Thursday 5 December 2013

An unforgettable incident

By Swamynathan S 
In exactly 45 more minutes, the clock will tick 12:00 AM and welcome our SWAMI's birthday. I had a long day, yet could not retire to sleep. Somehow, my heart was little heavy and my thoughts are kind of rolling back towards one of the greatest and moving incident that I had heard from my mother directly. The story dates back before approximately 25 years (not really sure about the exact time). My father was a government official and my mother was clerk in bank. I was in my primary school. We belonged to a Brahmin family and we respected the rituals and the 'Anitya' karmas that a family is recommended to perform. My father had never missed any of the ancestral worship that he had to do on every new moon day and a priest with name Ganapathy (Name changed for the article purpose) used to help my father with the rituals.


Ganapathy was a slightly elderly looking person, not so moody, but "I mind my own business" kind of person. I had hardly interacted with him in my childhood. He was also blessed with a ay girl sometime during those years. At that point I never realized that this baby girl is so precious and she is going to engrave her foot-print in my heart, which will be so deep that it is going to make me write an article 25+ years later from that time.

It was a time little late in the morning. Ganapathy visited our house. His daughter should have been 5 years old at that point. His face was pale and unusual. His voice was breaking and it seemed to me that he will break into tears any time. I was too young to understand their talks and my mom does not encourage me lingering around when the elders have a serious talk. After few years, I understood what it was. 

Ganapathy, with his family, left to Kanchi to take the holy DARSHAN  of Goddess Kamakshi and HIS HOLINESS - Chandrashekara Swamigal (Maha periyava). After their temple visits, they happened to participate in a HOMAM that Mahaperiyava was doing himself. The place

was little crowded. The little one was sitting beside her father and mother keenly watching over the HOMA. Maha periyava was dutifully initiating everything.
Suddenly, the child turned beside her father and asked - "Appa, can you get me the same dress as that girl wears?". Her father replied back - "Oh, who?". The girl pointed towards MAHA PERIYAVA. She said "Appa, can you see a small girl sitting in the lap of that thatha?(which means Grandpa - in tamil) I want a dress exactly same as that." Ganapthy was shocked. He could not understand for while about what was happening as he practically could not see anybody sitting on Maha Periyava's lap in his naked eye. Despite repeated questions about the girl - the child consistently pointed out towards Maha Periyava's lap.

This topic somehow slowly reached out to the ears of Maha Periyava. He called some of his disciples to get the same colour dress that the child was telling. Others could not see the girl who was sitting on Maha Periyava's lap. It Was BALA THRIPURA SUNDARI herself. It is obviously not possible and not all are blessed enough to have a divine dharshan of her's. Ganapathy's daughter must have been a very evolved soul which is pure enough to see GODDESS herself in her BALA roopa. The dress was not available in the nearby stores. However, Maha Periyava was very serious about getting the dress for the child. He ordered his disciples to get it somehow and they toiled for hours and were able to get the same dress for the child. Then the dress was given to the kid and she took it happily. Nobody, including her parents, got to know at that point that there is a strong reason behind Maha Periyava's seriousness in getting the dress for the kid. Days passed and up to everybody's shock - the kid left the world suddenly. It was an inconsolable blow for the parents. Not more than few years after this incident, my mother happened to convey this incident to me when we had a talk about Maha Periyava at my place. It was such moving incident for me. Even now, when I re-think the whole happening, I could not stop myself from shedding tears - to even hear about someone, who had to take birth to burn their smallest piece of karma and end their birth very soon with GODDESS's DARSHAN herself.


(Swamynathan is a Bangalore based Software Engineer, who is enthusiastic about the diverse dimensions and knowledge that life offers him. He loves reading and travelling and likes penning down his thoughts when he has nothing else to bother)




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