Travails of a devotee

[Guest guest]

AUM NAMO NARAYANAYA

 

Dear Shri Thampi and other devotee members,

 

This is with reference to Shri Thampi's experience at Guruvayur.

It is true that the persons assigned for crowd management at

Guruvayur Temple are rude , so are many times the staff at the

counters and temple book stall. Perhaps they have not been trained

in these aspects especially when in a divine atmosphere and with the

surge of crowd and the lack of self compliance on the part of

devotees with each devotee breaking all discipline for his/her

benefit to the exclusion of those who are waiting in Queue the

patience of temple staff is bound to be stretched to the limit.

Hence we cannot blame the temple staff for their rudeness. If the

devotees become self compliant the behavior of the staff also will

change. But I feel we should not get distracted by these experiences

as we are there to have a darshan of the Lord and not for anything

else. The darshan may be for a second but is worth a life time of

waiting and struggles and humiliations. The foremost thing that

Guruvayur temple and for that matter any big temple can teach us is

the need for and value of patience as without this all efforts are in

vain.

 

While on this, may I take the devotee members' time for sharing with

them some of my personal experiences. I am writing this mainly to

high light the Greatness of Lord Guruvayurappan and the travails that

a devotee has to undergo.

 

I am born and brought up in Kerala. Was there till 21 years of age

and landed in Mumbai thereafter in search of a job and have been in

Mumbai for the past 29 years.

Though being a Keralite the Temple at Guruvayur had never inspired me

much. In the 21 years that I was in Kerala my visits to Guruvayur

temple had been very few may be 5 or 6 in all. Same was the case

after I landed Mumbai in 1979. The first such visit to Guruvayur was

in 1986 though I had been to Kerala many times in between. Even this

visit in 1986 was made willy-nilly arising out compulsion from my

cousin who was also in Mumbai and not to be outdone by him. I do not

remember much about the darshan then. It was during this visit that

my wife's uncle (known to my uncle who was with me)met me in

Guruvayur and who thereafter came with the marriage proposal

afterwards.I had been to Guruvayur only six times till 2000.Even

these visits except two were out of certain social obligations for

marriages etc and not for really having darshan of the God. In 2000

when I went I just prayed standing near the " Kotimaram " though

there was no necessity for waiting for long. I can say that that

during these periods I was a " Bhakta " -but mine was a contractual and

blind Bhakti –God please give me this and I will do this for

you ;nothing more .From 2000 till 2007 I had not paid any visit to

Guruvayur despite being to kerala many times.

