melam

Namasthe, The discussion in the forum got my recent attention; very interesting and I thought that I had to contribute my experience. I belong to the south of India now living in North America. Since childhood I had been a bakth of sakthi and Thirupathy Balaji. A year ego I visited India with family and visited my family temple for the yearly festival. The custom is taking the goddess in procession to temple from approximately a km away. I was in the place praying when the pooja started. They started to beat drums and sang song inviting the goddess. The song and instruments were so vibrant that I got involved and could not take out my concentration. The fragrance of flowers, chamfor, perfume stick, turmeric, kumkum etc made me giddy and I lost conscious. When I regained conscious I was in temple, my mom and brother holding me. Latter my mom told that I got "god possessed" and in trance went to a divine state. I do not remember anything during the 1 km procession, which took 45 minutes. It was a wonderful experience.