STRESS AND CHITRAAHUTI: DR SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR

What is chitraahuti?

We gratefully and prayerfully share a small part of food available to us for eating; before beginning our lunch and dinner. This procedure, norm or ritual is called chitraahuti. The word is derived from the combination of two words Chitra and Aahuti. Chitra is deity’s name and Aahuti means offering.

This is one of the examples; of how the rituals emerged and organized; from the realization of truth so as to culminate in the realization of truth. Truth is beyond articulation. But it can be said to be the state of being; where the individual consciousness is one with the universal consciousness.

Chitraahuti is a gesture of reaffirming our oneness and harmony; with the visible and invisible living universe; in and around us. It transforms a biological compulsion and mechanical act into a YAJNYA, a noble deed and a leap forward towards individual and universal blossoming.

It is obvious and clear that when we are too immature to understand this purpose; we either simply follow the procedure; with “religious feelings of reverence”; without understanding its importance; or reject it with “arrogant rationality and rebelliousness”! We get labeled as “conformists” or “rebels” respectively; but are in either case; we are immature!

As we are immature; we tend to blindly adhere to our past glory mechanically and/or irrationally; or get variably influenced, impressed and overwhelmed by the cacophony of individualism and try to dismiss and reject our past as irrational and superstitious.

In short; we get either fossilized in the letters and words of scriptures; or we get inebriated by the showy glamour and the phony glitter and unleash the beast within us; assuming ourselves to be free! We get entangled in the external aspects of the rituals or get delirious in petty individualism, lopsided logic, superficial analysis and callous reductionism.

Due to our immaturity; we either become shyly diffident conformist; hostile to rationality; or become maniacally arrogant rationalists; hostile to ancient profundity, wisdom and benevolence!

Our plight lies in; our secessionist and treacherous ungratefulness and eventual emotional secession from nature in and around us! Actually this is; “splitting away” from our own roots; our life lines!

The redeeming feature; however; is; the unseen process of getting reconnecting with the cosmic consciousness i.e. returning to our own selves is however! It is swiftly absorbing all of us; who represent the global conscience and so; many more people are sure to cast more light on chitraahuti and other rituals!