In 1998 my children had started attending programmes of Chinmaya

Mission . However I was not impressed by this as I had contempt for

all these Swamis wearing the saffron dresses. Out of compulsion by my

children once I happened to attend a Satsang by one Swamiji of this

Mission on the topic Stress management. I was so impressed by the

swamiji's talk that thereafter I started associating with the Mission

activities attending satsangs, doing small voluntary service for the

Mission, reading material for spiritual beginners etc. Chinmaya

Mission was a forum where all the three paths to perfection-

karma ,jnana and bhakti-where beautifully assimilated into its

activities so that the seeker can go through that path suiting his

mental make ups. Soon I was to understand –rather I thought that I

understood-Jnana marga was the most fitting one for me to the

exclusion of others. Thus started my journey in this path. I started

meditation(initially meditation on saguna Brahman and then attempt

for meditation on nirguna Brahman) and went onto read a lot of books

on vedanta –like commentaries on gita by different gurus ,the

principal Upanishads, brahma sutra ,astravakra gita ,tripura rahasya,

yoga vasishtam, various works by Chinmaya Mission, works of Shri

Narayana Guru and his disciples, works of Jnaneswar, works of Swami

Sukhabhodananda,etc etc and Narayaneeyam as well. Thereafter as a

coincidence I came across the works trying to integrate and find

parallels in Vedanta and physical sciences , which led to reading

materials on pure sciences particularly relating to relativity,

cosmology, astronomy, and particle/quantum physics. Between 1998 and

2003 I went on this way feeding my brain with information from

these works. This was my attitude thereafter-I started extolling the

superiority of Jnana marga, despised bhakti and those following this

path, ridiculed visits to temples, I myself stopping even those

limited visits to and worship of God. I also disassociated with

chinmaya mission. Out of distorted understanding of interpretations

on vedanta I stopped meditation and further reading as I understood

(of course wrongly) meditation is the natural state and that is now

my state and hence there is no need for doing meditation any more

and that I have now acquired in-depth vedantic knowledge and is a all

knower and hence no need to read and know any more. Thus started my

down fall. The big leap forward I made in 1998 came crashing down on

me crumbling me in the process. Without my knowing I was made a

spiritual wreck if I may say so. Since then I was traversing

directionless. When viewed in retrospect I find that the following

led to my down fall-

1.Absence of Guru

2.Information from books was misconstrued as knowledge

3.inflated ego from information taken as knowledge.

4 whatever little grace of God was available at least from the

earlier contractual bhakti was lost in the above process.

 

Probably Lord Guruvayurappan has his own way. With all faith in HIM,

now I believe, when I thus became a Anaathan , HE out of his

compassion came to my rescue giving me some directions .Perhaps

readers may find me reading too much into these happenings but I take

them as HIS benevolence.

 

In April 2007 I visited Kerala. There was actually no plan as such.

My wife and elder daughter were to go. And I had to stay back for the

sake of my younger daughter who could not go due to her

classes .Somehow I happened to change the plan- I decided I and my

elder daughter will go first and come back where after my wife can

go. Thus we went on one Sunday. After reaching there,- the next day-

Monday, all on a sudden –I still do not know why-I told my daughter

that we will go to Guruvayur the next day. Thus we went. We were

knowing that there will be heavy rush and hence had no plan to go

inside the nalambalam but was planning to have darshan by standing

near the kotimaram. But after reaching Guruvayur we changed our plan

and stood in the line for darshan inside the nalambalam. We could

get darshan after standing in the line for about one and half hours.-

it was as usual a darshan for a few seconds only. But when I came out

after that I was transfixed - it was an indescribable experience, an

experience I never had during my earlier visits, an experience I

never had in any other temples I visited, an experience I never had

in my life. When I dwelled on this experience later, I realised that

this was the helping hand for me who was groping in darkness. After

reaching back in Mumbai I tried to forget the whole incident, but

it was never to subdue .It induced me to revisit the books I earlier

read but from a different perspective. Narayaneeyam was the first

book that thus re- read and tried to understand the essence in the

light of my experience. I started doing meditation again. Shortly

the desire to visit Guruvayur started welling up in me but family

and official commitments was making it difficult .But the desire

became so intense and irresistible that in October 2007 I flew down

to Kerala on one Saturday. Sunday I went to Guruvayur .I was knowing

that being Sunday there could be heavy rush and so it was. I reached

there at 9 am and was thinking of going to east nada through the west

nada. But there was a line at west nada as well to go inside. The

person just in front of me on enquiry told that this line will not

take one inside the nalambalam , but we can only have darshan

through this line by standing near the kotimaram. He further

informed without asking that he just came from east nada and there

the line has gone up to Rly. Station and one may not be able have

darshan if stood in that line. Fool as am, I believed him and stood

in the line at west nada and standing for 20 minutes could enter

inside and tried to have darshan from near kotimaram , but in vain

despite trying on three occasions as I was of short stature. I was

totally dismayed as I came all the way from Mumbai for a good

darshan but this was to be my experience. I cursed may fate and took

three pradakshinam and decided to leave. These processes were

completed by 10 am. There after before leaving I thought of just

taking a look at the line at east nada. The serpentine line was

indeed so long; I tried to trace upto the end of nadapandal but could

not see the end as it had gone beyond that to the road ahead.

