Swamiyee Saranam - 5

Swamiyee Saranam Ayyappa!  

It has been almost a month since I started this discipline or austerity or penance or any other word suitable but that it is, a month.  What did I learnt from this period which I half crossed? Retrospection might give some answers but before going into the learning there are more realizations.  You cannot stop your thoughts especially the bad one, the revenge, the anger, the betrayals, the bad deeds that you did and the bad deeds that others did to you keep coming to your mind to derail you from the austerity.  Above all the dogma of this austerity is controlling anger and celibacy.  Forget about celibacy, I am following that even before this wearing mala as I am a loner, but to control anger, initially, I thought was easy and for almost 20 days it was like a cake walk but after which I started loosing control over emotions as anger peeps sometimes in the office, in the road, in the travel; good that the sagely attire and mala that I wear reminds that I should not show anger and should not hurt anybody.  But wait, it is not should-not-show-anger but the dogma is to not-become-anger – tough job!

Being said all about the out of control of the emotions there will always be divine help that keeps you protected sometimes on His own and sometimes you have to call for help but the call will never go unanswered. 

Once in the Chennai Metro train, I was sitting in a corner and doing nothing.  A young unmarried couple stood close next to each other near me.  I understood that they were in the trance of love and attraction – no disrespect - but they forgot the world around them especially the me who was sitting near without shoes or slippers in the feet. As the train moved station by station the crowd increased and the couple started stamping my legs.  No anger, I remembered, though there is enough space for them to manage to not to kick my legs.  I closed my eyes and called for help as it is considered the divine it self stays in your body, in the mala in this period of 48 days, I prayed He should be with me all throughout my life. 

From nowhere a big healthy guy came and asked the man of the couple about his Bluetooth headsets he had in his ears.  He started asking about its cost, manufacture, design, model and product comparison.  In the meanwhile, he pushed the girl behind and stood in between them and slowly she went back in the crowd a decent distance from the boy and me.  the new big guy continued asking questions about his carrier, job, father, mother and family.  I though he was known to that boy so that she went back.  After few stations the savior got down and the seats become empty so that the couple go seat next to me.  The girl asked that if he know that big guy already and the body said no!!!

 

Small or big, ask and the help will come. Thatwamasi!!!

 

Swamiyee Saranam Ayyappa!

Swamiyee Saranam - 4

 

Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa!  I’m no authoritarian to talk how others walked into the abode of Sri Dharma Sastha Swami Ayyappan but mine was not different from many others.  When the journey of life was painful and when I lost all strength to take another step, I heard this calling from someone very close to me to walk to the adobe of Swami Ayyappan.  Those are not very easy path to walk but not tougher than my life’s path.  Like someone walking in dessert with no water and food for days after days and when the mind gives up and body gives up to move forward, to take another step, to get up and stroll towards life and give up the sand itself I gave up on life.  So much of losses, too much of betrayals, unsatiating human hunger for money, so many sins and what not! All offered a shovel of sand each over my grave and that is when I turned my direction to a haven, Sabari Malai!

I left my grave and turned my back to those who were pouring sand over it and walked away to make peace with life holding the hands of my Ayyappan. I don’t want to avenge but begged all those to find something else to suck the blood from, I have nothing more to take away from me.   May be, may be not those things are trying to bother me but my attention turned towards something worth putting attention towards – the Divine Supremacy.

All I wanted is someone to hold me, pamper me, tell me not to worry.  All I wanted is someone who I can trust with no questions, no answers to expect, just trust.  I found all that in that Divine Supremacy just like many others, in fact almost all who walks to see Swami Ayyappan!

On my daily visit to the Swami Ayyappan temple nearby, before stepping into the main temple, there will be small one dedicated to the guardian deity of the temple and inside that temple I see a dog with its new born puppies.  One fine morning when I stepped into that temple, I saw that mother was standing outside the locked temple and trying to get inside as the puppies were inside the temple.  Though that wooden door had multiple open blocks and big enough for the puppies to come out they struggled to come out and the mother struggled to get in.  I realized somebody had locked when the dog went out to keep the dog away in the name of sanity.  I struggled to decide whether to open the door or to keep it the same way and walk away but then decided something in between; I released the latch and moved the door slightly so that the dog could push open the door and it did and I realized that the puppies were hungry.  And I walked away.   And the next day I didn’t go to that temple in the morning and visited the temple in the late evening and didn’t bother to look for that mother dog also it was not seen anywhere nearby.

