Shiva is formless and limitless but if the devotee needs a form to fix his mind on, there is the exuberant image of Lord Nataraja to lift the spirits and provide divine bliss.
The pre-dawn hours of this month especially are not only very sacred, but also beneficial to our health.
In the second part of the series, read about more festivals that are celebrated before and on Kartik Purnima, each more colourful than the other.
On Karthigai, the countless little lamps on earth compete with a resplendent full moon in the sky, turning Tiruvannamalai into a celestial city!
The efforts to secularize a culturally rich religious festival like Deepavali have taken away much of its civilizational value.
Tweaking is fine, but let us not deviate from the original dish too much, lest its cultural and regional flavours are lost.
The Navratri kolu itself is a showcase of the artistic and aesthetic sensibilities of the people and is a combined effort of all the members of the family.
It is believed that all ancestors descend to the earth from Pitru Loka during the Pitru Paksha fortnight, to accept the offerings made to them by their descendants.
Independence is never absolute. It is mostly relative and subjective, and is often conditional.
He laid the foundation for my craft and so lives on, in every sentence I write.
Accepting things for what they are is perhaps the most positive step we can take to move forward.
Grief can do a lot of things to people, most of them negative — including hatred and violence. But grief is at its positive best when a family shattered by the death of a loved one in a traumatic road accident comes forward to donate the organs, because even in death, there is hope for other lives to be saved.
Mountain climbing might be a sport today, but the devout of various cultures have climbed mountains to visit temples and in search of a spiritual connection with their Gods.
The Cybernag 
Recent Comments