Thereafter I thought of having break fast which I had at a hotel at

the end of the nadapandal. After having break fast when I came out at

10. 20 - lo and behold the line the end of which I could not see

earlier was ending right in front of the hotel I came out. I was in

a confusion –whether to stand in the line and try for darshan or

leave. I thought of standing for a few minutes and then try. The line

was moving quickly and stood I in the line . I reached inside the

railing between the kalayanamandapam and east nada by 11.30 when the

announcement for uchha pooja came. I was in no mood to leave and

stood there for one hour till the pooja completed at 12.30 and at

12.45 queue started moving in. I could have darshan- a relatively

good darshan by 1.20.The darshan was really an experience worth a

life time.

 

My mother when she was expecting me had made an offering of two

tulabharams for me at Guruvayur. This had not been done all these 50

years despite visiting the temple on a few occasions-neither she nor

I was in a hurry to do. After the visit to Guruvayur in October 2007

as above I decided to do the same .Hence with my mother I went kerala

in November 2007 for the same- during this visit I went to Guruvayur

twice. Though we planned to reach Guruvayur early we could reach

only by 1'0 clock and could do the tulabharam immediately and

thereafter had a beautiful darshan of Lord.

 

I must say that the darshans of LORD GURUVAYURAPPAN last year as

narrated above had a tremendous and indescribable impact on me-

something I never experienced all these years. This has totally

changed my concept of Bhakti. I now understand that for meditation

nothing is better than Narayaneeyam-the meditation I tried

unsuccessfully on nirguna Brahman earlier is now with the help of

selected dasakas of narayaneeyam. It was during the search on the net

for articles related to Narayaneyam and Guruvayur that I came across

the Guruvayur group on .

 

My experience as narrated above has taught me the following:

 

1.the virtue of patience –lest the LORD tries our patience

 

2. It is upto us to prepare ourselves to be the recipient of divine

grace-when we make the first move the divine grace will follow.

 

3.Information in the garb of knowledge is dangerous and can be a

bondage instead of means for freedom and leads to Ego.

 

4.karma, jnana and bhakti margas are in effect not three distinct

paths or ways as made out, but hierarchically ascending stages in

spiritual evolution.---

In the words of Sri Aurobindo(The Bhagavad Gita of Sri Aurubindo

published by Sri Auribindo Divine Life Trust-pages xxii/xxiii)- " The

argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which

action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the

bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law. First ,by the

renunciation of desire and perfect equality, works have to be done

as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to deity who is the

supreme and only Self though by him not yet realised in his own

being. This is the initial step. Secondly, not only the desire of the

fruit, but the claim to be of doer of works has to be renounced in

the realisation of the Self as the equal, the inactive, the immutable

principle and of all works as simply the operation of universal

Force, of the Nature-soul, Prakriti, the unequal, active, mutable

power. Lastly, the supreme Self has to be seen as the supreme Purusha

governing this Prakriti, of whom the soul in Nature is a partial

manifestation, by whom all works are directed , in a perfect

transcendence, through Nature. To him love and adoration and the

sacrifice of works have to be offered; the whole consciousness raised

up to dwell in this divine consciousness so that the human soul may

share in His divine transcendence of Nature and of His works and act

in a perfect spiritual liberty.

The first step is Karma yoga, the selfless sacrifice of

works, and here the Gita's insistence is on action. The second is

Jnanayoga, the self-realisation and knowledge of the true nature of

the self and the world, and here the insistence is on knowledge; but

the sacrifice of works continues and the path of Works becomes one

with but does not disappear into the path of Knowledge. The last step

is Bhaktiyoga , adoration and seeking of the supreme Self as the

Divine Being, and here the insistence is on devotion; but the

knowledge is not subordinated, only raised, vitalszed and fulfilled,

and still the sacrifice of works continues; the double path becomes

the triune way knowledge, works, and devotion. And the fruit of the

sacrifice, the one fruit still placed before the seeker, is attained,

union with the divine Being and oneness with supreme divine Nature. "

 

The above aspects can also be seen expressed in the Narayaneeyam

(cantos 92.1, 94.1, 94.2, 94.3, 94.5, 96.3, 96.7, 96.8, 98.9 and to

a lesser extent in related verses of these cantos.