Then the following morning, which is after two days since I opened that latch, I went to that temple as usual in the morning and it is my ritual to go to that guardian deity, pray and then move to next.  When I stepped into that temple from somewhere this mother dog came running and leaned over my legs as if showing its love for me. I said “it is okay, don’t do that” the dog moved as if understanding my words and bent down to my feet as if kissing.  I was afraid if it could lick but it didn’t.  I bowed down to the deity and this mother dog stood next to me and the puppies where inside and the doors were open.  I touched her temple and said “Thanks for the love”, she touched my soul. 

In general, it was not advised to go near a dog with puppies as it could become aggressive to protect her new born but this dog was different I showed extra love for me. So, this mother dog made me realize that even the animals know your intention just by instinct! It shows love when your intention is love and your prayer has invoked that divine supremacy. 

Swami Sarnam! Ayyappa Saranam!

Swamiyee Saranam – 3

 

It has been half a month since I undertook this austerity.  The search for the truth behind that divine power as different roads and as put me in limbo!  Whatever it is, whatever the story behind I don’t mind as my search is more on how to reach that divine power and not what the story of that divine power was.

Keeping the search aside, the days as becoming quite interesting as many strange things happens around.  Firstly, the mala around the neck triggers the empathy towards all the living being, not to judge but keep everything at the same level of love.  Every time I buy from the roadside flower vendors, who are mostly elderly women, I could see an extra bunch of flowers in my bag… out of love! Out of respect! Or out of affection on my lord Ayyappan?  I don’t know but their hand automatically pulls that extra bunch of flowers as if they offer it directly to their feet of Ayyappan.  Of course it gets to his feet.

I could understand the love and affection by the humans out of respect to the divinity but how does the animals express the same love!!!  Not just one time or two but most of the time in this half a month every time I walk on bare foot to the temple murmuring ‘Sarnam Ayyappa’ a dog lying in the side of the road walks to me looks at my bare feet.  The dog walks with me till the end of the street, which is its boundary, and runs back into the street.  This just not happened in my street but in other streets too where I pass to the temple.   To my wonder not one dog that walked with me had came near and sniffed.  

Only thing I understood is when you decide to go into god mode, not to harm any living beings, not to judge anybody, be sincere to what you do then you can identify that divine power and the all beings around you will become divine and identify you as divine.  The real meaning of ‘Thatwamasi’ will be reveled, you are what you are searching for! Swamiyee Saranam Ayyappa!

Swamiye Saranam -2

 

Swamiye Saranam!  It has been a week of this Austerity, of luxuries, though not hundred percent but somewhere near fifty.  I though it was a spiritual journey but spirituality is only part of it, I guess.  This is a test, a process that questions your ‘self’, your ‘ego’, your ‘perseverance’, your ‘humility’ and what not!  This period of austerity will disturb the internal being, belief and patience but that is the real test for devotion and love.

I would not say that I am a devotee of my Manikandan and I believe any of the pilgrims to Sabari hills will say that because it is something more than that.  It was the pure love for that divine toddler sitting in Harivarasanam at the top of Neelimala, unbridled urge to see him.  When that love overflows from your heart the world looks different, the birds will no longer be afraid of you, unknown strange dogs will come to you for petting, cows on the road side will come to you for your touch.  They somehow know your internal overflowing love and you see everything as Ayyappa Swami.

I was talking to friend on the side of the road and within a minute a cow walked by and looked at me as if we know each other for years.  She was very close and I don’t know what she was expecting, at the same time I have no heart to wave her away so I fondled slowly on her temple and on over her vertebra.  I felt the unspoken love she had shown for me and she understood my love for her.  She was there like a mother standing with her new born; I felt that warmth of love from her.  She shook her head as if blessing me and left.

The difference in air, the change in environment all these I’m trying to put in few words to explain how it feels like to live with the love that divine kid sitting at the top of a hill and calling us with pure compassion.  Call it has writers block or incapable of putting emotion into words, I will humbly take it because I don’t know to be honest on how to convert those tears into words, to convert that pull towards him into sentence.  Now I know what every devotee says to him with tears and compassion – “come home with me, I cannot leave you hear and go home” – so did I.

