Yamaraja, the god of death, with red eyes, club, and a noose in his hands riding on his mount buffalo starts walking towards the mortals to take their life to his abode, Yamalok to make their Karmic account settle.
The moment a Jiva-Atma takes birth on the earth, the Yama riding on his slow vehicle buffalo starts his journey to reach him. Jiva-Atma means, the soul wrapped with a mortal body. The soul gets the mortal body for a certain period of time. You have only that much of time until Yamaraja reaches you.
Yamaraja is the first mortal died on the earth. He lived on the earth very piously in his mortal body. Due to this virtue, he was made the god of deaths. The direction of death and ancestors is south. And he is the Dikpal, the guardian, of the south. Although, he is a god, yet he is feared even more than the demons. He waits for none. He spares no one. He is the time, the Kaal.
Whether mortals want or not, fear or not, everyone, without any alternative, meets Yama sooner or later. The tickling sound of the watch is the reminder of the presence of Yama. Along with the tickling of time, the Yama is coming near to us. Whether humans would meet other gods or goddesses or not, that is not certain, but meeting Yama is certain. People fear the certainty and embarrass the illusion. The biggest illusion is - everyone dies, not me.
Every god and goddesses are given some certain vehicles. Durga has a lion, Ganesha has a rat, Shiva has bull etc. Every vehicle of gods and goddesses has a certain meaning. Yamaraja is given a vehicle, buffalo. Why buffalo...? Why not other animals...?
Buffalo is the symbol of Tamasic quality, the ignorance. Buffalo is so ignorant that he lies over his own dung. The human body is the best body for the soul for acquiring the divine knowledge. It is the best opportunity to be Divya-Atma from Jiva-Atma. But, due to the unbridled senses, humans involve in those activities which are not better than animals. We forget the ultimate reality, the death. We forget that we are here on this earth for a certain period of time. We forget that we have to die one day. We forget that our body is transitory. We ignore the permanent (soul) and cling to the temporary and transitory (matter). This binds our soul in lower Karmic bondage.
Yama rides buffalo to take you to his abode, the hell, and punish your ignorance. After ample punishment, he releases and gives you another opportunity to take birth again to remove your ignorance and make your soul free from Karmic bondage. Buffalo is a reminder of the ignorance, and the club and the noose are the reminders of the punishment of the ignorance. There is certain hell for the people of tamasic quality. The buffalo(Tamasic) only knows the path of hell.
The buffalo walks slow and with the same speed. It is the symbol of time. The time runs equally for everyone. One who came out of the ignorance and acquired the knowledge of reality within the allotted time is said a person of Sattvic quality.
It is said that one who is of Sattvic quality, the divine quality, who has known the self, Yama directly send him to the abode of shining, that is heaven. He would be out time and ignorance (buffalo). And those who are out of time do not take birth and death again and again. They always remain out of reach of Yama. According to the scriptures, that state is called salvation, the free from the continuous cycle of birth and death.
No comments:
Post a Comment