As many as 162 poor women will be given clothes and foodgrains and offered puja on March 8 as part of the Jeevanta Durga Puja to be conducted here to mark the second anniversary of Sri Mata Ashram.

President of the ashram Mata Tejomayi and convener Mata Amulyamayi told presspersons here on Friday that the puja, in which women are worshipped considering them as incarnation of Goddess Durga, was in line with what Swami Vivekananda had advocated. The puja will be held at Gokul Garden on Gokul Road at 10 a.m. and it will mark the 162th birth anniversary of Mata Sharada Devi.

Quoting Swami Vivekananda, Mata Tejomayi said that those who were able to see Lord Shiva among poor and weak people and patients were the ones who actually worship God. Those who see God only in idols, their puja was just a preliminary stage.

She said that to mark the second anniversary of the ashram, two-day religious and cultural programmes were being held on the ashram premises and Gokul Garden on March 7 and 8.

On the first day, the Pustaka Bhandar, Arogyadhama and the new office building of the ashram at Dollars Colony would be inaugurated by Sri Swami Raghaveshanand Maharaj of Ooty, Swami Muktidanand of Mysuru and Swami Vijayanand Saraswati of Dharwad, she said.

Sri Basavalinga Swami of Rudrakshi Mutt, Hubballi, and the former Minister Basavaraj Horatti would participate in the Durga Puja at Gokul Garden. Cultural programmes would be held by Dr. Gangubai Hangal Music Foundation on the ashram premises on the second day evening, she added.

Please Wait while comments are loading...

1. Comments will be moderated by The Hindu editorial team. 2. Comments that are abusive, personal, incendiary or irrelevant cannot be published. 3. Please write complete sentences. Do not type comments in all capital letters, or in all lower case letters, or using abbreviated text. (example: u cannot substitute for you, d is not 'the', n is not 'and'). 4. We may remove hyperlinks within comments. 5. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name, to avoid rejection.

See the original post here:
Jeevanta Durga Puja to mark Mata Ashrams anniversary