                                                                                                                                                        SK

Swamiye Saranam - 1

 

It was day one of the Karthikai month for which lakhs of mad devotees like me waiting to wear the sacred Mudra Thulasi Mala and start their Austerity for the next forty plus days before starting their pilgrimage to Sabari Malai. This madness started last year when I strode up and down of the hills with multiple cuts in under my foot and somehow with last 1% of energy I reached the feet of Sastha Sri Ayyappan.  I was supposed to wake up before sunrise so I have set my alarm to 5am, 5.15am, 5.30am and for the worst case 6.30am too; my usual alarm series for office.  The alarm number-1 sounded in the morning and when I woke up to snooze and go back to sleep my mobile surprised me to show the time as 4.59am and it is still 1min for the alarm to ring. The internal alarm rang to put me in perplexation so I don’t go back to sleep!  I put off alarm series and work up from my comfortable bed which I am not going to use it for the next month and half.

I switched on my geezer absent mindedly forgetting that I have to bath in cold water.  I switched off the geezer and opened the tap it was super cool and the first mug of cold water took my breath off for a second until my body realized what was happening!  It took seconds to adopt to the chillness but my body started relishing the cool water.  Everything was set to start the 48 days of austerity, lamps were lit, sacred Thulasi Mala was around my neck, walked with bare foot to the Ayyappan shrine near by to take the blessing of the Guru and Guru of all the Gurus!

The temple is full of devotees bowing down before their gurus to wear the sacred Mala and the shrine looked like place of celebration of spirituality, no, it is more than spirituality – a compassion towards self, an obsession to take that not-so-easy pilgrimage, a passion to fall under the radar of divinity and above all the love towards the Lord Ayyappan who was sitting in meditation with his aura spread all over the eighteen hills around him.

Back home, the day was entirely different from usual days.  I promised my self not to read anything other than spiritual books not to watch or listen to distracting dramas.  The day was peaceful but with the time the drowsiness over took and I felt like lying down, sleeping; 5am was always midnight for me.  It took a cup of strong tea to pull me out of the drowsiness but I don’t know if I have dozed off for 5 to 10 mins somewhere in middle.  It is one of the dogmas not to sleep during the day time in these 48 days.

They climate was crazy to pour heavily for 30 mins and scorch for next few hours and become cloudy and dark within minutes.  I had to take bath in the evening again, take blessings from my Ayyappan in and walk to the temple again. 

I reached the temple where everything was set for group prayer not sure a congregation prayer would be the right word.  This prayer will be full of songs louder enough to reach the Sabari mala – the abode of Ayyappa – from here.  When you shout, sing loudly no thoughts will cross you mind and the lord himself walks into your heart and elate you with divine trance.  When the sound hit the sky, from the crowd, a one-year-old baby got up and walked to the lamp placed before the idol.  His mother came running to pick him up but one of the devotees told her not to stop him and he will be taken care so she went back to the crowd and sat among others. To everyone’s surprise the kid came stood before the guy who was singing to his highest voice and sat on his lap.  The entire room was vibrating with ‘Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa’ and the kid looked very serene as if very accustomed with prayer sound and people. 

At the end of the prayer when everyone has to bow down before Ayyappan the kid was standing before me and for every ‘Saranam Ayyappa’ chant we bowed down to his feet and the kid stood like Ayyappan and smiled at us.  Divine presence!

       
I had had to wipe my tears before writing this; I don’t know if it is happy tears but I know it is something above happiness.  I don’t know what is it because I’m a half-baked dough in spirituality.  I’m one amongst the humans that searching for miracles to believe God and missing the miracles happening every second around us!  After all these years of searching for miracles to believe the existence of the power up above us, just one question stroke me lately – why should the supreme energy prove its existence to you?

                                                                                                                                        -SK

Kali - The Love and Aggression!

The wait was quite interesting.  The Sun was scorching unusually in the end of September and my back and the bottom was hurt by the long non-stop drive to Chidambaram.  My mother and I were sitting in a dilemma to move on or to wait for the temple to open.  Half the mind said go on there is another couple of hours of drive to make but the other half said… quite nothing but to wait.  I know that it is not just the mind that is asking to wait but the urge to see the energy that was knocking the doors of our heart sitting inside the closed temple.  The urge to experience the call was high and the calling from inside was very high.  So we decided to sit and wait for the doors to open.  The time was only 3.30 afternoon and the temple is set to open only an hour after.

