Thursday 25 April 2019

THE BATTLE GOES ON

An epic showdown between the Avengers with Thanos - "the evil demigod who decimated the planet and the universe is to take place. The Avengers assemble together once more in order to undo Thanos's actions and restore order to the universe."


The battle between good and evil has been going on for ages. We had the first world war start "after Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire - was shot to death along with his wife Sophie by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. That spark was ignited in Sarajevo, Bosnia. The war lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people - soldiers and civilians alike - were dead."(Source: https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history)

The site Imperial War Museum at https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/timeline-of-20th-and-21st-century-wars, to our horror, states that,
There were only short periods of time that the world was free of war. The total number of deaths caused by war during the 20th Century has been estimated at 187 million and is probably higher.
Going back even further, we had read of wars fought practically on every inch of soil around the world. What went wrong?

Back home in our living rooms and in our hearts wars are fought each moment. The enmity between life partners, siblings, friends goes on. What is wrong? Be it a nation, race, or individual, each wants to uphold its belief, faith, opinions and rights. Trouble then brews.

Going through the Puranas, to our astonishment, we are told of fights between the Gods, Goddesses, Devas, and the inhabitants of these worlds. How do we understand these then?

Great Puranic wars were said to be fought here too. The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata speak of wars. It speaks of Gods, Avatars, Rishis, Munis, Siddhas joining forces with one to defeat the other.

Sri Yogananda Paramahansa in his translation of the Mahabharata tells us that the battle is within us, that the Pandavas and Kauravas are within us.

But the Siddhas documented many episodes during their times where they actually lived and interacted with the Gods and Goddesses. Velayudham Karthikeyan Aiya's blog Siththan Arul at https://siththanarul.blogspot.com/ carries many interesting stories of such encounters. My mother used to tell us that the God's lived with man in days of past.

We have had Arunagiri engaged with Sambanthan in a dwell of who shall bring their object of devotion to appear before the king and his subjects.

On a personal note, Agathiyar surprised me when he told me he had to cross numerous obstacles and hurdles to come to AVM back in 2010 as the bronze statue.

Another surprise awaited me when Tavayogi whispered to me to bring someone along to collect water for abhisegam in a temple situated at the foothill of a hill, lest our puja should be disrupted. Just as the Rishis are said to have sought the aid of Avatars to stand guard against evil forces in the form of Asuras, as they completed their yagam, he told me certain forces would wait to derail our Yagam. In the homes, splitting the lime in two and spreading kumkum over it, is said to repel and keep these forces at bay, something Tavayogi asked us to do too.

Just as there is duality in all, night and day, sweet and sour, etc there is good and bad too and it is here to stay. It is we who decide on which side we want to stand.