A time for festivity, gratitude and feeling the changes
ON JANUARY 14, the festival of Makar Sankranti, or Pongal, will be celebrated in Tamil Nadu and the diaspora.
There are different aspects to this festival, which falls in the month of Thai in the Tamil Calendar.
There is Bhogi, during which houses are cleaned, decorated and in a way reconsecrated for the new year.
In this season you should get rid of all the unnecessary things in your life and begin life afresh. You should make this clean-up an annual event.
Even if some cleaning up is done on a daily basis, a few things pile up here and there without you being conscious of it. This piling up is not only of material things in our homes. Also in our minds, in our emotions, in our bodies, and in our consciousness, things pile up. This is the time to clean that up and start afresh in the coming spring.
Apart from Bhogi, the Pongal celebrations also include Mattu Pongal, which honours all the animals that traditionally play an important role in agriculture.
On this day the bulls and cows that are at the centre of pastoral communities are decorated, pampered and worshipped as an expression of gratitude.
Today machines have come in but you cannot grow food out of just machines. If you do not put animal waste into the land there will be no question of any agricultural produce.
So animals which work in the farms have always been a very important part and on this day the bulls and cows, which make the life of pastoral communities, are worshipped and decorated.
The idea is to recognise how important a role they have in the making of our lives. It is an expression of gratitude.
This is the time to do spiritual processes and sadhana. This is the time to fast. This is the time to prepare for a new beginning.
Traditionally, at this time, people reduced their material activity and increased their spiritual activity. But these days human beings are not working according to natural cycles but like machines going on endlessly. We should not remain glued to the television and computer (and cellphone).
It would be very good to notice the natural cycles and adapt to them because one’s ability to do things is different at different times of the year and at different positions of the planet. Particularly in one’s inner journey, using these natural cycles can be immensely beneficial.
Or, if one gives oneself to a spiritual process, one will become conscious of these dimensions and how the universe and the human body are not really two separate things but two parts of the same system.
The Makar Sankranti or Pongal festivities are a time to come out and celebrate, feel the air, feel the change in the weather, feel the change in what is happening within yourself because of the changes that are happening with the planet.
It is also about getting involved with the community, which means it also has a social connotation. It is a time of festivity.