarnation, with human being the final frontier. Recently, I have come across quite a few passages in my studies which go the other route, namely in The Path To Enlightenment by the Dalai Lama and Swami Satchidananda’s translation of The Yoga Sutras of Pantajali.
I found the following passage from Swami Satchidananda to be quite enlightening on the subject :
“But don’t think this contradicts the theory of evolution. The individual soul always continues to evolve. Even though the individual may get various bodies which are evolved to a greater or lesser degree and which experience things through these different forms, he or she continues to progress. Remember that the body is not the experiencer. Life is experienced by the mind through the body. The body is only a vehicle or instrument.”
On a side note, one of my cats convinces me quite often that she was a human in a past life.
Brett
Thanks Brett. I have a great respect for the Dalai Lama. I’ll add that book to my to-read list as well as Swami Satchidananda’s book. His quote makes sense to me. The body may disintegrate into dust and become some other life but the soul continues forward ever.
Please give my best regards to your cat!! hee hee.
Light and love,
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
I share this view that humans normally will continue to reincarnate as humans, as we are a different evolution than the vegetable and animal kingdoms. I find the teachings of the Theosophical Society very interesting reading, in The Ancient Wisdom by Annie Besant, available in its entirety online, it is described that a new body for incarnation is created to best suit the expression of one’s qualities and planned purpose of the next lifetime.
