House of Cologne....

In the world war II, the whole of cologne was razed to the ground and I believe there was only one of the very old churches left out with out even one hit from the London. Then the people build this place up again, from scratch and I salute to the spirit of the Cologne and in general to the german people....
______________
Spirit

Around
In and Out
The candle burns
Itself out
To start again...
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Om Namah Shivaya
Virtual

The flow of the river...

Some times the blogging happens because you come across something that you want to share with all... I have kept this blog for spritual things that I do but then you realise that sprituality is not something that you need to go to some special place, a temple or holy journey to experience it... and here are few of my most recent experiences that I come face to face with sprituality in most unlikely manner....

My first cup of coffee in Germany (Frankfurt Airport) and I have this lady sitting across with a huge statue of Virgin Marry (...I think) and she is so focussed in her thoughts that although she looked at me, she was not looking at me.. she was in some way above all the people around her and within her own world of devotion....

Then I was watching the people walking on the banks of River Rhein in Cologne and a small child with her mother (...I think again) were having the most blissfull experience of being in the flow.... how lovely and important it is to grab the bliss what one can only feel in fleeting moments like this...

Two very different people and having two very different things of focus (... I believe though that the children are closer to God as they are so fresh from them) but having the same eternal bliss... But most of the times and every one in life has these experiences yet we are not the most happy beings in the world and some times I stop to think about it and I feel that the only issue is how to give this experience a permanence....and that is what the Yogi's with their process, practices and penance and thousand many ways try to achieve....

Here are some people who are trying to reach out to their own happiness through their own means...

I enjoyed the Lambada music actually and when the singers hit the La la labamba, the river front restaurant became live with many happy people, blissfully aware of the life and happiness including me... Cheers!!!!

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

Signifcance of insignificance of Life....

This post is one of my comments to one of the blogger friend posting that I have had read about instantenesous Insignificance that I had read, which I thought of posting here too as it has got me down on the road to thinking about Life and Significance of Life

Life, when I think about it, make me feel like Ganga... a river who's ultimate goal is to reach out to sea and loose its own identity... but then that is only a goal, but its not life.

Life is being Ganges, moving from the skipping, hopping, jumping in the early stages from Himalaya (Gangotri)taking along with some friends like stones that you shape... then moving in to the plains with force, flood, richness of life giver to the plains... then going on to the delta .. where she slows down to think contemplate and then finally merge... this is life.. and in the same process, you have been able to touch some one, make some one happy, make some one reach his/her goal and finally without thinking of your ego / self etc merge with supereme consciousness with peace of mind is what I believe is life...

I have agreed with Stephen Hawkins and many more who are out to tell us that we are nothing more than a random combination of four Nuclei as Nandi mentioned, our insignificance etc.. but when one does not believe in EGO, then there is no question of being significant or insignificant...

Some times reading Gita makes you feel like Lord Krishna supereme consciousness.... but only if you are egoless...

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

The life at typical Indian Railway Platforms...

The way to the village has been marked with many interesting images.... the first one is of the sky with a dry tree in the foreground.. I loved it as it looks like as reverse thunder in the sky...

My train journey to my village of 3000KM has taken more than 50 hours instead of expected 38 hours. Typically in India trains do get delayed and specially in the areas where there is no double tracks... so the trains wait on the platforms to let the oncoming train pass like this stoppage that our train took...

While waiting for the train to pass, I started taking in the life around me on the platform...we have an amazing collage of life on the typical India Railway platform. there were people leisurely doing their own job, in this case a baba making the coveted Sphatik Mala (Garland)

Then there is this old man waiting with his whole family for the Passenger train to come. You can actually see the expectations and wonder in his eyes...

Then most of times you will also see this typical scene of people getting off the train and taking off their bicycles that they have chained to the window grill of the train and travel another 10-15 KMs to reach their house in the interior villages, where there is no other mode of transportations...

And Sun sets on my 50 hour long journey.... and I looked forward to meet my friends, relatives and above all be in the presence of Pind Roop Durga Ji.

Well this also happens on the platforms...

But to just leave you all with a better Image than this, let me show you the beauty that is all around the journey.. this typical Indian field colored with mustard flowers among wheat fields... Lovely...