5. Bhakti is not a prayer to God for something but a total surrender

of our thoughts and deeds and of our whole being unto the Supreme and

reveling in that state- in that Emptiness(being empty of a separate

individuality and associated limitations ) divinity blossoms forth

like the divine music from the Emptiness of Lord Krishna's Flute.

 

6.I have many miles to go to be that Bhakta as envisaged above –but

from a spiritual wreck that I had become, Lord Guruvayurappan has

lifted me up and placed me in the right direction and with HIS grace

and my efforts I should one day reach the destination.

 

I am extremely sorry for trying the patience of the members with

this lengthy write up. But I could not resist the temptation for

sharing the Greatness of the Lord-who is the cause of this group-

with the members. Shri Thampi's mail was the inspiration to write now

itself.

I also request and would be grateful for valuable guidance from

devotee members for my progress in the Bhakti towards the Lord.

 

HARI OM

 

saseedharan

[Guest guest]

HARI AUM

 

Dear Saseedharan,

 

Tks for sharing the spiritual journey. With the aid of

Bhagavan the spiritual travel becomes the easiiest,

most efficient and effective.

 

Hope you will continue sharing the valuable

knowlege/information/views etc you collected from the

various sources/experiences you passed through.

 

Regards

 

Balagopal

 

NARAYANA NARAYANA NARAYANA

--- saseedharan_vk <saseedharan_vk wrote:

 

> AUM NAMO NARAYANAYA

>

> Dear Shri Thampi and other devotee members,

>

> This is with reference to Shri Thampi's experience

> at Guruvayur.

> It is true that the persons assigned for crowd

> management at

> Guruvayur Temple are rude , so are many times the

> staff at the

> counters and temple book stall. Perhaps they have

> not been trained

> in these aspects especially when in a divine

> atmosphere and with the

> surge of crowd and the lack of self compliance on

> the part of

> devotees with each devotee breaking all discipline

> for his/her

> benefit to the exclusion of those who are waiting in

> Queue the

> patience of temple staff is bound to be stretched

> to the limit.

> Hence we cannot blame the temple staff for their

> rudeness. If the

> devotees become self compliant the behavior of the

> staff also will

> change. But I feel we should not get distracted by

> these experiences

> as we are there to have a darshan of the Lord and

> not for anything

> else. The darshan may be for a second but is worth a

> life time of

> waiting and struggles and humiliations. The foremost

> thing that

> Guruvayur temple and for that matter any big temple

> can teach us is

> the need for and value of patience as without this

> all efforts are in

> vain.

>

> While on this, may I take the devotee members' time

> for sharing with

> them some of my personal experiences. I am writing

> this mainly to

> high light the Greatness of Lord Guruvayurappan and

> the travails that

> a devotee has to undergo.

>

> I am born and brought up in Kerala. Was there till

> 21 years of age

> and landed in Mumbai thereafter in search of a job

> and have been in

> Mumbai for the past 29 years.

> Though being a Keralite the Temple at Guruvayur had

> never inspired me

> much. In the 21 years that I was in Kerala my visits

> to Guruvayur

> temple had been very few may be 5 or 6 in all. Same

> was the case

> after I landed Mumbai in 1979. The first such visit

> to Guruvayur was

> in 1986 though I had been to Kerala many times in

> between. Even this

> visit in 1986 was made willy-nilly arising out

> compulsion from my

> cousin who was also in Mumbai and not to be outdone

> by him. I do not

> remember much about the darshan then. It was during

> this visit that

> my wife's uncle (known to my uncle who was with

> me)met me in

> Guruvayur and who thereafter came with the marriage

> proposal

> afterwards.I had been to Guruvayur only six times

> till 2000.Even

> these visits except two were out of certain social

> obligations for

> marriages etc and not for really having darshan of

> the God. In 2000

> when I went I just prayed standing near the

> " Kotimaram " though

> there was no necessity for waiting for long. I can

> say that that

> during these periods I was a " Bhakta " -but mine was

> a contractual and

> blind Bhakti –God please give me this and I will do

> this for

> you ;nothing more .From 2000 till 2007 I had not

> paid any visit to

> Guruvayur despite being to kerala many times.

