Spring is a Blend of Knowledge, Penance and Love
Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya, who was an amazing blend of knowledge, penance and love used to say — "The meaning of Vasant (spring) is to give importance to the time, energy, the youth phase of life and to move in the direction of positive transformation. The meaning of Vasant is the blossoming of flowers, the happiness of the trees and the romance of Mother Earth. Vasant is the fertile region of our own mind. All the enthusiasm that we see within and outside us is all a form of Vasant. Spring is a color that does not fade. Knowledge, penance and love are very naturally blended as part of Vasant. Knowledge shows us a direction in life. Penance presents itself in the form of hard work and love ensures that we remain positive, empathetic and creative."
Vasant Panchami is the onset of spring. There is novelty and newness all around. The Indian year ends and begins in spring. Spring is the best source of Prana. Spring is the abode of art and poetry. Every flower and bird sings poetry if we have the ear for it.
During spring, the forests and gardens reverberate with the songs of cuckoos and fragrance of flowers. This season has been fascinating to man from times immemorial. The natural splendor that prevails during spring should be understood as the fusion of our external and internal beauty. This luster needs to be preserved. If spring is the depiction of our inner beauty, then it is our duty to preserve that counterpart in the external world.
Forests are getting extinct, carbon footprint is increasing, and forests that are responsible for ecological balance are getting depleted. Industrial waste and toxic emissions are a threat to mankind and to the spring. We no longer hear the chirping of birds. In such a scenario, human knowledge, penance and love are the only things capable of preserving the spring within and outside.
Param Pujya Gurudev says — "Vasant Panchami is an occasion for celebrating life and its progress. That is why we all need to take a new resolve with renewed enthusiasm. Vasant Panchami is also called Shri Panchami. Shri means beauty as well as prosperity. This beauty has to be brought to the lives of millions of poor and the downtrodden through the medium of knowledge. What we need to do is to bring cheer on those faces that are now crestfallen because of all the problems surrounding them. We have to transform the personal prayer into a resolve for a greater good. We have to respect and empower the woman so much that she herself becomes Saraswati. We have to remove conflict and establish peace of the spring. As and when harmony is established, the beauty of the flowers is reclaimed. Spring teaches us to make our life a celebration."
In this era of modernization, industrialization and artificial life, the spring season is asking a question to each one of us. It wants to know where this departure between man-and-man, man-and-society, and man-society-and-nature is leading us to. Why is it that sky, stars, trees, birds and their songs, rivers and the dip in the rivers are becoming aliens to us? Has our new way of thinking made us forget the art of living? If that is so, we need to realize our mistakes and correct them. We have to recognize the importance of knowledge, penance and love in our life. This Vasant Panchami is a clarion call for all of us to once again begin to see life as propounded by the ancient Indian Rishis.
"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon." — E.M. Forster
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." — Albert Einstein