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

On the way to my ancestral village...

The 50 hour journey to my ancestral village from one end of India to another - A journey of 3000KMs was full of interesting sights and thoughts....

In the early morning mist, the Ghaghra River flows silently while the train thunders through the old metal bridge across it... the river has its own myths and stories related with the Ramayana and this river goes on to meet the most pious river of India - The Ganges

Along the way many temples dot the landscape and this one temple stood out with its vibrant color amid mustard fields...

Its very interesting to see the fields and the people how intermingled they are in their lives and the day to day activity around the religious symbols and worships....

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

Many places, Many thoughts...

When I look back to 2007, I realise that there are so many things that have touched me and changed me subtly. From the Highs of Phuket, Thailand to the lows of Colombo I have travelled many interesting places... many different places and some times indifferent places.

I will leave with you some interesting sunsets / sunrise from some of the locations...

This one is from Dubai next to the world tallest Hotel Burj Al Dubai...

Long time.. been travelling in South East Asia, Middle East now going back to my spritual roots...

HI I am surprised that I did not put up anything on the blog for almost a year...

Have been travelling a lot recently and now as usual my self has become toxicated with lot of materialistic things and needs to get this out of my system. Last year I took one very important step in life by making one very beautiful temple in South Indian Architectural style. This year too going to this very beautiful temple and also to my spritual roots that I have always been bound to .. the Durga Temple in my ancestral house in our village in the backyards of Northern India where not even the electiricity has reached..

Need to unfold my self, thoughts and manything that have been accumulating inside for almost a month.. so keep checking this page if you are interested in knowing more about it..

I will leave you with a very beautiful susnset in Abu Dhabi with the world highest Flagpost (recorded in Guiness Book of World Records)

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

...and Shiva watched from lofty heights.

The beautiful image created in the serial electric light is a specialty from South India. This was more than 50 foot high and was specially brought over from Chennai in parts. Most of the times when a function that happens in South India, the artisans create various images of Idols in the serial small bulbs of different colors to create an impressive effect in the dark of the night. This particular image is called the Ardha Narishwar, where the lord Shiva is shown as both male and female combination of Shiva and Shakti. This is also very closely related to the Tantra Yoga where it is assumed that the mating of Shiva and Shakti provides the ground for enlightenment. The base chakra at the lower portion of the spine (Shakti) when rises up to meet Shiva (the crown chakra) at the top of our head, one realizes the most profound sensation of the enlightenment. This image stood over all the functions in the consecration of the Shiva Temple watching over all the ceremony with His benign eyes.

Om Namah Shivaya
Virtual

Making of a Shiva Temple in a remote village in North India...

The Shiva Temple I was involved in making in one of the most remote villages in India in state of Bihar. Its based on the temple architectural style of south india and from Madurai's famous temple architecture heritage this came about. this was in the making for an year by artisans from Madurai and we brought in the priests of Kumbakkonam (Thanjavur) to consecrate it. I was there for the same for some time and hence could not be online for some time ... and then I left for the sacred bath in one of the most prominent fairs in the world which comes after 6 years called Ardha Kumbha... and in those holy waters of the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna and Sarawati, I felt the achievement of life time.... I will write about the whole experience in detail following this ... Please read this blog occasionally if you would like to know more about it...


Om Namah Shivaya
Virtual

A Universe fit for Life

Recently I watched an interview of Paul Davies on BBC which made me think a lot about the life... and rekindled the desire to know about the fundamental questions that we keep asking ourselves. Hereby I am giving the gist of the book that he has written ......

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Professor Paul Davies' The Goldilocks Enigma tackles fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it. Scientific breakthroughs, he argues, have brought us to the brink of comprehending the underlying structure of nature or "a final 'theory of everything'".