> In 1998 my children had started attending

> programmes of Chinmaya

> Mission . However I was not impressed by this as I

> had contempt for

> all these Swamis wearing the saffron dresses. Out of

> compulsion by my

> children once I happened to attend a Satsang by one

> Swamiji of this

> Mission on the topic Stress management. I was so

> impressed by the

> swamiji's talk that thereafter I started associating

> with the Mission

> activities attending satsangs, doing small voluntary

> service for the

> Mission, reading material for spiritual beginners

> etc. Chinmaya

> Mission was a forum where all the three paths to

> perfection-

> karma ,jnana and bhakti-where beautifully

> assimilated into its

> activities so that the seeker can go through that

> path suiting his

> mental make ups. Soon I was to understand –rather I

> thought that I

> understood-Jnana marga was the most fitting one for

> me to the

> exclusion of others. Thus started my journey in this

> path. I started

> meditation(initially meditation on saguna Brahman

> and then attempt

> for meditation on nirguna Brahman) and went onto

> read a lot of books

> on vedanta –like commentaries on gita by different

> gurus ,the

> principal Upanishads, brahma sutra ,astravakra gita

> ,tripura rahasya,

> yoga vasishtam, various works by Chinmaya Mission,

> works of Shri

> Narayana Guru and his disciples, works of Jnaneswar,

> works of Swami

> Sukhabhodananda,etc etc and Narayaneeyam as well.

> Thereafter as a

> coincidence I came across the works trying to

> integrate and find

> parallels in Vedanta and physical sciences , which

> led to reading

> materials on pure sciences particularly relating to

> relativity,

> cosmology, astronomy, and particle/quantum physics.

> Between 1998 and

> 2003 I went on this way feeding my brain with

> information from

> these works. This was my attitude thereafter-I

> started extolling the

> superiority of Jnana marga, despised bhakti and

> those following this

> path, ridiculed visits to temples, I myself stopping

> even those

> limited visits to and worship of God. I also

> disassociated with

> chinmaya mission. Out of distorted understanding of

> interpretations

> on vedanta I stopped meditation and further reading

> as I understood

> (of course wrongly) meditation is the natural state

> and that is now

> my state and hence there is no need for doing

> meditation any more

> and that I have now acquired in-depth vedantic

> knowledge and is a all

> knower and hence no need to read and know any more.

> Thus started my

> down fall. The big leap forward I made in 1998 came

> crashing down on

> me crumbling me in the process. Without my knowing

> I was made a

> spiritual wreck if I may say so. Since then I was

> traversing

> directionless. When viewed in retrospect I find that

> the following

> led to my down fall-

> 1.Absence of Guru

> 2.Information from books was misconstrued as

> knowledge

> 3.inflated ego from information taken as knowledge.

> 4 whatever little grace of God was available at

> least from the

> earlier contractual bhakti was lost in the above

> process.

>

> Probably Lord Guruvayurappan has his own way. With

> all faith in HIM,

> now I believe, when I thus became a Anaathan , HE

> out of his

> compassion came to my rescue giving me some

> directions .Perhaps

> readers may find me reading too much into these

> happenings but I take

> them as HIS benevolence.

>

> In April 2007 I visited Kerala. There was actually

> no plan as such.

> My wife and elder daughter were to go. And I had to

> stay back for the

> sake of my younger daughter who could not go due to

> her

> classes .Somehow I happened to change the plan- I

> decided I and my

> elder daughter will go first and come back where

> after my wife can

> go. Thus we went on one Sunday. After reaching

> there,-

=== message truncated ===

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

narayanaya namah

 

dear sri saseedharan,

 

this is a belated reply to your message on the sufferings for darshan

at Guruvayur.the lengthy mail was good and I appreciate your bhakthi

and the willingness to writeup your experience taking such a long

message.may god help you find more and more dimensions in bhakthi

 

prayers