Guru Purnima – Honoring the Teacher
We all heard about people celebrating Mother's Day, Father's Day, Friendship Day, Lovers Day, World Music Day, Fools days etc. Have you heard of any people celebrating Guru's day in our tradition? We used to celebrate Guru Purnima (aka Vyasa Puja) on Ashada or full moon day during Chaturmasya of the Hindu calendar (3rd July – 2012 this year). In the year 2011, it was celebrated on July 15, 2011. Guru Poornima was celebrated by Hindus and Bhuddist. The word Guru is derived from two words namely, "Gu" and "ru" . Gu - means ignorance of people or darkness in people. Ru means - removing the darkness or remover of darkness. Guru is the remover of darkness deom mind of people. Guru is more popularly called Acharya.
Guru is a link between ordinary people and God. One who removes our darkness is called GURU. In this day all people worship God. They perform Poojas for Guru. The meaning of 'Guru' in English is 'Sprittual Guide'. We express our l gratitude to Sage Vyasa on Guru Purnima day. Sage Vyasa is worshipped as an incarnation of Lord Mahavishnu. It is believed that there is nothing in the world that has not come from Sri Vyasa's mouth (Vyasochishtam Jagat Sarvam).
Sri Vyasa wrote the Brahma Sutras, the Mahabharata and 18 Puranas. So he is the author of Brahma Sutras, the Mahabharata and 18 Puranas. Yet, the greatest contribution of Sri Vyasa lies in his classification of the Vedas. In olden days, people used to study all the Vedas. But, with the passage of time, it became very, very difficult to learn all of them. Sage Vyasa classified and compiled the Vedas into four categories- Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharvana and taught them respectively to four of his disciples Sumantu, Vaishampayana, Jaimini and Paila. The Vedic tradition is alive today only because of Sri Vyasa.
In the modern times we have lots of modern gadgets to save anything in any format. We can save it in CD, Pen drive, Hard Disk or Computer. In the past, the storage of data was not possible. So how we got all this. The Vedas, Ithihasas and Puranas have reached us simply by word of mouth!. Just imagine it is a very, very great thing.
Bhagavan (the almighty) is considered the first teacher or the Adi Guru of the tradition. Between Bhagavan, and our Guru there are so many teachers in our Guru Parampara (tradition). We offer our salutations to each of them, who have dedicated their lives for the sake of maintaining this tradition. Sanyasis in our tradition begin the Chaturmasya Vrata on this Guru Purnima day. In those days, Sanyasis used to walk by foot everywhere. So we used to get their blessings on that day. Sanyasis used to pray for our wellness to the God.
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