A UNIVERSE FIT FOR LIFE
For thousands of years, human beings have contemplated the world about them and asked the great questions of existence: Why are we here? How did the universe begin? How will it end? How is the world put together? Why is it the way it is? For all of recorded human history, people have sought answers to such 'ultimate' questions in religion and philosophy, or declared them to be completely beyond human comprehension. Today, however, many of these big questions are part of science, and some scientists claim that they may be on the verge of providing answers.
Two major developments have bolstered scientists' confidence that the answers lie within their grasp. The first is the enormous progress made in cosmology - the study of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe. Observations made using satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope, and sophisticated ground-based instruments have combined to transform our view of the universe and the place of human beings within it. The second development is the growing understanding of the microscopic world within the atom - the subject known as high-energy particle physics. It is mostly carried out with giant particle accelerator machines (what were once called 'atom smashers') of the sort found at Fermilab near Chicago and the CERN Laboratory just outside Geneva. Combining these two subjects - the science of the very large and the science of the very small - provides tantalizing clues that deep and previously unsuspected linkages bind the micro-world to the macro-world.

If almost any of the basic features of the universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of the galaxies, were different, life would very probably be impossible. Now, it happens that to meet these various requirements, certain stringent conditions must be satisfied in the underlying laws of physics that regulate the universe, so stringent in fact that a biofriendly universe looks like a fix - or 'a put-up job', to use the pithy description of the late British cosmologist Fred Hoyle. It appeared to Hoyle as if a super-intellect had been 'monkeying' with the laws of physics. He was right in his impression. On the face of it, the universe does look as if it has been designed by an intelligent creator expressly for the purpose of spawning sentient beings.

UNIVERSE A PUT UP JOB?
A good way to think about this is to imagine playing God and setting out to design a universe. Suppose you had already settled on the basic laws of physics but you still had some free parameters at your disposal. The values of these parameters could be set by twiddling the knobs of a Designer Machine. Turn one knob and the electron gets a bit heavier, turn another and the strong force becomes a bit weaker, and so on. You could do this and see what happened to the universe. When would it make a big difference, and when would it scarcely matter? Although physicists can't actually carry out the experiment (at least not yet!), they can perform simple calculations to see what - all else being equal - such changes would do to the prospects for life.

HOW COME EXISTENCE?
So, how come existence? At the end of the day, all the approaches I have discussed are likely to prove unsatisfactory. In fact, in reviewing them they all seem to me to be either ridiculous or hopelessly inadequate: a unique universe which just happens to permit life by a fluke; a stupendous number of alternative parallel universes which exist for no reason; a pre-existing God who is somehow self-explanatory; or a self-creating, self-explaining, self-understanding universe-with observers, entailing backward causation and teleology. Perhaps we have reached a fundamental impasse dictated by the limitations of the human intellect. I began this book by saying that religion was the first great systematic attempt to explain all of existence and that science is the next great attempt. Both religion and science draw their methodology from ancient modes of thought honed by many millennia of evolutionary and cultural pressures. Our minds are the products of genes and memes. Now we are free of Darwinian evolution and able to create our own real and virtual worlds, and our information processing technology can take us to intellectual arenas that no human mind has ever before visited, those age-old questions of existence may evaporate away, exposed as nothing more than the befuddled musings of biological beings trapped in a mental straightjacket inherited from evolutionary happenstance. The whole paraphernalia of gods and laws, of space, time and matter, of purpose and design, rationality and absurdity, meaning and mystery, may yet be swept away and replaced by revelations as yet undreamt of.
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Now thinking about the things that he had said in his interview, one thing stood out quite interestingly. Answering to one question of the interviewer, he replied yes it’s possible to take the chemical and physical elements and create life... which is quite an amazing statement. Till recently the question was about who really created life, who really breathed life in the human beings was put up to prove that there is some one super intelligent form who can be GOD who made all things in the universe? But if humans can create life from Chemicals then each one of us can be the GOD. It’s really amazing to think in those lines as in our own Hindu Philosophy we are supposed to be the part of the universal consciousness... In each person or things God has his ANSH (Part) ..... is this thought process is going to be proved right?

Or the whole thing can be turned around and go on to prove that there is nothing like Supreme Consciousness that guides, governs and makes this earth go round...?

Just wondering ..... Is the Universe really a PUT UP job or just something that happened and out grown to start looking at the very foundations of beliefs....?

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

Underskin....

