Penance - Importance Of Penance | Penance In Hinduism

Penance Overview

Penance is a spiritual practice that was performed by people to achieve the complex things with the help of God. Hinduism gives more importance to Penance. Sages and saints performed penance to seek the boon of almighty.

How To Perform Penance 

Penance is the practice of being able to control five senses with the prime dedication to the lord. Illusion, karma and ego are the three barriers that prevent us from realizing the God.  

Steps For Penance

• Find a suitable place which me be a scenic or a spiritual place.
• Control your five senses.
• Seeks god's blessings with pure faith and genuine repentance. 
• Trust God without any second options.
• You will be relieved by the blessings of God.

Penance In Hinduism

Why people do penance in religious / divine places ?
It's true that God can be worshiped from home, any one can ask. Meditating on God may seem easy but focused determination  is required. You should not be vulnerable of any distractions, that's why holy places are the apt place to perform penance. And this is the reason why people visits temple to worship God without any distraction and deviation.

Each and every temple and its surroundings has plenty of significances. All temple has three vital things: the location, the theertham (holy water) and the God.  These things adds value to your penance. The chanting of Mantras and the divine which spread over the temple help you to achieve your penance without any obstacles.

Focusing On God

Consider a sack full of mustard  seeds and it was scattered everywhere. Imagine how difficult it will be to gather all and put them back into the sack with no seeds outside ?. Likewise it is more difficult for one to get rid of all thoughts and keeping focused on the God. Penance / Meditation helps us to achieve this. Through meditation a person can acomplish tasks that was previously seen impossible to get done. An eminent Tamil poet said that penance is greater than the world. Yes this is fact that the penance of a righteous man, which helps and keeps the universe going.

Historical Evidences Of Penance

• People who does penance can get your wish full filled.
• As a result of penance Thriumoolar wrote the great work: Thirumantiram. 
• World's greatest poet Thiruvalluvar speaks greatly the spiritual importance of penance through the greatest epic literature Thirukkural. 
• Penance of the great Arjuna is the part of story from the great epic work Mahabharata of how Arjuna performed penance in order to obtain Lord Shiva's weapon. 
• It is said that the god of death Lord Yama even fear of people who does penance.
• The great sage Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said offering one's prayers to God was likely to speaking to the God but penance means listening to the Lord.

Lord Shiva And Goddess Parvathi appears before a devotee as a result of penance

There are more and more historical evidences of penances happened in Hinduism.