Om Sweet Om

Many Hindus consider Lord Rama and his wife Sita Devi to be incarnations of the Divine in personal form, the God and Goddess that together constitute the Supreme. In my blog post yesterday -- based  on a reflection that I shared at Princeton University's Diwali celebration a few days ago -- I described how the Ramayana is largely the story of reuniting Rama and Sita.

And that is precisely why the end of the Ramayana is so difficult to swallow.

Diwali celebrates the part of the story where Rama defeats Ravana, rescues his beloved Sita, and returns to rule over Ayodhya. Basically, the rest of the story goes like this: One day, years after Rama and Sita are happily living in Ayodhya, Rama hears a washerman doubting Sita's faithfulness to Rama during her captivity in Lanka. Ostensibly to uphold dharma at any personal cost, Rama banishes Sita from the kingdom.

Say what? After pining for her, practically going mad missing her, and waging a war to free her, Rama sends Sita away? Why would Rama, glorified as the very personification of righteousness, behave so apparently cruelly and unreasonably?  
 

When I was a child, every Diwali night before going to bed, our family did something which I thought was extraordinary. We unlocked and slightly opened the doors to our home. (That may not seem so extraordinary to some of you, but growing up in New York City it was!)  The reason, I was told, was that so on this night, Laksmi the goddess of fortune could freely enter and bless our home with prosperity. In my childish way, I imagined Laksmi to be something like a more selfless version of the tooth fairy... leaving coins for us on the altar.

As I grew into an adult and embraced the path of Bhakti, Diwali became more focused on the narrative of Lord Ramachandra - the Divine in the form of an exemplary king - returning home to His kingdom of Ayodhya.


This evening's celebration focuses on these two personalities, Laksmi and Rama. I'd like to invite you to reflect on the deep and esoteric connection between these two aspects of Diwali this evening.

Apologies for my hiatus from blogging on OSO. I have spent the last week busily engaged in hosting a special Diwali celebration at Princeton University (where, as my day job, I direct the University's newly created Hindu Life Program). The event, held on Saturday November 14, was wonderful -- a magical evening of shared devotion, learning, and celebration.

Lots of Hindu student groups at colleges and universities celebrate Diwali. What made Princeton's celebration unique, though, was that this celebration was hosted by the institution's Office of Religious Life and held right in University Chapel --  "a truly ecumenical and inter-religious worship space" according to its website --  which is home to Opening Exercises and Baccalaureate, and has hosted guest preachers like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Here's an excerpt from the wire services about the event:

Princeton University will host its official celebration of the Hindu festival of Diwali at the University Chapel on November 14, 2009. The Diwali celebration is hosted by the University's Office of Religious Life (ORL) and spearheaded by the University's recently created Hindu Life Program. The program was launched last year as a pilot; this fall, Princeton made the program a permanent part of the ORL and hired Vineet Chander to be a full-time Coordinator for Hindu Life. The unique appointment makes Chander the first Hindu chaplain in the more than two hundred year history of the prestigious University.

Chandler [sic] said, "One of the aspects of the celebration that we're most excited about is the opportunity that it provides for guests to experience something new and expand their horizons. Last year, I met guests who regularly attend Hindu services at the Chapel, but who had never witnessed Hindu worship. At the same time, I met members of the Indian community who had lived in Princeton for decades but had never set foot in the Chapel. To bring folks like this together under a common banner was extremely gratifying."

(source: Hindu Press International)

As a sort of post-script to my blog about Halloween-Hare-Krishnas, check out this video of a carnival in Croatia (yes, Croatia), where one of the groups participating dressed up as Hare Krishna devotees.



Note: The selection above is hosted by YouTube and after the video plays there may be several links presented to other videos. Om Sweet Om and Beliefnet.com have no control over the selections presented and are not responsible for their contents.
 

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