The above title may sound to some of you very odd. But, please bear with me, before you can see the light. This is a story of the birthday celebration, which we are all familiar with – at least with the method of the celebration, if not with the full meaning and purpose of it. The first half of the title is somewhat popular, and reads in English translation as, “Lead me from darkness to light!” Before pondering over the meaning and interrelationship between the first half and the second half of the title, let us delineate the primary steps that we take in celebrating birthdays. Also, it appears to be appropriate to emphasize here that my journey in search of meanings will be restricted to only allude to only some fundamental (or tattvic) ideas through a simple language, rather than to fully discuss ontological, adhyatmic, and physical components with philosophical rigor and precision.
The following are the familiar steps in the celebration of a typical birthday:
- Invite family members and friends.
- Expect gifts and presents from the guests.
- Provide some drinks (soft, hard, or both), or appetizers to all.
- Polarization of males, females, children. The adults normally form their own groups, and stay that way throughout the celebration.
- Engage in talks (or gossips) which are not at all related to the occasion, and each group has its own old popular topics to talk about with no intention or sense of goals that the talk may lead to for action. As an example, male adults may talk on a wide range of topics that include, money, job, politics, games and sports, India vs. America, etc; in fact all topics from A through Z, but superficially.
- These topics are talked about over and over almost in every party; in fact, one can record them and play them back over and over without any loss of purposeless purpose. They are without purpose and meaning except the fact that the atmosphere may be relaxing for some and may lower their blood pressure and anxiety accumulated over many days. I believe that in most of the times and most of these occasions, such is the space of discourse. Each group has its own style and content of talks but with no higher meaning or purpose. In fact, I believe many of us come out of these celebrations with a deep sense of emptiness and purposelessness, with no learning or creative or memorable experience.
- Arrange a cake with lighted candles placed on its top, and call everyone to join in the singing ‘Happy Birth Day to You’, that lasts about 15-30 seconds. This is a modern-day mantra. Then ask the person whose birthday is being celebrated to blow all the candles out, and everyone appears to be happy but just for a minute or so. Some observations worth noting: some people may not even join this sixty second chorus; spitting right on the cake during the blow-out action may not be completely ruled out; and candles meet their premature or untimely extinction.
- Now is the time to cut a beautifully decorated cake, which will be distributed to everyone.
- The final or the last event is of course the delicious food, which is being served to everyone with great enthusiasm and spirit of service; and that I believe is the best part of the whole ceremony in its present form.
Some Observations and Vedic Perspectives
Some of the important meanings of birth can be defined as-the coming of a child in this world from his or her mother’s, womb; coming out from the darkness (there is utter darkness within the womb) to light; from the non-worldly existence to the worldly existence; and from the painful circumstances to the joyful existence. And this is exactly the meaning behindTamaso Maa Jyotirgamaya: Lead from darkness to light, and lead me from Tamas mode (mode of ignorance and darkness) to Sattvic mode of existence (mode of knowledge, goodness and light). Therefore, mode of celebration of the birth day and all the activities (physical, verbal and mental) around it must be designed to remind us all, including the person whose birth day is being celebrated, that this is a day to be celebrated with great joy: a beginning of renewed life to enjoy, a renewed joy to whole family, a renewed joy of creativity, a renewed joy to share and hope for, a renewed joy to have the most meaningful living, a renewed joy to foster the continuity of illustrious traditions of family, sanskritic and dharmic heritage, and a potential path to eternity.
Blowing out the candles immediately after they are lighted means a movement from light-to-darkness, from freedom to bondage, from joy to miseries; and this act is diametrically opposite to tamaso ma jyotirgamaya, and is adharma. An immediate extinguishment of the candles also reflect the idea that previous years lived have no bearing on the present and future; the past has not left any traces on its present (in contradiction with the law of Karma), and the experiences earned in the past must be extinguished like the lighted candles.
- What an interesting modern ‘mantra’, Happy Birthday to You. We are wishing only for one-day happiness, while our Vedic Rishis used to bless a person with a ‘mantra’, “live at least one hundred years of happy and healthy life”.
- No active participation by the members present is observed in the real celebration of this most unique event. The usual business of meaningless and purposeless party goes on.
- Sometimes one may wonder as to why and how this has happened that we started adopting these practices in our cultural celebrations without thinking and analyzing them.
A few points in this regard are worth noting…
- Most probably we learned it from some Indian and other films, which by the way have become unduly our guiding lights or gurus in lieu of our sages, saints, and other learned persons, in our physical, mental as well as social behavior.
- It is the social norms and prestige that put the peer pressure on every one to follow blindly such ideas and practices. Do you remember an ancient saying; “Blinds follow blinds and go together in blinding Darkness (tamas)”?
- Similar adharmic and unsuitable adaptation in other social and sanskritic (cultural?) celebrations can also be observed. This is happening in the name of modernity and progress, without ever thinking about if the adopted changes are good or bad; consistent or inconsistent with our timeless wisdom. No intelligent being would want to go from light to darkness, from freedom to bondage, from joy to miseries, as clearly demonstrated by blowing out the lighted candle.
