Significance of Varalakshmi Vrata

Mother Parvati once asked Lord Shiva if there is any way by which women can obtain all auspiciousness and prosperity which will in turn help them to live happily with their husband, children, grandchildren, relatives and friends. Pleased by selfless desire of Parvati, Lord Shiva revealed to her Varalakshmi Vrata, performance of which can help all women to satisfy their wishes and lead a happy life full of joy.

This vrata is performed by married women on Friday that comes before Sharaavan Pournima. Vrata procedure itself is very short but the benefits it confers are great. It involves prayers to Goddess Mahalakshmi, consort of Lord Mahavishnu, to provide all things needed to lead happy and prosperous life.

They say that many women in the past have received grace of Goddess Mahalakshmi by performing this vrata and achieved all happiness.

The story of origin of this vrata goes like this. When Lord Shiva revealed this vrata to Parvati, he also narrated the story to illustrate its significance. There was a lady named Charumati who was very pious and devoted. Pleased with her devotion Goddess Lakshmi appeared in her dreams and instructed her to perform Varalaskhmi Vrat. Charumati, as per instructions of Goddess Laskhmi, performed vrat and invited all her neighbors to participate. Not only Charumati but all who participated in that vrat achieved happiness and prosperity.

Here are few links that have more stories of Varalaskhmi Vrata and its significance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varalakshmi_Vratam
http://www.hindu-blog.com/2009/07/story-of-varalakshmi-vratam.html

Rama Setu – great example of extraordinary team work

They say that if one wants to look for, in history of mankind, an example of marvelous engineering team work that marvels in all aspects of engineering and management then there is no better example than construction of bridge on the sea between Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka. In Ramayana itself the activity of construction of this bridge is described as achintya – unimaginable, asahyam – impossible to achieve, adbhutam – wonderful. It is mentioned that all those who witnessed that construction had their hair stand on end due to the amazement.

Everybody who was involved in construction had only one goal and that was to help Lord Rama in his effort to bring back his consort Sita who was abducted by Ravana.

When Rama came to know from Hanuman that Sita was indeed in Lanka, he started praying God of Ocean to help him cross the ocean. When ocean did not appear in person after repeated prayers by Rama, Rama got angry and resolved to dry up the ocean with his arrows. That very time God of Ocean appeared before Rama and told Rama that Nala, one of the vanaras (monkeys), is indeed son of Vishwakarma and he is capable of building bridge across ocean. God of Ocean promised that he will hold that bridge and then disappeared.

Then under the leadership of Nala all vanaras started constructing the bridge. Those huge bodied monkeys, while loudly chanting the name of Rama, literally uprooted huge mountains and trees and then transported them to the sight of bridge for use in the construction of bridge.

Those highly spirited moneys constructed the bridge in five days. Not only the monkeys but every animal was carrying equal spirit and finding joy in helping construction of bridge because it was being built for Rama and what could be better opportunity than opportunity of working for Lord Rama. 

There is a very interesting story about a squirrel. While supervising construction of bridge, Rama saw a squirrel who was first rolling on sand, wetting it’s body and then going down the bridge and doing this repeatedly. Astonished by this scene Rama tried to find out what that squirrel was doing and to his amazement he found that that squirrel was actually collecting sand by rolling on the sand and then taking it between rocks of bridge to act as glue.

Even reading this story makes hair to stand on the end. What an amazing story. No wonder they say that there is no better elixir for mind than reading such enchanting stories from scriptures like Ramayana and in turn learning great lessons.

Complete Ramayana can be found online on this link - http://valmikiramayan.net/