14 February: Valentine’s Day or Vasant Panchami

Celebrations are part of every human society. Since ancient times every civilisation has created many occasions (factual, mythical, seasonal, etc.) to celebrate different aspects of life. Look at the beauty and depth of Bharat’s wisdom, here, we have associated every celebration with the divine. Every festival in Bharat is a reminder and a celebration of some higher purpose, knowledge, ideals and learning. While the world celebrates Valentine’s Day, we celebrate goddess Saraswati – divine mother, the bestower of all knowledge, learning, wisdom, music and arts. This year on 14 February when the world celebrates Valentine’s Day dedicated to romantic love, in Bharat, we will be celebrating Vasant Panchami, a day dedicated to Goddess Saraswati. She is the goddess of learning, knowledge, music and arts. Vasant Panchami is considered as the birthday of the goddess Saraswati. She is the daughter of Lord Brahma. In one of the stories, after creating the world, Brahma once visited the Earth to see the life of inhabitants here. Everywhere he went he saw people were living comfortably but in a dull mood, there was no joy of learning, no pursuit of knowledge, no music and art here, devoid of this, life on Earth had become very dull. So, he gave birth to Maa Saraswati to bless the Earth with learning, knowledge, music and art, so that there is continuous joy of learning in the hearts of people on Earth. That is why one sees goddess Saraswati with a Veena (a string musical instrument) in her hands. Besides representing music and arts, veena also indicates a deeper message; to tune oneself to live in harmony with everyone and with every life form, so that continuous inner music and rhythm playing in the hearts of people. While the world celebrates Valentine’s Day, we celebrate Shiva’s intense meditation and goddess Paravati’s devotional love for Shiva In many Bharatiya traditions, Vasant Panchami is also celebrated as a day when Shiva opened his third eye to burn the lord of desires – Kamadev. This is an interesting episode in the scriptures. When Sati, the first wife of Mahadev - Shiva dies, he experiences intense pain of separation. With deep dispassion (Vairagya), he renounces everything and enters into his yogic meditation. Many moons passed and then Sati, who is actually Shiva’s half-self and whom we call Adi-Shakti, the primordial energy, took second birth as goddess Parvati, she is the daughter of Paravata (the mountains) and hence got the name, Parvati. She loves Shiva a lot and decides to marry him, but Shiva is in a yogic trance, it is impossible to bring him out of his deep meditation. All the gods then approach the lord of passion, Kamadev to distract Shiva by the attack of Kamadev’s passion and desire, and once out of his meditation, it will be easier for goddess Paravti to end her penance and convince Shiva to marry her. When Kamadev attacks Shiva with his arrows of desire and passion, Shiva becomes very angry, he opens his third eye and burns Kamadev. Now, without Kamadev, the Earth cannot sustain itself, without the energy of desire and passion, the growth of life will stop. Seeing this, all the gods are very scared now, and when Kamadev’s wife Rati hears about her husband’s death, she does severe penance to apologise to Shiva for her husband’s action and seek his forgiveness. She asks Shiva to bring Kamadev back to life, all the gods also want this so that life on Earth can continue. Vasant Panchami is also celebrated as the day on which Kamadev got burned by Shiva’s third eye and later restored to life by Shiva on Rati’s request. While the world celebrates Valentine’s Day, we celebrate the coming of the Spring season and new crops in our fields We also celebrate Vasant Panchmi as the time to welcome the coming of spring season. Now the winter months are giving way to much brighter and warmer days. Sun is showing abundant energy and warmth on Earth and now the new life will start to blossom in the fields as crops, flowers and fruits. So, for the farmers of Bharat, this is the time to celebrate the upcoming spring season of abundance as the sacred new crop will bring new nourishment and well-being to their entire family. While the world celebrates Valentine’s Day of human love, desire and passion, we in Bharat, pray to Maa Saraswati to give us; the knowledge of reality, the wisdom of truth, the joy of learning, and the bliss of divine music and arts. In Bharat we also realise that Kamadev’s influence via desire and passion is unescapable, we all suffer from his influence, but then on this day we also pray to Shiva; to alleviate our desire and passion for the highest, to awaken the true love for the divine in our hearts, to purify our love and make it sacred. For us, this is the true purpose and pursuit of human life. Blessed are those who are born in this sacred culture and blessed are those who are ever inspired by Bharat’s Dharmic way of life. The author is a visionary spiritual teacher, leadership mentor and public speaker. He works in the areas of creating awakened leaders, bringing consciousness to education and running regular spiritual talks and retreats. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. 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