In plain words
they said. If you keep the vessel dirty, how can you cook the food purely? So: the vessel, the vessel, the vessel. This is called the ghaṭa. This is called Prakṛti.
What tells of the principle of the five elements is the pañcāṅga
In the Kannada country, speaking of the body, people say, ‘My prakṛti is not right.’ Prakṛti means the body itself! Within Prakṛti there are the five elements. The same five elements are in this body. What teaches the principle of the good and bad of these five elements is called the ‘pañcāṅga’. On Ugādi, in the evening, in villages and in towns alike, people arrange a programme called the hearing of the pañcāṅga. The pañcāṅga is what tells the good and bad of the five elements. On this Ugādi festival day, as soon as they rise at dawn, they eat the Ugādi pacchaḍi. What is it? They make it by mixing neem flowers, the juice of tender mangoes, honey, sugar and something astringent. What is its inner meaning? The very meaning of this pacchaḍi is to teach equanimity: that in what is called life we must take good and bad, sin and merit, hardship and happiness equally. We must take everything equally. At the very beginning of this year we must take that prasāda which says, ‘Whatever comes, I will stay even.’ We must take that prasāda with contentment. At the time of taking that prasāda, ‘This is bitter. What a prasāda to eat on New Year's day!’ if you eat it fretting like that, troubles alone will come to you. Welcome anything. Everything is for your good! The very effort to look upon things with equanimity in that way is its main aim. Not sinking in sorrow, not swelling with joy, winning equanimity: that is the aim of Ugādi. Whatever we do, we must regard it as God's prasāda. Both go on happening in the world. Its very name is jagat. Nothing is permanent. Ja-gat: coming, going. It is made up of the two. Life cannot be without joy and sorrow. Sorrow itself brings man joy.