I have seen serpents
Running over your skin
Playing in your hair locks
Bathing from the rivulets that
Run down from your head
And then some one told me
That its me
Now I find them leaving you
and running across my blood
Slithering in and out of my blood vessels
Touching my senses
In cold touch
I have them making me feel
Gripped in coils
While my mind writhes
In shudders
Of coiled tightness
Of my life
Day in and day out Love
I find you
Probing my senses
with your flickering tongue

Om Namah Shivaya Virtual

The loneliness of people among a crowd...A Visit to Phuket in Search of Buddha within me

The visit to the Phuket – a beautiful island in Thailand was not the expected routine. I had a training to attend to which was in the most beautiful resort called Evason with lush green environment and beautiful beaches. I looked forward to my visit to a very famous Buddhist Temple but it was proving to be very difficult to move out of the resort as there were many activities and training scheduled. Any way during the visits to the city Phuket town and Patong Beach which was the most famous beach in the Island I did had some glimpses of life of the people who are kind of enmeshed in the quagmire of living, existence and fulfilling one’s karma in the most superficial way I could see. I did see hordes of tourists lounging around in the dance bars, discotheques and places where the sheer magnitude of materialism made me cringe inwards. I did not feel aversions to the girls (and in most case boys turned girls usually called Shemales) as they were trying to survive the fatalities of life that they have had but I did feel lot of sympathy for the tourists whose sheer materialism, search of happiness in the senses made them run after one type of enjoyment to the other without ever realizing that its all so transient. The mind of the people were taking them in circles of finding the right sense of joy among things that were not happiness but only a passing sense of gratification.

On one of the corner, I find a woman selling some cigarettes and lighters and I looked into her eye trying to find what she feels about all this and I found to my surprise that she was more content than the rich crowd she was trying to serve. She, I was sure, has understood the real meaning of being Sambhav (Equanimity) preached in GITA where one does not get affected by the feelings of joy or sorrow, doing work without the anticipation of fruits. I asked her to give me a small pack of chewing gum that she was carrying and I got it with a smile and a grateful eyes looking at me in thanks.

The feeling that I got in that crowd of tourists going about from one place of joy to another, was of desperation of trying to get something worthwhile and sustainable in there… and the feeling I felt each one coming out of those places, was of a disappointment writ large on their faces and an eagerness creeping in to visit the other place to find a better enjoyment. This is the vicious circle we live in … day in and day out and this what we need to get out of trying to find a better place, better thing or better experience to have each day in and day out. This is what Buddha preached and practiced and this what most of our yogi’s did all their lives living frugal existence but with happiness abounding in them with the touch of the superconscioues soul.

The next day I was able to go to the temple and find a great calm expanse of beautiful gardens and water bodies.

Wat Chalong

This is Phuket's most important Buddhist temple. The temple is revered among Thais for its healing powers. The prayer hall contains the statues of three of the temples most venerated monks: Luang Por Chaem, Luang Por Chuang and Luang Por Gluam. However, it is Luang Por Chaem who is best known and who has given Wat Chalong its fame as a place of healing. In 1876, during the reign of King Rama V, there was a rebellion by the Chinese tin miners, or “Angyee”. Luang Por Chaem (Lord Abbott Chaem), the abbott of the monastery at the time, helped to stop the rebellion and acted as a mediator in the peace.

Wat Phra Nang Sang

This is the second most important temple on Phuket. Its fame is derived from a magic statue of the Buddha (Phra Tong means “golden Buddha”). The statue is in a seated position but is only exposed up to the middle of the chest. Though claimed to be made of solid gold, the statue is more likely made of brick, cement and plaster, with a thin layer of gold leaf covering it. The legend surrounding the statues says that anyone who tries to dig up the statue will suffer terrible misfortune or death. Therefore, a cast of cement and plaster was placed over the statue to prevent further attempts to remove it and a bot (temple hall) was built to house the statue. The statue remains half buried in the middle of the hall and is subject of great reverence by local people.

I was mesmerized with the beauty of the place and calmness of the surroundings. The whole pagoda like structure with big round temple was like a beacon of light calling me over. The statue of Buddha although quite different from the one’s that I have seen in India, was still the same radiating peace and happiness… I was moved beyond my sense of joy that crept in as I did not expect this kind of place in the middle of superficiality. I was touched by a monk calling me to come over and sit with him in mediations and we mediated for almost hours together and he took me through the paces with chanting of Buddhist Mantra….

