The birth of Karthikeya!

Hello all,

Hope all of you had a fantastic week, where you were able to put into practice exactly what your inner core wanted to bring into your life. Before proceeding further, yesterday, (March 5th, 2019) as I was cutting an onion, the onion rolled off and I ended up having deep cuts in my second and third fingers of my left hand. Both fingers are bandaged up. I almost thought of just putting a message that I am not able to type this week. With too much typing, if blood starts to flow out of the bandages, I would have to forego this week. Hopefully not. But it is true, two of my fingers are in bandages. Shenanigans of everyday living!

Karthikeya: So, last week we decided that we would tackle some Mythology for a few weeks. This week let us delve into the birth of Karthikeya in Hindu mythology and what is one of the esoteric meaning we can come up with. In Hinduism, there is the God Shiva, who is the God of destruction and dissolution. Anything that needs to be dissolved back into Brahman, the Universal principle is the realm of Shiva. His wife is Shakthi or Parvathi, who has the energy of pure creation. To create anything even a simple dish we need pure energy. That is Parvathi.

Karthikeya with his six heads!
Wives Valli and Devasena are also seen!
Image credits - Raja Ravi Varma [Public domain]

There are many legends about the birth of their son, Karthikeya. We would take one of the stories and analyze. In that, there was a demon called Tharakasura. He had got a boon from Brahma I suppose that only a son born to Shiva would be able to kill him. He started creating havoc in the heaven by defeating the Devas (celestial beings) and also humans and sages (Earthly beings). Heaven got to the verge of collapse. Devas very much wanted Tharakasura to be killed.

The birth: In those days, Shiva was roaming all the worlds like a yogi after his first wife Sathi's tragic death. Finally, due to some master strategies concocted by the devas (too elaborate to write here), Shiva married Parvathi, who to get Shiva as her husband was doing her own penance. Now in one legend the seeds that were supposed to create Karthikeya came from  Shiva's third eye. As we have discussed before, the third eye is the seat of intuition. So, here most probably Shiva thought intuitively about his son.

Then energy sparks came out of Shiva's third eye, which was collected by Agni (fire God) who gave it to the river Ganges and she took it to a lake called Manasa (Saravana lake), where she placed them in six lotuses and they formed into six babies. There six ladies called 'Krithika ladies'saw the babies, who took those babies and brought them up till the age of seven to ten, I suppose. Later Agni (fire God) and Krithika ladies brought the six babies to Shiva and Parvathi.

Now, Parvathi who was the energy incarnate took all the six boys, merged them as one boy with six heads and named him Kartikeya, as he was brought up by the six Krithika ladies. She also gave her spear as his weapon to fight Tharakasura. He went fought and killed Tharakasura and his brothers Surapadma and Simhamukha. This is the legend of the birth of Karthikeya. A very simple legendary Hindu myth, which people narrate again and again. But is it as simple as it portrays? How about if we explore some hidden meanings? What is the point without Philosophy?  ;-)))) Of course,this is my interpretation. Another person can have their own.

Hidden meanings: Okay. let us dive in. First, the spark came from the third eye of Shiva. What is the third eye? It is pure intuition. So, can we consider it as a deep thought or idea from our core or the Soul? Yes, we can. (Obama's campaign slogan). So, this thought has come up. Now, this spark or the thought is carried out by Agni (Fire God).

What is Agni, in a mental sense? Agni is pure passion. The energy of passion for something that we just love. It can be art, painting, cooking, sculpture, blogging, writing, jewelry making, anything that we are ready to put effort into. So, this thought is getting carried on the wings of passion. Now, where does Agni go? He goes to Ganges, the river and takes the sparks to lake Manasa.

Let me bring in Sanskrit language here. In Sanskrit Manasa means mind. Yes, mind. What is the thing that always brings the mind up and down? Emotions. All of us are emotional beings. We live for emotions, whether it is love, compassion, kindness or the lower vibrations of the same, jealousy, envy, anger, sadness, depression or whatnot. We, humans, are deeply emotional beings, whether we accept it or not. We just are.

Now let us take Vedic Astrology. In it Moon represents mind. It is also considered a water Graha. In Vedic Astrology Moon if well placed makes the person very balanced with emotions. So, this shows that water is associated with emotions. So, the river and lake are emotions. So, Manasa lake is mind and emotions. Later comes the Lotus flowers.

Again, what is the Lotus flower? I have written about it before. Lotus is the pure wisdom. So, we need the wisdom of the heart to make sense of this rising thought. Now, there are six lotuses. So, there have to be six kinds of wisdom. Before going there let us think about the Krithika ladies. So, they are six of them, one for each wisdom. Now. as they are ladies. what does it signify? We have discussed before divine feminine and divine masculine. So, here by virtue of they being ladies, this is divine feminine. What are the qualities of the divine feminine?

