Makara Sankranti – Harmonize with the cosmic movements to move from darkness towards light

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. On the occasion of Makar Sankranti, let us contemplate the significance of this day. Sankranti comes from the word Sankraman, means to cross over.
Sankranti refers to the crossing over of the Sun from one sign of the zodiac to another. Makar refers to Capricorn. Zodiac refers to the celestial belt which contains the positions of the Sun and the other planets as they course through the sky in their apparent motion.
Now, when the Sun moves from one zodiac to another that is a moment of transition and when it enters into Makar, the Capricorn zodiac, that is called as Makar Sankranti. Till then has been the time of winter. Now from this point onwards, next season, spring begins and this is also the time when the Dakshinayan ends and the Uttarayan begins.
The Sun starts moving in northern side in the Bhagavad Gita, in the Vedanta Sutra as well as in the Vedas. It is described that there are auspicious and inauspicious times. And the Uttarayan signifies the beginning of auspicious times.
So in Uttarayan, the Sun starts becoming brighter and brighter and brighter. That indicates that similarly our heart becomes brighter and brighter with knowledge. So the circumstances, the environmental and the astrological and astronomical settings are such that they are conducive for doing auspicious activities.
So Dakshinayan is considered to be relatively not so auspicious. Uttarayan is considered to be more auspicious. And just as the Sun starts becoming brighter and brighter, the idea is that we can also turn away from darkness and move towards light.
And that transition is considered to be the time of Makar Sankranti. That transition is signified by Makar Sankranti. Now sesame seeds are considered to be purificatory.
And that’s why on this day sesame seed items are made and mixed with sweet because it signifies enlightenment. It signifies the moving towards light which also brings bliss, joy. And sweet brings joy.
So like that sweets are prepared and they are distributed. So now it is on this day that Bhishma chose to depart from the world. The Bhagavad Gita as well as the Vedanta Sutra declare that for a yogi, actually it doesn’t matter when the yogi departs, especially for a bhakti yogi.
Because if one’s consciousness is fixed properly on the absolute truth, on Krishna, then one will attain transcendence whatever be one’s situation. But still to show that the yogi is not deprived of the results of punya, the yogi can attain even a glorious destination, successful departure as is considered by the conventional standards of material religiosity. That means from the point of material religiosity, departure in Dakshinayan is considered to be a not so auspicious departure.
Departure in Uttarayan is considered to be auspicious. So to demonstrate that a devotee is not derived of materially auspicious things also, a devotee gets that also. Bhishma used his benediction of Ikshamrityu and waited till this particular day and then he departed on this day.
So as spiritual seekers, we try to be conscious of Krishna all the time and there are special occasions when we can try to intensify that consciousness and we can take them as beginnings, fresh beginnings for intensifying that focus on transcendence. So just as the sun moves into Capricorn and a transition moves towards light, we can also by the process of Bhakti Yoga move towards the supreme light that is Krishna. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.