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?

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