07/26/2018
Happy Guru Purnima! This is the most sacred Purnima Tithi of the year. Some may ask, what is the Purnima Tithi? It is the 15th synodic lunar day following the New Moon which culminates in the Full Moon every month. The one that happens after Summer Solstice in Ashadha month is called Guru Purnima and it celebrates the Guru. (Note that there was another Full Moon in late June but it wasn’t the Guru Purnima because of Adhi Maas/Aadi Masam, the extra intercalary lunar month that we had this year.)
The Purnima Tithi occurs on the day before the culmination of Full Moon. In the eastern time zone, the Purnima Tithi begins today, July 26 around 1:50 PM (5:50 PM UTC) it ends near the beginning of the maximum lunar eclipse on July 27 around 4:20 PM EDT (8:20 PM UTC). The tithi in place at sunrise rules the day, and since it is in place at sunrise on July 27, it will be celebrated then, and the special ceremonies and pujas will be performed the 27th before the eclipse. This timing for Guru Purnima on July 27 applies to all parts of the world.
During Guru Purnima, the whole world is quite receptive to divine blessings. This is the perfect time to begin a new spiritual or healing practice, honor and propitiate our preceptors, and commune with the divine teacher—the gu-ru, dispeller of darkness—who exists within all of nature and mostly within out own inner hearts. One hopes that having the Guru's day of grace preceding the lunar eclipse this year helps to minimize some of the negative potential of the eclipse. I intuit that the eclipse occurring immediately at the end of the Guru Purnima tithi represents some possible flushing out of negative energies.
The festival of Guru Purnima is dedicated to Veda Vyāsa also, and is therefore also known as Vyāsa Purnima. He is the author of and a character in the Mahabharata, and is considered to have been the narrator of both the Vedas and Puranas, for which Lord Ganesha was his scribe. Guru Purnima thus commemorates Veda Vyāsa’s birthday as well as the day when he is said to have divided the Vedas. Guru Purnima is also a day when Lord Shiva is commemorated as the Adhi (first) Guru. On this day he took His first disciples, the seven sages known as the Saptarishis.
The power of the true guru cannot be underestimated. As Paramahansa Yogananda said, "When one can express the almighty power of intoxicating divine love, it awakens the living heart of God’s love in the lives of others. Liberated masters are unrestrained in the omnipresence of the Infinite, bestowing their blessings even after physical death."
Blessings of Guru Purnima! May God, Christ, and Guru continue to show us the way to the everlasting peace that "passeth all understanding." Om namahashiva! Jai Gurudev! Om shanti shanti shanti, peace peace peace!