How to celebrate a joyful Ugadi or Gudi Padwa in times like these? By Sri Krishnaji

How to celebrate a joyful Ugadi or Gudi Padwa in times like these?

Look at the universe around you. Everything is cyclical. Everything moves in cycles. 

If you looked at the world around you, everything is going through a cyclic movement.- The electrons around the nucleus., The planets around the sun, The galaxy around the center of the universe. 

And the universe itself is collapsing and expanding. 

Even human life goes through cycles of order and disorder.

Human life itself moves in cycles isn’t it? 

Birth and death, 

winning and losing, 

progress and passivity, 

health and ill health. 

Everything is a cyclic movement.

No human being ever truly lives, when they try desperately to cling to one and resisting and deny the other side of the cycle. You only live in fear of the other side of the cycle ever happening. 

Thrill and zest disappears from life. Sacredness disappears.

Birth and death then become more hospital center’s experiences. In a hospital you are born, in a hospital you will die. 

Is this all there is to life?

No. Life is a mystery, an experience where you can’t run from anything. 

And that is the essence of Udadi, or Gudi Padwa isn’t it?

It is a reminder to pause and bring attention to the wholeness of life without denying anything or clinging on to anything- , the bitter, the sweet, the sour, the spicy, the bland and the astringent - all tastes of life experiences to be accepted. 

It is a celebration of life. And think of it - this would be your first Ugadi or Gudi Padwa at home with your loved ones - alone.

You have run too much in life. The Chinese would call this running “yang”. And nature is now saying “be still“. This the Chinese would call “yin” a movement inward. 

Life has now put all of us in the stillness mode. Let us celebrate it. 

This still and beautifully quiet time, can make you realize that you don’t need too much in life to be happy. The most important thing is for you have a beautiful inner state. 

Once again let us remember, staying home can be a sadhana for your evolution, for your family to grow in love- it is also the most significant seva you are doing to save lives. If we Indians, who are more than 1 billion population can contain this epidemic, we will actually be saving the world. 

So stay home and celebrate with each other. 

Meditation 

Shall we move inward for a few minutes and experience the Divine now? 

Sit still.

Please close your eyes.

Feel the divine, who is the Antaryamin in all our hearts in any form or name you choose. 

Ask the divine to help you accept and celebrate this stillness and togetherness with your family, even as you will celebrate movement and rush in the future.

You may now listen to the powerful Ekam mantra and chant along with it. The mantra is -Hamsa Soham Ekam, which at its simplest level means, I am in the divine, the divine is in me, we are one.

Whenever you are ready you may open your eyes. 

Namaste