Om
In ancient times, people would grandly celebrate the Graha Pravesh ceremony when they purchase a new home, which would be mostly a big sized one, and all the relatives of the family members would participate in the event. Most of the people would be either self-occupied or would be engaged in agricultural activities, and they would be having their own farm lands. And they delightfully celebrate this ceremony along with their large number of friends and relatives.
Nowadays most of the people are purchasing flats, and they celebrate this ceremony only with a limited number of their relatives and with their family members. Most of the couples would be having either one or two children, and they would be employed, and most of them are doing this ceremony for a formality only.
Even at the time of performance of puja, Ganapathi Homam and other homams, their thoughts would be about their office only, and they would hurriedly participate in the function, and after the end of the function, even without eating proper food, they would run into their offices, due to their busy schedule. But we cannot blame them also, since nowadays, due to the increase in cost of living, most of the women are employed, in order to earn for their livelihood.
It is suggested for the people who buy new homes, to worship the holy gurus Shirdi Saibaba and Guru Raghavendra Swamigal, before the start of the Graha Pravesh ceremony, in order to live in their new built homes in a peaceful and prosperous manner.
Griha dana means donating our land to others. Grihadana is in practice since ancient times, and it is considered as a noble act in Hinduism. According to legend, Lord Parasurama had donated almost the entire earth to Rishi Kashyapa. The three basic human needs are: food, clothing and shelter. Next to food and clothing, shelter is essential for all the humans. If we didn’t have a proper place to live in this world, then our life would become a tragedy. Living in the streets and busy roads would cause danger to our life and to our family, and we would have to face threats from anti-social elements and as result, our life would become a total failure.
Hence if any person donates at least a small portion of his land to poor people and to street dwellers, their praise would make him to live a long life with a healthy body. Nowadays lot of real estate owners are selling their lands at affordable prices. Though we cannot get back the returns immediately, we can buy it from them for future investment purposes, and also we can donate our land to charitable institutions like orphanages, old age homes, Mental Homes etc.