The transformation of Siddhartha Gautama into an enlightened Buddha is perhaps, the story that’s unfolding before everyone of us, this moment. He faced a crisis of conscience by witnessing the death and decay around him and turned inwards to find answers to the deep questions of life. We inhabit a world which is in a crisis at various levels and forces us to question the very core beliefs that we held sacred until now. And the answer out of this turbulence is the path shown by Buddha – to turn inwards and discover one’s own Light for strength and guidance.

As we celebrate Lord Buddha’s birthday on Vaishaka Pournima this month, let us also resolve to walk the path that leads us to our individual awakening. Let His teachings inspire us to pursue truth with unwavering determination and then manifest that understanding in our daily living. Every one of us is a potential Buddha. And we’re nearing a time where this potential will explode into a dynamic reality, and a new level of existence begins to unfold in our lives. Let us assist this process with our sincere efforts towards Transformation.

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The special days for meditation this month are:

May 03 – Amavasya / New Moon Day

The New Moon Day is usually the day for introspection and also to connect with our departed elders. This New Moon Day also gives us a lot of opportunities to overcome our shortcomings and grow.

Meditate as much as possible and experience Light to the maximum extent.

May 06 – Akshaya Tritiya

Akshaya means abundance. This is an auspicious day when special energies for manifesting abundance in our lives are available on our Earth.

On this day, many opportunities are provided to grow spiritually as well as in the material area. It is also the day to make resolutions to pursue both spiritual and material goals. The energies available will help us towards this.

Sadly, the commercial establishments have propagated this day as the occasion to purchase gold and jewellery. The unknown part is that this is an important day for Spiritual wealth as well.

On this day, we worship the Goddess of abundance – Devi Mahalakshmi.

We pray to Goddess Mahalakshmi for abundance, spiritual and material wealth and for detachment. We also pray for peace, health and prosperity.

Rishis mention that at the astral level, they also gather and worship Her. After that She blesses them and the entire humanity. Her energies can be absorbed when we meditate more.

This is also the day to begin new ventures, conduct sacred functions etc.

May 17 – Buddha Pournima

This day is worshipped as the birthday of Lord Buddha. Every year he materialises in a special place in the Himalayas known as the Vaishaka Valley. Ordinary humans do not have access to that place. Special personalities and deserving people only gather there to worship Him.

Buddha is one of the Avataras of MahaVishnu. An unrecorded fact of His life was that He was born to remove evil and during the course of his life, He killed many demons and evil forces too.

We can worship Lord Buddha on this day.

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Many star alignments occur this month bringing new energies from different Stars and Galaxies to our Earth. For more information visit here.

 

Image Courtesy – lok_lok05