Vaikunta Ekadasi.

What are Hindu festivals like all about and why are there so many - almost one a month. In this busy, maddening, materialistic-chasing lives of ours which often is the hallmark of our progress, they serve as a reminder for us to really pause, contemplate and take stock our of spiritual pulse and progress. You could think of them as a mindfulness monthly check in. Images, rituals and the sounds involved are tools that facilitate this mindset. Its multisensory integration and balance for the body. For instance just reciting our Sanskrit slokas generate innumerable beneficial vibrations in the body and activate the significant chakras in the body. Images help with visual focus. The practical advice of regular fasting on the bi-monthly Ekadasi day from ancient times, is rediscovered and now marketed as a healthcare gut-cleanse. 

It's really amazing how Spirituality (the unexplained) of yesterday becomes the Science (the explained) of today. All the answers were always there, we just have to decode and understand them. In the modern era, we formulate explanations using the lens of science and evidence based research. Essentially, we are trying to reconstruct that old deciphering code, by asking the right questions, along with new technology; all of which kind of got lost/mangled over the centuries. Science is the process of "re-discovering" explanations. 

Today is Vaikunta Ekadasi, celebrated on the eleventh day of the waxing moon in the Tamil month of Margazhi (December-January). It is also called Mukkoti Ekadashi. In our Puranas, it's the day the ocean (kshira sagara) was churned by both the devas and asuras for the nectar of immortality (amrit) during the Kurma Avatar era of Lord Vishnu;  the spiritual significance being churning your own heart for goodness and purity and ridding it of falsehood, ego and conceit. 

Vaikunta Ekadasi is also called Guruvar, the day our beloved Krishna imparted the knowledge of the Bhagawad Gita to Arjuna. The Gita is about inner spiritual practices in the form of the different types of Yogas, that not just help you in physical wellbeing  and spiritual progress personally, but the resultant flow of unselfish thoughts results in service to society. After all, as Krishna tells us, the greatest seva (service) is service to society. 

Vaikunta Ekadasi is a multiple-blessings day.  It's the day the doors of Vaikunta, the abode of Vishnu open; the spiritual significance being an invitation for self-examination in our journey from the untruth to truth. On another note, it is believed that if you die on the day of Vaikunta Ekadasi, you bypass the rest of your karmic cycle of death-rebirths and attain Moksha, or liberation at the feet of God.  Kind of like an escape card. Of course we don't get to choose when we die, but I sure hope that when my time comes, it's on Vaikunta Ekadasi day. The essence of Karma is action and equal reaction, cause and equal consequence, which Newton "re-discovered" with a lens of science. Your actions in the present  (positive or negative) will have equal consequences in this lifetime or a future lifetime and our goal in every lifetime should be to cancel out all the negative accumulated karmic debt. Your atma (soul) has a much longer timespan that your mortal body in its journey to liberation. Rebirth makes total sense in modern lingo; we call it recycling now, instead of use-once and dispose off the old which just accumulates in polluting landfills.