We had a pikku-joulu (pre-christmas party) in our location for kids. Its the first time for me to be in such a party and yes also for Barathraam.
The candle lights, aroma, christmas tree, the christmas food and yes the most important our finnish friends gave us a warm welcome. Barathraam enjoyed roaming around and it was nice to see our finnish friends preparing Christmas food and decorations. They made paper decorations for the Christmas tree and the younger ones decorated them on the tree. I could recollect it with our Pongal, Deepaavali celebrations wherein we decorate our houses in our similar way.
Once a considerable number of people joined, they just invited everyone to help themselves with the Finnish Christmas foods like Glogi, Rice Puuro(porridge) and fruits soup (hedelmä keittö) . I suddenly realized that we are missing something here!
Yes, offering to God. In our culture, it has been a key activity to offer the food, decorations like flowers, lamps to God, before we take ourselves. What is significance about it? It signifies that whatever we do, we submit it to God. On a philosophical note, saints used to say,
"I cannot say I offer flowers to you, for I cannot produce flowers
I cannot say I offer food to you, for I cannot produce the grains
I cannot say I offer fruits to you, for I cannot produce fruits
Flowers, Grains, Fruits and all are produced by You, my Lord
I am only an instrument offering it to You."
As a child, I used to wait for the moment when my father does "Neivedhyam" (offering to God), after which I can taste all the different foods prepared for that festival. I do not know the reasonings behind it, but now when I could realize the meaning of these rituals, I can wait till God tastes them :) There is also a time, when I often question my mother, why we are doing so many different foods? Is it because we like them and just roping Festivals and Gods as a reason? To a person who sees things without insight, the answer might be YES. Yes, for me too. But once I started introspecting about that, I could understand that God likes creativity, beauty and innovation. Nature stands as a simple beautiful example for that. The activities that we do gets more beauty when we put some extra effort in making it perfect, isn't it? Be it cooking, the whole recipe looks delicious not only with its taste but also on the way it is served. So preparing different kinds of foods for festivals makes up the festive spirit and preparing it with a mindset of offering to God adds up the real taste of the food! My mother also used to say, that the reason behind having certain foods, decorations during certain festivals, is based on the availability of food items during that particular season so that the farmers and other merchants gets benefited. That is sensible and a human value perception.
Our festivals stand out from others, only in this aspect of offering it to God. It inculcates in every being, be it a child or an animal, इश्वर समर्पण मनोभाव (ஈஸ்வர சமர்பன மனோபாவம்) - The best English word that matches this emotion in Sanskrit is "Submitting to God mentality". For us, festivals are "celebration offering to God in all aspects".
The candle lights, aroma, christmas tree, the christmas food and yes the most important our finnish friends gave us a warm welcome. Barathraam enjoyed roaming around and it was nice to see our finnish friends preparing Christmas food and decorations. They made paper decorations for the Christmas tree and the younger ones decorated them on the tree. I could recollect it with our Pongal, Deepaavali celebrations wherein we decorate our houses in our similar way.
Once a considerable number of people joined, they just invited everyone to help themselves with the Finnish Christmas foods like Glogi, Rice Puuro(porridge) and fruits soup (hedelmä keittö) . I suddenly realized that we are missing something here!
Yes, offering to God. In our culture, it has been a key activity to offer the food, decorations like flowers, lamps to God, before we take ourselves. What is significance about it? It signifies that whatever we do, we submit it to God. On a philosophical note, saints used to say,
"I cannot say I offer flowers to you, for I cannot produce flowers
I cannot say I offer food to you, for I cannot produce the grains
I cannot say I offer fruits to you, for I cannot produce fruits
Flowers, Grains, Fruits and all are produced by You, my Lord
I am only an instrument offering it to You."
As a child, I used to wait for the moment when my father does "Neivedhyam" (offering to God), after which I can taste all the different foods prepared for that festival. I do not know the reasonings behind it, but now when I could realize the meaning of these rituals, I can wait till God tastes them :) There is also a time, when I often question my mother, why we are doing so many different foods? Is it because we like them and just roping Festivals and Gods as a reason? To a person who sees things without insight, the answer might be YES. Yes, for me too. But once I started introspecting about that, I could understand that God likes creativity, beauty and innovation. Nature stands as a simple beautiful example for that. The activities that we do gets more beauty when we put some extra effort in making it perfect, isn't it? Be it cooking, the whole recipe looks delicious not only with its taste but also on the way it is served. So preparing different kinds of foods for festivals makes up the festive spirit and preparing it with a mindset of offering to God adds up the real taste of the food! My mother also used to say, that the reason behind having certain foods, decorations during certain festivals, is based on the availability of food items during that particular season so that the farmers and other merchants gets benefited. That is sensible and a human value perception.
Our festivals stand out from others, only in this aspect of offering it to God. It inculcates in every being, be it a child or an animal, इश्वर समर्पण मनोभाव (ஈஸ்வர சமர்பன மனோபாவம்) - The best English word that matches this emotion in Sanskrit is "Submitting to God mentality". For us, festivals are "celebration offering to God in all aspects".
No comments:
Post a Comment