The wisdom symbolized as the Lotus flower!
Image credits - Pixabay.com

Love, compassion, and nurturing. So, any thought or idea needs to be nurtured to make it healthy and well meaningful. It has to be carefully brought up with love, food, and water. An idea that is not given proper care and concern eventually dies down. So, the Krithika ladies represent the care and concern we need to give for an idea to thrive. Now to the babies.

The six babies: Now to the six babies who are placed in the wisdom of the six lotuses. Let us go through each one. For an idea to really take shape in our mind what are the qualities needed?

1, Vision- For any idea to really come into effect first we need a vision. What do we want to do with that idea? Where do we want to take it? How long or short range should the vision be?

2, Strategy- How are we going to achieve it? How can we go about it? Whom should we approach? Are there resources available? What is the mission we are thinking of? How it would benefit us and the greater society?

3, Goals- What are our short term and long term goals? What are we planning to accomplish? Why are we doing it? Does it make sense in our own mind to go behind it? Is it an enormous waste or use of our time and resources? What are the pitfalls, caveats and great things we envision?

 4, Leadership- What are the objectives through which these goals would be accomplished? What is the first target? What are the steps? How are we taking care of each step? How long should we give for each step or each objective? How can we lead the different ideas that come about? Is there a team? How are we going to lead the team?

The leader in every one!

Image credits - Pixabay,com

5, Courage- This is one of the most important wisdom. We need the courage to take it to the next step. Without courage every idea would stay in the idea or the planning stage, never to see the light of the day. There is no shortage of ideas. But not everyone is bold enough to take the action on it. So, this step is extremely important.

6, Actions- This is the last but the very important step. It is not enough to have an idea and courage. We also need to act on it. Anything in the mind is in the idea and creative realm. To bring it to the solid physical realm we need pure hard work and actions. Many times we criticize Saturn (Shani) as the cause of every pain in our life. But Saturn is the lord of the physical or material realm. He says, "Do the work, with your own effort. I would bless you with material success". Instead, we criticize him without realizing his value in the physical world.

So, these are the six babies that are in the Lotuses of the wisdom of the emotions and mind. Now, as the babies are growing they are very separate. Each has its own mind or thought process. The divine feminine brings up each of them as thoughts of many different processes. angles, and strategies. Once the idea or the babies grow and become strong in our own mind, our own passion (Agni) again comes into the picture.

The emergence of the single boy Karthikeya: Now, the passion takes it back to our heart and creativity- Shiva and Shakthi. Shiva is the divine masculine, the inner Soul that is residing in our within. Sakthi is the energy of creativity. Once back with Soul and the creative energy, all these six qualities have to be combined with the help of the energy of creativity, Shakthi or Parvathi. That creative energy takes all these six wisdom, combines it together, to bring out a very strong willed mind- Karthikeya.

So, now Karthikeya, the strong-willed mind ready to take an idea and put it into action has come about. Above that what is needed to put anything into practice? What is the worst quality of a mind? Distraction. Think about it. In today's world, the internet, social media, apps, our own phones, TVs, shopping everything pulls our mind in many different directions.

To put anything into effect what do we need? Focus. So, here Kathikeya's mother Shakthi is giving him the spear called 'Sakthivel'- the focus of the mind. Now using all these qualities mentioned above and the power of a focused mind, Karthikeya, the mind goes ahead and kills the demons Tharakasura, Surapadma, and Simhamukha to accomplishes the task.  

All these demons can be our lower energies or vibrations that keep us away from our own Dharma or life purpose. Say, for example, let us think Tharakasura. Tharaka is 'Stars' in Sanskrit. So, from that meaning, we can think of the stars as our destiny or life path. Asura is something that obstructs, destroys, or take us away from it. So, here Tharakasura can be considered as the energy that keeps us away from our destiny or Dharma. 

Now like that Simhamukha. Simha or Lion is the sign Leo in Vedic astrology. In it's lowest vibrations, Leo can be totally egoistic and arrogant. Now, Mukha, face. From where do our words come? Mouth, which is placed on our face. So, Simhamukha, egoistic words, that bring in fights and take us away from our purpose. Due to use of arrogant words, the physical reality we create for ourselves also would be very far from what we desire. Why? 'Our thoughts and words create our reality'.

Standing as a leader in our uniqueness!
Image credits - Pixabay.com

The main lesson: So, the main lesson from the 'Birth of Karthikeya' is like Karthikeya, we should be  the leader who has six heads, with all the leadership capabilities and strategy in our own passions and talents. Someone who has the focus of a mind as sharp as the spear called 'Shakthivel'- The spear of energy, to bring in exactly the Dharma they want for their own life. Basically to become the 'Master and Creator of our own life'!

Now, the question to each one of us, 'Are we embracing the true energy of Karthikeya (mind of a leader), the son of Shiva (Soul) and Shakthi (creativity/energy)??

I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday!😉 

Note: A snap of my cut fingers! Happy that I was able to finish and publish the post this week. Divine grace!


 
Next week: Swaminatha - the real meaning!

Credits: Images and links from Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay.com

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried".  

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