The sense of sadness left me slowly from the last nights visit to the place that made me wonder is that all that is with humanity – running about like a headless chicken. Here I did find what I was looking for – the inner calm and the peace that I have had heard about in India about the south east Asians attachment to the Buddha and the way they arrive at their mental balance in the middle of all the chaos around them. I was slowly sinking into the inner calm when the Monk asked me to join in with him in chanting the mantra that he was chanting in a beautiful sonorous voice. I felt slowly drifting into the vast sea that surrounded the entire Island and could float into the cloud along with him. The waves far down moved with the breath of our chanting and the clouds walked under our feet in tandem… the beautiful birds soared along with us in the deep blue universe and I felt the sudden chill of the evening breeze…

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

9th Mantra on HI5 Mantra Yoga Group...

The days at my village has been a calming effect on me and the last day I did Chants of a great Mantra in our own ancestral Temple which my great great Grandfather made and my father created the temple structure around it. It is believed in our folklore that when Goddess Durga arrived to stay in this temple, she came like a queen in palanquin with many divine horses, elephants and Her own Lion alongside. The Durga mantra, which although very simple to pronounce but is very powerful.

OM SHRI DURGAYAI NAMAH

Pronunciations:

OM = as explained earlier
SHRI= “SH” as in SHell
“RI” as in River

DURGAYAI = “DUR” as in DURing but sound of “D” is soft sound as in “TH” in THe
= “GA” as in GA in Garland
= “YA” as Ya
= “I” as “AI” in fAIr

NAMAH = As explained earlier

Meaning :

I bow to the Mother DURGA

Explanations:

DURGA ji (Ji is a sign of respect in our traditions like what we have as in Mr / Mrs but has more deeper sense of respect) is supreme divinity. She is without qualities and attributes and as such she contains all qualities and attributes. The masculine qualities are important but they must be balanced with the feminine principles. Masculine and feminine are but observe and reverse of the same coin. Durga represents the motherhood aspect of God which is the force or Shakti through which the divinity manifests. Durga is power. She is the protector and benefactor. According to the Hindu mythology, the Chaitanya or pure consciousness of Brahma Vishnu and Shiva were united to form the being of Mother Durga. She is commonly pictured as riding a Lion and having eight arms with which she carries flowers and weapons of protection and gives the gesture of blessing.

The chanting of above mantra will give one peace, protection, wealth and happiness in very short time as her nature of mother is of divine grace and Her grace is easily obtained.

Method:

As explained earlier one has to become calm with initial process of sitting in lotus position or comfortably in the corner which was used for chanting daily. With incense stick, lighted lamps and flowers to make the mind get more attuned to the chanting. Pranayam if possible or breath control as explained earlier.

With the sound of OM take the breath up from the heart chakra with a golden sphere of light to the throat chakra and then with SHRI one has to take the breath and light further upwards to the ajna chakra at middle of the brow. With DURGYAI one has to take the breath and the thought of divine grace to the crown Chakra and feel the light “GOLD” filling up the mind. With NAMAH This Golden Orb of light to be brought to the heart chakra along with exhalations of breath.

With the sound of OM again the Golden sphere of light has to be taken upwards as above process.

This Mantra should be repeated at least 11 times a day or if possible 108 times.

This mantra in my personal experience too has given me lot of confidence and peace of mind and has removed many obstacles and knots in my own life and made me more calmer and happier.



Om Namah Shivaya
Virtual

Day Six... VIsit to Lord Buddha's Maha Nirvana Site

Today I am on way to the Kushi Nagar where Lord Buddha attained his Nirvana.

It was in Kushinagar, that Lord Buddha breathed his last with the last words, "Behold now, brethren, I exhort you, saying, decay is inherent in all component things ! Work for your salvation with diligence." The Mahaparnirvana Temple dedicated to the aforesaid event, stands amidst a serene grove of Sal trees. The huge statue of the reclining Buddha, excavated in 1876 at the temple, is one of the most momentous of all sights for the devout..

