Is God Wronged By Worship of Gods/Planets?

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Question

I was wondering if I chant a mantra to a planetary god (like Saturn / Shani) to mitigate some of the negative effects that planet might bring into my life, is this an offense to my main interest of worshiping God, especially by chanting God’s names in the mahamantra?

My Answer

You have asked me a wonderful question, and I am lucky to receive it. I know there are many others with the same thoughts on their mind. I hope that somehow they find their way to this discussion.

For the mahamantra to be effective, it must be chanted intentionally by a person with pure devotion in their hearts, and without any of the 10 offenses. If purity lacks or if the name is chanted unintentionally, it is not the pure mantra (shuddha-nama) it is a reflection of the mantra (nama-abhasa). Truthfully, the reflection of the mahamantra is also EXTREMELY powerful and purifying and tends to lead soon towards the pure mantra. If one chants the mantra with offenses, s/he chants neither the pure mantra nor the reflection of the mantra, but chants only an offended shell of the mantra (nama-aparadha).

You are worried that chanting mantras for demigods, such as Saturn (“Shani”), might be an offense to the mahamantra. So, lets see what the offenses are.

There are 10. The essence of all of the offenses (aparadha) is not have, or especially to express, non-loving (apa-radha) feelings towards components of divine love.

1. Ill will towards saintly people (people who are chanting the mantra themselves)

2. Ill will towards guru (the one who gives the mantra and guides us on its proper application and use)

3. Ill will towards the gods (who are both saints and gurus for us, and who work on God’s behalf)

4. Ill will towards religious scriptures, (which gradually help people become saintly)

5. To feel that the glories of the mantra must be exaggerated

6. To interpret the mantra to mean something merely metaphorical

7. To willingly commit moral wrongs thinking the mantra exempts you from the consequences.

8. To think that the mahamantra is something to be used for material gain or personal liberation.

9. To push the mantra on people who do not deserve or desire to have it.

10. To hold fast in loving your false ego even after you hear the truth.

Now that we know the offenses, lets see if it is an offense to pray to a god like Shani / Saturn for good karma to come during it’s cycle in our lives.

It COULD be a violation of the 3rd offense – which is to consider that the gods are intrinsically different and distinct from the Supreme Personality. However if one respectfully worships the demigods knowing that their greatness comes as a result of their connection to the Supreme Personality – that is NOT an offense to the Supreme Personality nor to the divine name of the Supreme.

Moreover, it COULD be a violation of the 8th offense to chant the divine mahamantra for a mundane purpose!

If what you want is to be relieved of bad karma, you can

a) Chant to the demigod controlling that karma, knowing that s/he/it is authorized and empowered by the supreme to deal with this topic. This will not offend the demigod, nor the supreme.

b) Accept a higher truth that “all karma is good” and not worry about altering your karma at all, but rather give your attention to using all your karma to help mold yourself into something more pleasing towards the Supreme. For this, you can exclusively chant the Mahamantra.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

“Don’t Look at the Eclipse!”

The word on the street in India is that eclipses are very “inauspicious” (read: bad luck) and you shouldn’t look at them at all. Obviously you shouldn’t stare at a solar eclipse or you will go blind. But that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the idea that the light during an eclipse is bad luck and should be avoided at all costs.

Is that true? Yes. Indian culture (at least the major part of it, the “karma-kanda” part) thinks of eclipses in this way.

Is it superstitious? Yes.

Does that make it silly? No. Superstitious things also have reality and purpose.

Now lets talk about why India thinks eclipses are inauspicious…

First note to make in this regard is that auspicious and inauspicious are concepts that are part and parcel of karma-kanda varieties of religion. Bhakti (devotion) is elevated above and beyond karma-kanda by two huge steps (one step to Jnana, the next to Bhakti). So, bhaktas (devotionalists) needen’t worry much about what is “auspicious” and what is “inauspicious” in the normal sense of the words. For devotional spiritualists (“bhaktas”) auspicious means “whatever reminds me of my object of devotion (Hari)” and inauspicious means “whatever inclines me to forget my object of devotion (Hari).” Personally, I try to be a bhakta. I love to observe solar and lunar eclipses because it brings me all sorts of thoughts of God, his universal form, etc. So in my case such observance of eclipses are quite auspicious, even by Indian standards (though Indians without an education in the bhakti-marga school of their culture might disagree).

Rahu gets his hands on the Sun and Moon!

Next to the question of why observing an eclipse is inauspicious as far as the karma-kanda (normal, mundane religious) evaluation of things goes… The reason is that the Sun and Moon are the lights of the sky. Everything revolves around them and depends on them and without them we would be dead, frozen solid and sent adrift into space. An eclipse represents a clear THREAT to the Sun and Moon, therefore it is inauspicious.

When there is an eclipse, the asura (“demon”) Svarbhanu (who is now Rahu and Ketu in the heavens) takes the opportunity to extract revenge upon the Sun and Moon for cheating his people of the nectar of immortality. He swallows and terrifies the Sun and Moon during the eclipse. The light that comes from the Sun and Moon during an eclipse is filtered through the shadowy, smoky, occluding paranormal “body” of Rahu/Ketu. Since Rahu/Ketu are asura (“demons”) the light is therefore “inauspicious” by normal standards.

This is why indian people, even including Vrajavasis, don’t let that light fall on anything important, and they take a sacred bath during or after the eclipse light, and during the affair they take shelter of the all-auspicious names of Hari.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com