HINDU FASTS & FESTIVALS : 8-4.

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 8. Makara Shankranti-4.

The day prior to the Makara Shankranti is called the Bhogi festival. On this day, old, worn-out and dirty things are discarded and burnt.

Homes are cleaned and white-washed. Even the roads are swept clean and lovely designs are drawn with rice-flour.

These practices have their own significance from the point of view of health.

But, here I remind you that it will not do to attend to these external things alone.

Cleaning the mind of its old dirty habits of thought and feeling is more urgently needed.

Burn them up, with a wise and firm resolve to tread the path of truth, love and purity from this holy day onward.

This is the significance of Pongal in the life of the spiritual aspirant.



If you do this, then the Makara Shankranti has a special significance for you.

The sun, symbolizing wisdom, divine knowledge and spiritual light, which receded from you when you reveled in the darkness of ignorance, delusion and sensuality, now joyously turns on its northward course and moves towards you to shed its light and warmth in greater abundance, and to infuse into you more life and energy.

Swami Sivananda
 To be continued  ...




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