Sanaa's Musings

  Radha is love, compassion, and kindness. She is no one but Lakshmi who lived with Vishnu in all the previous avatars.  At the starting of Dwarpar Yug Radha got cursed to go on earth as a human. She was born in Barsana as Vrishban and Kirtida’s daughter. Out of the deep love for her, Krishna also took the human avatar to accompany her.  As a human, Radha had to overcome the drawbacks of human nature- fear, anger, attraction, jealousy, and greed. Krishna helped her overcome them and helped her become full of love and kindness as she was before. Together, they taught the world what is love. Love is a set of emotions, behaviors, passion, trust, happiness, and care. This is what Radha does, just not with Krishna, with everyone. What I like about Radha is that she cares for everyone, she even cares for the people who don’t like her that’s why she is called the goddess of love. An example is about Saambh- Saambh was the son of Krishna and Jambhvati. He had the ansh of Shiva. W...

Today, I visited the Banganga and Walkeshwar temple with my mom and grand-moms. The drive was along the beautiful Arabian sea and Malabar hill coastline.  The Walkeshvar temple had a big shivling at the center with Vasuki in Gold on the top. Surrounding it there was a quiet place to sit. There was a provision of water so that devotees could do an ‘Abhishek’. Tales suggest that the original Walkeshwar temple was destroyed by the Portuguese in the 16th century when they gained control of the Bombay islands and began spreading Christianity. The temple was rebuilt in 1715 with funding from a Gaud Saraswat Brahmin. Since then, it's been reconstructed several times, most recently in the 1950s. The waters are now polluted with several religious wastes. I wondered why the Government couldn't maintain it well so that more tourists could come and take the pleasure of visiting our old heritage. I am hoping that just as the PM has rebuilt the Kashi corridor, https://indianexpress.com/artic...

Tomorrow is Kaal Bhairav Jayanti. Kaal Bhairav is none other than Lord Shiva in another form. When we travelled to MP, we visited a famous Kaal Bhairav temple where the people offer liquor to Lord Kaal Bairav. This was the first time I saw liquor being offered to a God. I wondered why? Stories say Kal Bhairav is a tantric deity and hence he likes it. Kaal Bhairav assumed this avatar when an enraged Shiva wished to teach Lord Bramha a lesson. It so happened that the Tridevas {Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva} got into an argument on who is the most supreme of all? Lord Shiva stated he was, therefore, Lord Vishnu backed out. However, Lord Brahma was not ready to accept that. It got to a point when sages and scholars had to come in and convince him but Lord Brahma would not back out. An angry Lord Shiva took the form of Kaal Bairav, in his furious avatar, he charged at Lord Brahma and cut off his 5th head. Therefore, Kaal Bhairav helps to keep one’s ego in check. As he cut off Brahma’s head wi...

  Every year, we celebrate Diwali by meeting family, friends, decorating our house, and giving sweets to others. But this year, our school Diwali vacation was only for a week, and we wanted to go on a vacation. So we had no option but to use the Diwali break. We went to MP since it has a good mix of nature, spirituality, history, and wildlife. First 2 days we had fun seeing a lot of temples and statues and we also enjoyed nature with a boat ride at Beda Ghaat. The third day was the actual day of Lakshmi Puja. We had mixed feelings about missing our home Diwali celebration. However to our luck, in the morning, we were fortunate to hear that there was a big Diwali puja at the Narmada ghat in the night. We all went there. The place called Gwari Ghaat was so big. There were lights everywhere along the banks of Narmada and also inside in the water. The boats were lit up with attractive light decor and little lamps offered by people were floating on water. People were selling Diyas and ...

  Shiva’s Presence A week ago my family and I visited Jabalpur which is in MP. We saw many different attractions like Dhuadaar waterfall, Bedaghat boat ride, 64 Yogini temple, Jain mandir, balancing rock, but one thing that I liked the most was the Shiva statue.  It is the tallest Shiva statue in the world which was built in the year 2004 and was made available for the public, tourists, and devotees in 2006. The Shiva statue is blue in color, it has a moon on his head, his snake, Vasuki around his neck, and his trident besides him. Kachnar was a newly formed city and it was chosen as the place where the statue of Lord Shiva, almost 76 feet in height, would be commissioned . The statue has 12 Shiva lingams from all the major Shiva temples in the country. We felt fortunate to get a chance to see it. In Jabalpur, we also went to Bedaghat where we did a boat ride and we saw white marble rocks all around. It is a stretch of 8km north and south where marble rocks exist. Beyond t...

On my 8th birthday, I wanted a panchmukhi Hanuman picture as a gift. I had just finished seeing Ramayan and was blown away by Lord Hanuman. Hanuman was the son of Kesari and Anjani. He is an avatar of Lord Shiva, a devotee of Lord Ram, and a student of Surya dev. I have become his devotee and seek blessings from him. I am his devotee because he’s such a big devotee of Lord Ram and I was stunned by what sacrifices he has done for his lord, Shri Ram. I’ll tell you one story of what Hanuman had done for his lord. A few qualities of Hanuman that I like are that he is knowledgeable, he’s loyal to his lord, He’s powerful, and is faster than the wind.                                                     ~   When the Ram and Ravan war was g...

  My family and I visited the Sandeepani Ashram i n Ujjain  a few months ago. Sandeepani ashram was the place where Lord Krishna and Balram were educated. On the bank  of the Shipra  river , the place was so beautiful.  It  was  full of old green trees which  made  it very shady and peaceful. There was also a well there which  has been in  existence since  olden times .  As per the belief, we put a coin into the well and asked for a wish. Secretly in my heart, I hoped that Corona should go away. Inside the ashram, there were many different pictures of Krishna, Balram and their friend Sudama. It felt so nice to see the place where the three had studied as I remembered my friends too.   When I think of the Gurukul system, I keep thinking about how hard it would have been to stay in the ashram for months until you learn everything.  There you can’t keep meeting your parents in the middle of learning. You can only le...