1. Today begins the month long vrata series of Sāvana ke Somvāra, which last a month or four weeks. To north Indians it is a deeply uplifting time full of Śiva bhakti with all Mondays beginning with going to a Śiva temple, offering jala and bilva patra.
2. The rest of the week is spent in pursuits more contemplative and spiritual needing deeper concentration. It is a month to turn inwards: to calm down, slow pace, and to pay attention to ideas and concept which can only be thought about when everything else slows down.
3. The rest of India too has the same rhythm as monsoons hit every part of India around this month and one way or the other, we manage to turn a difficult month into the most rewarding one. When we have to turn inwards anyways, we do it with absolute bhakti.
4. Many parts of India reserve this month for the reading of the Ramayana or any other scripture. As the world closes its doors to every place, as the routes of tīrtha yātrā become blocked, every place becomes a tīrtha in itself, by tapping into the inner pathways.
5. Local for this month becomes the universal. Our activities shrink in scale but still retain the completeness of a Hindu worldview. That is perhaps the beauty of Sanātana dharma. Contraction doesn’t break it, just changes the scale of operations.
6. The local temple in this month becomes as big as the greatest of Dhāma. Walk to the local temple is as good as tīrtha yātrā. The local pandit or the grandmother becomes the expert interpreter of the scripture.
7. Nature aids this contemplation, this turning of inwards, and Culture responds. A limitation of nature is turned into a cultural advantage. A loss here becomes a gain somewhere else. That is ecology. And that is dharma.
8. And that is the only way to live no matter what the economists, politicians and monotheists say.
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