Satyanarayan (सत्यनारायण) Stories

Have you ever heard Satyanarayan stories?

I had never paid too much attention to them ever. I remember, as a child, chatting with family and friends whenever any Puja as such was going on ...anywhere.. for that matter. I doubt if any kid paid any attention to the stories. Every kid was interested in the Shira and Panchyamrut (sweets) that is distributed at the end of the Puja


It is only when I performed the Puja myself that I realised how absurd the stories really are?!

The stories have a central theme and this theme is very systematically ingrained into your brains.

The theme:
Satyanarayan, the supreme god, Vishnu must be pleased by performing this puja so that he'll relieve you of your troubles. There is a certain way this puja is performed. The rewards are ubelievable, you get good health, good wealth, you get your "sons", (apparently having a son is better than a daughter!). Alls well in the world and everyone stays happy.

The method:
The stories are of the following categories:
a) explain a situation where the central character is in trouble, then the character performs the puja and hey ho, his or her troubles are sorted.
b) explain a situation where the central character gets out of trouble, says to himself that he'll perform the puja but does not perform it and hence invites the wrath and therefore bad luck upon himself
It is indeed very systematic. What happens when you do it and what happens when you dont.

So far so good, whats the problem?



The thing is, the stories are absurd because if we decide to take The Bhagvat Gita as the ultimate guide, why would you ask God to sort yourself out from worldly problems? Wont you rather ask God to liberate you, ask him to make you one with your own self, give you moksha, make you one with god or the energy himself?
All worldly pleasures are here today gone tomorrow. Sons will grow up and go away from you. You may get money but wont have the health to enjoy the fruits. You may have health but a tiny insignificant virus is enough to frankly kill you in days.

Heres the icing on the cake: These stories are in Skand Puran? get it?
No?
well, who wrote Skand puran?

Maharishi Vyas! Thats who. Same Maharishi who composed The Bhagvat Gita!

Still dont get the contradiction?

Maharishi Vyas says in The Bhagvat Gita that the ultimate goal is self realisation. His character Krishna says, that any offering is fine for him, e.g. a simple flower, if not a flower than a leaf is allright as well! as long as there is enough love and devotion in the heart of the person offering the flower.
So why does he writes these elaborate stories that tell people exactly how to perform the satyanarayan vrat, (vrat it is mind you not a simple puja) and puts fear into the hearts of the people who dont follow it precisely by stating that bad things happen to them to only think about the puja but dont perform it?!

Why this whole concept of "fearing the god" than "loving the god" ?

Analysis & Explanation

I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I mean, on one hand, these stories dont make sense especially in the 21st century where we should not have a sexist attitude that implies "having a son is better than having a daughter" , on the other hand, the fact the Maharishi Vyas has written it?!
When it comes to writers, it does not get bigger than Maharishi Vyas. He's written the mahabharat, the longest epic ever written, hes written all purana and he's written the Gita. full stop. Whether Lord Krishna actually recited the Gita to Arjun when he knew that good old Sanjay was listening is besides the point, point is, he created that masterpiece theory called the Gita and added it to the mahabharat at the right place at the right time.

So why o why did he spend time writing these stories?

I took a step back and thought of Darwin. Remember what he said? Man was not created by God but was a monkey millions of years ago. Some monkeys adapted to changing conditions and man was born. Basically this means, that man is an animal.
Like all animals, man needs to be taught what is good and what is bad. He needs to be told the difference between the good and the evil. He needs to be told that god exists or an energy , a superior energy exists and that energy is receptive to love, devotion and good actions and thoughts.
Above all, he needs to be told that he has to be a part of a social fabric. He needs to be told that the key to success is co-existence. Dont kill or be killed but live and let live.
These thoughts were probably passing through Maharishi Vyas's mind. He must have noticed that the Gita is great but not everyone can digest it, you see.
The mind is weak and can be easily swayed by negative and positive energies. These start as innocuous thoughts but soon can turn destructive if these thoughts are negative.
Hilter was very good with words. He was however a sower of negative thoughts. What was the result? Millions of jews was killed. He has the majority with him, believe it or not, most germans at that time thought that it was right thing to do!
His weapon initially were a few words, a few words that were triggered by his thougths his ideals. There were some ideas, conveyed through stories, narratives, articles, accounts (be it Darwanian ideals, ideals about the Aryan race, disbelief in christian humility, disbelief in god).
The ideas that influenced Hitler were powerful enough to almost cause a total ethnic cleansing of the jew people.

Maharishi Vyas probably feared that this would happen sometime in future because every person is different, every person's intellect is different. Every person's reaction to positive or negative thoughts is different. Some, negative thoughts can have a chilling effect!
He therefore felt that it was important to ensure that everywhere people turned, they found something to read about god. They found something that reminded them that there is someone or some energy running the show. He felt that there had to be enough material to appeal to different people. He felt that, somehow or the other, people should respect god, be it through fear. Through Sam Damd Dand Bhed as they say. It was equally important to spread positivity, peace, love, social inclusion and harmony.

It all falls into place if you look at it this way. The Puja itself makes the environment clean and pious. You only think positive thoughts. One way or the other you take atleast 108 sanskrit names of god. You invite your family and friends to join you in praying god, thus weaving the social fabric that is so essential to survive in this world. so you are in theory sowing more and more positive happy thoughts in everyone's minds. Note that sausages are not cooked, but a clean vegetarian meal is precribed so that people know how to eat well to stay mentally well. There is a saying that goes "you are what you eat"

Conclusion

I salute Maharishi Vyas for being the genius that he is. He has written the The Bhagvat Gita for the highly intelligent spiritually inclined, more importantly, satisfied individual. Someone who is relatively free from wordly matters.
and hes written these purans, pujas, stories for the less intelligent average Mr Jo bloggs, who has problems to deal with and can thereby easily fall into the trap of negative energies, if anyone spring such a trap. With these pujas he is given the much needed hope to tide him over.
For some people, following the The Bhagvat Gita is a leap too far. They need to be satisfied first, only then can they prepare themselves to start their real journey of life as per The Bhagvat Gita

Why am I bothered?

If we dont think about these things who will? Our grandparents are almost not around. Our parents will go away one day, who will pass these ideas to the next generation? Who will analyse what happens around us?
Or will we follow what our elders did ...blindly?
Will we fuss about whether we got the right ingredients or not, or whether we cooked the right sweet or not or whether we found exactly 21 suparis or not?
There is a tendency to fuss with details without understanding the big picture.

It is important for our generation to pass it down so that the next generation understands it before performing it.

Thank you