NECESSITY OF DOING ‘SANDHYA’
WHY SHOULD SANDHYA BE A PART OF OUR DAILY ROUTINE?
Arayans, whom we call our ancestors used to begin their days by doing ‘Sandhya’. Sandhya means to meditate and think over the attributes, actions and nature of God in such a way that we realize the existence of supreme power of universe within ourselves and within our society. Whole karam of doing sandhya can be divided into three parts-one is physical which comprises of certain rituals like bathing, sitting in a particular way, taking in, that is, sipping small quantity of water et cetra, the second is vocal, that is, citing certain mantras while doing above mentioned rituals, the third is mental, that is, thinking of the hidden meanings behind all the actions and thinking of the attributes, actions and Nature of God. Out of the three, the third part is most important. If this part is not done well, then, whole of sandhya becomes a mere ritual and this karam fails to produce requisite results. First two parts are mere preparation for enjoying the bliss of God.
Why should sandhya be done and what is the benefit of doing sandhya?
Sandhya is not done for pleasing God. God is beyond pain or pleasure. God is blissful and this attribute of bliss cannot be separated from Him. Neither we can please Him by doing sandhya nor does He become angry with non-doers of sandhya.
Like we take food in order to kill our hunger, in the same way, sandhya is done for health of our mind and spirit. God is a complete, the purest and the greatest living entity. By thinking of Him, our mind will automatically become pure. If our mind gets pure, then we will not be able to do impure and wrong acts. If we can keep ourselves away from bad deeds, then we will not suffer from pain or misery. If we do not do sandhya, then our mind will get engrossed in worldly thoughts and we will not be able to constraint ourselves from doing bad deeds.
This fact can be verified by you with ease. If you leave a good company, then slowly, you will start moving in a bad company and your thoughts will become like that of your company. When we think of God, our mind fails to occupy itself with bad or filthy thoughts. This is the real benefit of doing sandhya.
You go in a garden of roses for a walk. Fragrance of roses will soothe your body. You are there not to please roses or to have a share in their fragrance but you are benefitted by going in the company of roses. By going there, you are not doing any favour to roses but instead you owe them for soothing you. Similarly, when we sit in the company of God and start thinking about His greatness, we tend to start loving Him. With the generation of love towards God, one starts hating badness. Servant of an ideal person naturally hates ills.
Upaasanaa of God generates power and will or courage to fight ills. People, who think that by doing Upaasanaa of God, He forgives the sins committed by the doer, do not understand the spirit of doing Upaasanaa or communion. Such a belief has deviated people from reality and because of such belief many upaasaks (persons doing upaasanaa) tilt towards ills. We must remember that God is just and He rewards or punishes people in accordance with their acts. He does not accept any sort of bribe. Upaasanaa or sandhya is not a bribe. Certain upaasaks start complaining to God on receiving certain pain or misery. Perhaps they have the notion that upaasaks never receive pain or misery. Actually, upaasanaa enhances the power of the upaasak to endure pain or misery received as a result of his bad deeds. Pains or miseries received by a person are fruits of sins committed by him. An upaasak, who eats bad things cannot abstain himself from the result of bad eating. Pain or misery received by a person is a blessing in disguise because actual welfare of a person can be known by God alone and all punishments given by God have the ultimate objective of welfare of man. But, generally, man fails to understand as to how pain or misery received by him is for his welfare. We can say that pain or misery received by man is because of his narrow-mindedness. Rather, God’s blessings on man are endless.
How can the methodology adopted in sandhya benefit man?
There are following three methods to know a thing:
- To move from near to far-first section of sandhya follows this method to know God.
- To move from simple to complex-second section of sandhya follows this method to know God.
- To move from known to unknown-third & last section of sandhya follows this method to know God.
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