How to Celebrate? (new design and structure)
Wake-up and rise my fellow Bharatiya (sons and daughters of mother Bharati) and fellow born- to-Bharatiya-parents, and all others aspiring for wisdom to abandon immediately all such activities, which are in direct contradiction with the most beautiful, wonderful and scientific dictum, tamaso maa jyotirgamaya.
Recognize and experience the true meaning behind happy birthday celebrations by engaging collectively into those activities, which can provide most joyful, meaningful, creative and lasting experiences for everyone.
Setting
- Place a decorated table at a convenient location so that people can circumambulate. Then place these items on the table: a thali or plate with kumkum for tilak, incense and flowers for offering; a ghee-lamp or an oil-lamp; a small pot filled with water; a coconut fruit on the top of the water pot; sweets, and a picture or statue of Lord Vishnu or Krishna-The Lord of Yajna- at the center of the table. The birthday celebration is a Yajna, a Puja-yoga.
- If it is a child’s birthday, let the child sit on, or one of his or her parents can hold while sitting on a chair near the table.
Actions
- A small Puja must or can be performed if a priest is available, otherwise the following brief procedure can be followed with or without Puja.
- Light up the lamp.
- Apply tilak, and offer flowers and incense to the Deity, to lighted the lamp, to the water-filled pot and coconut fruit while reciting an appropriate mantra. Lord Vishnu or Krishna is recognized to be the presiding Deity-the Lord of Yajna, and the lamp is a manifested form of Agni devata. Our Sun-the source of our existence on this planet- is the manifested form as well; all forms of Agni (fire) are associated with His manifestation, and He also resides in us and in all the beings, as a hidden conscious entity. The birthday celebration is a kind of Yajna or Puja-yoga In this case, the mantra- Aum Yajnapurushaya Namo-Namah-is the appropriate while making the above offering.
- Now, apply tilak to the person whose birthday is being celebrated. And now is the time for showering the blessings. Let everyone gathered around the person must hold a few petals of flowers, and the presiding person start reciting the following blessings one by one while the participants will repeat, and at the end of last blessing all must shower the flowers on the person.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to live a healthy life for 100 years, and beyond.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to live a healthy sight for 100 years, and beyond.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to live a healthy hearing for 100 years, and beyond.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to live a healthy speech for 100 years, and beyond.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to live a healthy sense of smell for 100 years, and beyond.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to live a healthy manas and intelligence and all other indriyas (sense and motor faculties) for 100 years, and beyond.
May Ishwara Agnideva bless you to have a joyful, peaceful and shraddhamaya life for 100 years, and beyond.
- Now, it is time to circumambulate the Deity and the lamp, the water pot, and the coconut fruit sitting on the table, in a clockwise motion. Please go round and round (parents holding the child and moving) clockwise seven times; others can follow too. The presiding person will recite the following mantra each time at the beginning of each round, thus in total seven times. Others can follow too.
Asadoma sadgamaya, tamasomajyotirgamaya, mrityormaamrtogamaya. ( meaning: O’ Ishwara Agnideva! lead me from non-existence to existence; Ishwara Agnideva! lead me from darkness to light; Ishwara Agnideva! lead me from death to immortality.)
- Please do not blow the lamp out; let it meet its own natural demise once the ghee or oil is over.
- Now the sweets as Prasad must be first given to the person whose birthday is being celebrated before it is distributed out to all others. And during this time you can sing appropriate songs and/or play good music. Please do not blow the lamp out, and in fact the presiding person must announce the whole procedure in advance.
- Let the people get engaged, in a collective sense (all age groups together), in appropriate songs, prayers, discourses and plain talk dealing with the joyful, creative aspect of life, and the art and science of good living. This is the opportunity to bring our hidden talents out especially from our younger generation by encouraging them to share a story or a song with all of us. One can arrange good singers who can sing the songs most appropriate for the occasion. Usual party business can come in for a short time toward the end of the event. Of course depending upon age groups, different activities such as games, sports, a good movie, etc. can be accommodated. This event can be used to foster much needed sense of belonging to our sanskriti, to our illustrious tradition; and that can help to minimize drastically a sense of alienation and isolation especially among our younger generation. This has a great psychological and social value. Let us not forget that the transmittance of valuable psychological, social and sanskritic traits from one generation to another require all the components of effective communication to act together and these components are: the information, knowledge, wisdom, the language and the concrete physical actions.
- Dana (or gift) by the host family must be the last important component of this celebration. This gift can be given to some one, to some entity that is worthy of it. As an example, it can be a temple, a school, an organization, a needy family, food-for- hunger program, etc.
It is my sincere appeal to all of you to take definite steps to purge out the sacred Birthday celebration from the polluting and corrupting elements, which have crept in it due to our ignorance and/or indifference. We can do it, but some of us have to take lead in this direction. I have full confidence in our beautiful and courageous Bharatiya community that we can collectively become the beacon of light. I can assure you that by returning to the above suggested way of celebration can and will bring more fun, joy and bliss to all of us -children, teenagers, adults as well as olds – the moments to remember and cherish till the time of next birthday.
AUM SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTIH!
