Friday

15


November , 2019
Life Lessons from Sri Vishnu Sahashranam Stotram
17:01 pm

Partha sarkar


The Sri Vishnu Sahashranam Stotram is well-known. Through this article, I try to communicate those lessons I learned from it. In this book, Dr. Tripathi not only mentions one thousand names of Lord Vishnu and hundred and eight names of Goddess Laxmi in the light of spirituality, he also explains their meanings which help us to learn management and the right attitude.                 

Lesson 1 (Retaliate)

After winning the war of Mahabharat, Yudhisthira came to Pitamaha Bhisma (who was lying on his death bed, commonly known as Sar-Saiya, meaning a bed of arrows) and requested him to teach the fundamentals of ethical and meaningful life. It was then Pitamaha started narrating Sri Vishnu Sahashranam to him.

Here comes the very first lesson that, it does not matter how knowledgeable you are, how powerful you are, how devoted you are towards good and God, how firm you are on your oaths and words, but if you don’t choose between wrong and right properly when the time demands, you may face a painful ending as he (Pitamaha) faced and the worst part of it is that, you can only blame yourself as you know you were capable to stop the wrong doings but consciously chose to be silent for your own personal image and self-satisfaction.

As we know at the time of Draupadi’s vastraharan (disrobing), if Pitamaha Bhisma had retaliated or showed his fearless character (here fear means fear of image or social status’s distortion) then we may had a different Mahabharat. This is the reason why it is often said that this society is not in trouble due to a small group of negative minded people but because of that large number of positive minded people who remain silent when it’s right to retaliate.

Lesson 2 (Unity in Diversity)

In today’s scenario ‘Unity in Diversity’ has become a buzz word. We, hailing from the oldest and the most enriched civilization on this earth, do not waste any opportunity in advocating it.  But do we really understand or practice it in our lives?

I believe most of us don’t even want to answer this question even to ourselves. Lord Vishnu repeatedly says in Srimad Bhagawat Gita, I am present in everything and everywhere, I am the reason and I am the result, there is nothing in this world except me, irrespective of its nature (living or non-living).

Though we have all this with us but we still don’t practice it. History says story telling is one of the best ways of teaching and that’s why the very first process of learning we have is called Sruti (hearing). For example, in the Indian army when a young officer is commissioned and joins his regiment, he is supposed to visit that regiment’s gallery with his seniors. Typically, he will find a myriad of framed history of his regiment’s accomplishments. It may be two lines of order written in a piece of paper from the year 1947, a flag with foot note mentioning that to recover it, the regiment lost 10 men in the year 1965. This is a practice to motivate the young officer not to hesitate before discharging his duty for the nation. This is the importance of storytelling.

As I mentioned earlier the title of the book itself is advocating ‘unity in diversity’ because all the different names of Lord Vishnu may carry different essences or meanings but ultimately they all mean Lord Vishnu. Just like Calpol 650, Crocin 650, Parasafe 650 etc. may sound to be different medicines, but they are essentially the same; the main component being paracetamol. Though different doctors prescribe differently, it’s only the brand that is different.  

In other words we can say that we can reach a particular destination through different routes if we drive with righteousness. Similarly, there is no point of fighting among ourselves based on our caste or religion because we know, these are constructs of the perspective and they all lead to same destination through different paths. More importantly, those who had discovered these paths had never asked us to be disrespectful to other religions. We need to internalise the philosophy of unity in diversity.

 

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