Known earlier as Kushinara, now Kasaya, Kushinagar is one of the most sacred sites for the Buddhists. It was here that Lord Buddha is said to have attained 'Mahaparnirvana', the freedom from the endless cycle of birth and rebirth at Kushinagar. At the time of the great event, kushinara was an insignificant settlement, a part of the Malla Kingdom.

Kushi Nagar is an archaeological site, significant for its close proximity with the life of Lord Buddha. So far, at least ten monasteries have been discovered. The Mukutabandhana Stupa, which was built to hold the Buddha’s cremated remains is considered of great sanctity. There is also a large reclining stone figure of the Buddha. The original image was made in Mathura and brought to Kushinagar by Haribala, a monk who lived in the time of king Kumargupta (AD 413-455). Although, the original image was destroyed, it was restored in the last century.

The place is about 40 KMs away from my village and the road is lined by majestic trees and the weather is cloudy which makes me feel good. I pass along the rice fields and many canals that criss cross the eastern UP which made me long to get down and play in the water the way I used to do long life time ago. How one grows fond of things that one has enjoyed in childhood. Along the way I passed one very rickety old bridge across a small river and found many wahsermen washing clothes upon its banks. The water is muddy and still has many children playing along its banks. All full of joy and fun. The town has an old world charm about it and the people seen all unaware of the importance of this town which has a major presence in all the Asian countries where Buddhism flourished. The Buddha who had succeeded in giving the peasants a freedom from the Vedic rituals and idol worship by giving them a way to attain peace in this life itself by Dhyan and Tantra mediation in the local language by discarding the Brahminical tendency of limiting to Sanskrit of all Vedic teachings. But how ironic it is to see, the people resorting to Idol worship of Lord Buddha Himself, who abhorred the idea of idol worship. But I feel that its for common people necessary to resort of focus ones simple mind to an image/ idol or of a character and its just a tool to attain enlightenment.

The place where Buddha finally rested has a beautiful garden and in the sanctorum I find the amazing statue of Buddha sleeping. I had visited this place many times earlier but this time it seemed to come alive to me. I felt the calmness that was spread over the serene face of Buddha and it enveloped me too. I went around the sleeping figure in reverence with bowed head and thinking of the peace that surrounds the sanctorum and the inner turmoil that I have within myself. How contradicting it is? like a hot water vessel immersed in the cold waters of spiritual peace. I sat down at one side of the place directly facing the Buddha’s smiling face. As I closed my eyes I felt his energy boring inside me probing and soothing the inner turmoil. The sprinkling of his calmness started to make my bubbling inner self calmer with each breath. I felt the place grow alive with thousands of Bhikshu’s going about the place from on place of worship to another. I find so many enthusiastic younger disciples crowding around the place where Buddha will finally emerge from his simple dwellings to talk to them. I find the trees swaying in happiness and fresh breeze flowing in from all sides. The atmosphere went from serene calmness to one of happiness bubbling with the joy of the Bhikshu’s who are able to be with Lord Buddha himself.

Slowly I opened my eyes to look into the face that provided me with so much of joy and I felt Him smiling and I bowed down and looked at the Bhiskhu who was around to attend to the pilgrims. He was smiling too. I went around the reclining figure once again and touched the huge feet’s of Buddha and went out of the sanctum to have a fresh look around. The foundations of the huts and the structures are still visible and give a great sense of reality to those stories that I have read about the Buddhist movement in India.

The town of Kushi nagar also offers many newly constructed monastries all around with aids from Japan, China, Sri lanka etc. they are all so beautifully done but then they lacked the power that one simple place that remains the center of all energy of the town.

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual

Day Five....