 

Thillai Kali – the name of the Goddesses or in an understandable name the pure cosmic energy from where everything was created.  I remember people calling her the queen of all dark matters and few explained her as the black hole.  Few explained that Kali is the energy that holds the universe or from where all the unfathomable energy came from.  You can keep relating her to the big bang, the darkness of the universe, the emptiness of the space, the relentless nothingness from where everything came from.  You can say anything until you experience the energy!!!

 

The Sun heated up the body and mind but reminded us to stay put patiently for the energy inside the temple wants to see you!  And then it was ten minutes before the close stuck 4.30 pm the doors were opened and we went inside and there was another big door the main door of the shrine where the idol of the Goddess is placed was kept closed. The bell rang and my mother told me not to stand directly before the idol when the doors are opened for the energy is high.  I quite didn’t understand what it is so I decided to do the very thing she said not to do.  If it the energy is going to kill me let it be!

 

The doors opened and there was she was sitting motherly, gracefully, facing east, colourfully decorated with flowers and ornaments.  Nothing happened. 

 

And then someone said everybody to move on to the Kali.  O! This is a different form of Kali I am seeing and to see her as Kali we need to go further!!!  We walked to left side of the temple and turned towards east again to see her in white saree and decorated only with Vermillion – The Kumkum.  My heart rate increased and my legs went week.  I could not close my eyes not could take my eyes of the idol of her.  The something nameless pulled and pushed my body at the same time.  There was a certain vibration at the back of the head and it was painful. My guts become loose, shoulders tightened; muscles went stiff and could hear my own heart beats. 

 

The experience was very strange for never before have I experience such a powerful energy.  Most of us are all only half theist and the other half always questioned the power that is above us because most of the stories were recited again and again depicting the God in the form of human and not in the form of energy.

 

Mother Kali was full of red on her white attire leaving her eyes alone.  The statue brought it a pure fear in my heart, the reason was perplexing, I was in at the border of fainting for my back of my head was hurting and felt like a ton of weight was placed over my head, may be it was the first time I was experiencing such pure energy.  As and when we progressed towards her, the fear diminished but the weight over my head increased becoming unbearable and at the same time doesn’t want to walk out from her.  Strange energy!

 

The palpitation become quiet the mind was at tranquil the weight was still a weight but didn’t hurt anymore – I was standing closer to Kali.  The rage in her weapons she carried and the blood read vermillion, her bigger open eyes, the aggressive energy all were still there but… but something else too was there, looking at her closely at her eyes there was the most gracious, lovable, motherly, beautifully womanly source was revealed; the source of all energies, the most aggressive and most dormant, the most rigorous and mother all at the same time. It was wonderful, unfathomable and exuberant power that takes only pure love and surrender to understand.  Until you ask more question of its existence, until you stay in perplexity the power or the energy of Kali – The Everything – is unattainable and difficult to understand. 

Wild Beats

Courtesy : sykescottages.co.uk

At the mountain top the twilight was fading and the west is eating the sun. There were a group of people in the open space with the bonfire starting in the middle.  The cool air was freezing their blood which pushed them to the pyre that was burning the green of the earth under.  The burning logs were trying to keep the engulfing darkness at a distance with its yellow gate of heat and effulgence.

The music, I presume, was tribal chilling the nerves spreading fear of the night from our ancestors and the nectar of erotica in the muscles from the human-animal instincts.  The drums were putting the minds around the fire in trance like a drug dissolving in blood. Expert’s hands knocking the door of pleasure against the skin of the dead animals with the sticks of the old soul woods.

 

Guitar along with the beats of tribal drums and human heart beats was striking the right chords of hearts preparing all mortals to become immune to death!  There were eyes closed, eyes with tears, eyes fixed at the eternity of night.  The music was wild and mystic just like any human hearts. The beats vibrated in every cell of the flesh. Some weird awkward emotions like euphoria, nostalgia, lust, melancholy, and vigil mixed together and made the moment a Moment.

 

The scene was picturesque; crescent moon shined and stars here and there twinkled.  Yellow of the fire and the black of the night mixed to add color to the picturesque.  There were entwined hands, locked up eyes, heavy hearts, beautiful souls, waging tails, unbridled love and unconditional affection.  It was all a panorama of life on this planet.   

I was painting this moment with words from a distance. My name is Time.