Theme Explanation: Devotion

Dear Reader,

Our history is a tapestry woven together in a pattern upheld by the human experiences that shape the way we see the world today. Each of us is a thread in that tapestry, an infinitely small, yet equally important part of an ever expanding whole. Understanding our history involves more than just an intellectual study, but an empathetic one - a curious, cultural look into the past. To understand our history is to understand the past, present & future. However, times shift, as we grow further away in years from those historic moments, do we render them irrelevant to the normal course of our lives?

Womanhood has changed significantly through the ages, yet even in this era, we still find the same fundamental elements and threads that encompass that identity. This issue will draw upon the stories of women today and the women of the Mahabharata. Through the women of the Mahabharata we are able to learn valuable lessons surrounding good & evil, the power of devotion and how the debate on men versus women started before this yugam...

We are all born of the same wind, water, earth, fire, and cosmos. The threads that link us with each other are the same that connect us to the world around us, the same that our world is made up of. Through learning about our history from the lens of womanhood we may be able to piece together new perspectives about ourselves and the world. Perhaps we can learn that focusing on our differences is a material-world mentality; our bodies are perishable, our atma is not. Are we able to finally see that our differences exist for a reason and that as human beings, we are not privy to all of life’s mysteries? We must check our ego at the door and remain devotional to the statement that the truth is one, but the wise call it by many names.

By Janani