Most of the relatives are now in the process of catching up with each other and I have to catch up with my own tryst with Goddess Durga Ji. So early in the morning I got up and asked one of my aunts to get the temple washed by some one and I went out for a bath with the motor pump. This pump is in the field and the water comes out rushing with 7 HP motor through its 4 inch hose like a water canon. As the water thrust forced out my weariness from the previous day, I could not help thinking about those days when we have had to request our farm manager in various ways to get this started so that all of us kids can have a great fun time, splashing about in the water. Slowly a crowd of village children gathered around me and I invited them to join in the fun and as they thrashed about in the water I went back in time. After an hour or so of playing in the morning sunrise with thick jet of water gushing down on me, I came out and went to the temple. By now the temple was washed clean and the Durga Ji’s platform was glistening with water drops. I arranged all the things in order and I started Puja with all the rituals that I know of. There are many rituals of performing prayers for any particular deity but for me its just what comes to my mind at that time, I do. Making sure that its just like honoring a guest who has come to one’s house and making him/her comfortable. After an hour or so I started with the reason that I had to come. I wanted my self cleansed and wanted to chant Her name for a number of times and so I started with the morning sun still low in the east.

As the breath became calm, with Pranayaam (A breathing exercise given in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra which is supposed to be very powerful for spiritual upliftment and attaining Samadhi (A state of eternal bliss))and performance of chanting with the breath and chakra, I felt my tension leaving my body. My mind started becoming slow and sluggish and the thoughts that have been running and thrashing about here and there like the children that were playing with me in the water, started get calmer. The waters constant splash started sounding more like clinging of bell and the mind started loosing its ripples in the lake of thoughts. The mula dhara (Base chakra) became red and started glowing and slowly I find it rising up wards to the navel with each round of chants. Slowly I felt it rising to the heart chakra and a blue calmness enveloped me. It pulsated with my, by now very calm and measured breath, and it expanded with each of my heart beat to envelope the whole of the environment around me. Slowly I started feeling hot in around my throat and it became unbearably hot slowly. I opened my eyes and looked around to find nothing to produce this discomfort and it was unusual and slowly I found my self feeling rather sad and I closed my eyes to let this sadness leave my inner self. I started praying again to Durga Ji and asked her for the reason but nothing was forthcoming. So I let it go and again started with my chanting. With each cycle of breath with Pranayaam I felt calmer and slowly I could achieve the depth of meditation at what I had left. My mind was calmer now and the pressures of sadness has left from deep inside.

The point between the eyes become now pressured and I could feel lot of energy glowing there in form of a flame and with each sound of mantra it started growing and glowing firmer… I was entranced in its dance form and I started loosing the control of my chants and it became slowly inaudible to even me. I felt my hairs standing on its ends and I felt my self merging in the atmosphere. I felt my chants leaving me and flying around in the temple and slowly I felt a deep sense of exhilaration rise in me and fill me up with solid gold light. I was happy and I felt like I could fly. I was then floating into the sky like riding the breeze that was enveloping me from all sides. And Slowly I came down on an ocean of white waves with blue ridge and I was skimming the surface with my hands. It all felt so new and happy that I could almost touch the happiness and suddenly I was in water and felt suffocation which at once cleared to give me a great vision of the depth of the sea. I could even see the bottom of the sea as it was unusually lighted from all sides… I was wondering what was happening then suddenly I found my self in front of my own temple in the whole far corners of the sea glowing red with energy and I went down inside to bow before Durga Ji and then I heard the sound again of the Mantra that was given to me some ages ago as mentioned in this blog some years back. I was thrilled and prostrated before Durga Ji in form of the platform in the temple which was shining like a orange cube. I touched my head to one of its edge and felt the soft warmth of the edge and opened my eyes.

I was still in my temple and the place around me has become active unlike the morning calm when I had started the chanting. It was mid day and I found one of my cousin coming towards me to ask for lunch. I was very light hearted and I felt the spring in my feet’s and found my strength again of happiness.

After lunch I came back again to complete the chanting and I was able to finish the same by the night fall and I was very happy in the sense of achieving something that I had promised my self to do this time in my village.

It’s a very powerful mantra that I have been given by my esoteric Guru at the time of my initiation into the spiritual fold. He had told me that by chanting this mantra one can actually get friendship, avoid pitfalls and disease, and be secure and happy in life. I wanted to do this chant at this temple for many years and now that I have done this I was thinking of putting this chant on my group “Mantra Yoga” which I have been promising my friends since long time. I think now I will be putting it up in my group as well as here once I finish the last day of my visit to the village. i.e tomorrow.

Om Namah Shivaya

Virtual