In this great ancient spiritual culture of Indian subcontinent, there is great spiritual wisdom that is behind the seemingly mundane traditions and activities. After all the hard work of sowing and growing the crop manifests itself as a harvest, the first thing we do is to take it to God and thank God that because of the sun, the rain, the soil, the air, water, all these that you have provided us, we are able to grow this food which will sustain us and therefore, the first offering goes to you. For Sri Krishna says, if we consume without offering to God, we are as good as thieves. This gratitude is the very foundation of Indian spirituality. Even before we go to express our gratitude to God,  we want to go pure and clean in our hearts So we celebrate the festival of Bhogi a day before in which we light a fire, collect all that which is old, unwanted in our homes and burn all the articles in the fire of Bhogi. The inner significance is to burn all that which is not Divine in us in this fire of wisdom and get rid of them once for all. It is only when Atman, the feeling of Atman, the Atmabhava rises in us, that is Sankranti, a good change, a better change. That is the inner meaning of celebrating the festival of Sankranti.

We worship the cows and the cattle that helped us to make a good crop harvest, the bulls, the cows, the calves, everybody is worshipped because they have also helped us earn our food. We worshipped animals, trees, rivers, everything that we saw around us. From Vyashti to Samashti to Srshti to Parameshti we were all connected together with one single bond of Divinity. The individual, the society, the nature and God Himself, we all are related to each other was the understanding that our ancients always had. They fly kites on Sankranti Day. There is a race for cattle race. There are wrestling matches. It is a festival where everybody gets an opportunity to come together, to bond together.

Children are leaving the beautiful creation of God – the sunlight, the water, the air, the fields and sitting on a couch and all day long busy playing games on their phones. They don’t understand what are human relations, what is the purpose of a society. These beautiful ideals which were celebrated through these festivals are being forgotten by most. Therefore, in our institutions, I said don’t give these mobiles and tablets and other things to the small children. The progress from human to Divine is through society. Therefore, human to society to Divinity, I to We to He is the process. I to He is very difficult but I to We to He is gradual and a very sure and easy process.