Sat Ma­haraj

In T&T, the month of De­cem­ber is ded­i­cat­ed to Christ­mas.Al­though there is no una­nim­i­ty amongst Chris­tians that Je­sus was born on De­cem­ber 25, the west­ern world has, over the cen­turies, es­tab­lished re­li­gious, com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al events that form part of this na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion.

In mul­ti-cul­tur­al and mul­ti-re­li­gious T&T, we Hin­dus have es­tab­lished our own an­nu­al cy­cle of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al ob­ser­vances. We form part of the Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions but at the same time, we ob­serve cer­tain of our own re­li­gious prac­tices that have been brought by our an­ces­tors who came from In­dia to Trinidad as in­den­tured labour­ers, be­gin­ning in 1845.

For more than 30 years, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and its Pun­dits' Parishad ded­i­cate one Sun­day every De­cem­ber, and the en­tire day chant­i­ng what we re­gard as the most pow­er­ful mantra in all of Hin­duism: the Gay­a­tri Mantra.A mantra is a word or string of words, when re­peat­ed, be­come an aid to con­cen­tra­tion to devo­tees in med­i­ta­tion. Mantra is a San­skrit word that sig­ni­fies a sa­cred ut­ter­ance that has psy­cho­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al pow­er.

On De­cem­ber 15, more than 150 pun­dits par­tic­i­pat­ed in a 12�hour-long rep­e­ti­tion of the Gay­a­tri Mantra. The venue was the spe­cial­ly con­struct­ed Gay­a­tri Mandir on the grounds of the head­quar­ters of the Ma­ha Sab­ha at St Au­gus­tine; this struc­ture is unique in its de­sign and con­struc­tion.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers