muradeshwar

mookambika pics

Govinda Bolo Hari Gopala Bolo

Today morning i visited the sri krishna swami matt in uduppi, this time alone,reached the temple and joined the long queue of devotees who were standing there waiting for the darshan.I removed the shirt and put the jai sri ram saffron shall, moved behind the people who were before me. Reached inside the temple, where the inside walls surrounding the main temple, is painted with beautiful photos of sri krishna in the bal leelas, in kurukshethra battle field,in nanda palace,etc,the temple premises are airconditioned although it was not switched on that time,every sides the fans where working, and on every corner there were lcd tv which showed us the pooja going on inside, upper parts of temple were closed with wooden roofs,watching all these i reached the front side,here the sri krishna is facing the west side, and a long story is associated with it, which says the krishna gave darshan to a low caste person named kanakadas who was barred from entering the temple from the east side. He entered from the backside and peeped through the window and sri krishna is believed to have turned himself facing west to give him darshan.Since then this custom of darshan throug windows follows till date.Remembering this story i followed the queue, the temple atmospher was filled with the sound of bells and musical instruments which helped us not to deviate our thoughts away from the temple.Finally we reached near the window with folded palms and the family before me took more time for darshan, may be they've a lots more than us to tell the god here, anyways we waited for them, the security there was making interesting sounds to make them move, and when his tone began to change, they moved on, still praying.Next was my chance, i also peeped through the window like kanakadas did,saw the lord of the universe, the supreme personality of godhead,the nanda lala, the warrior arjuna's friend,Sri krishna.I did not take much time there.Satisfied with the darshan, i went to the priests there who were giving theertha. After having it, i sat in the temple premises itself and started reading the sahasranama,i had to read it fast as i'D to reach back to hotel at 9. A cow and her calf was bought there for the gopujan at that time. After finishing parayana i went to cow and the calf, touched them and put my hand on the forhead, an act of paying respect.The cow has an important place in a hindu life,every hindu must pay respect or atleast he must not disrespect the sri krishna's favourate animal.Cow is our mother, we call it gomata,so the cow slaughter need to be banned throughout the country.Hats off to some state govt who've already banned it.. I got the laddu and the prasadam from the counter there i returned to hotel and had the break fast.
Back in the hotel room i was thinking of how to write about yesterdays experience. Some things can not be put into words. Anyways i did trY.
Yesterday we reached back from gsb temples, had the bath and walked all the way to the sri krishna matt, all were hungry and hence we were redirected to the hotel there, we masala dosa for which this place is famous for.Saw the huge ratha while we were waiting for the dosas to come, we went outside, and prayed , took video of that huge rath, came back and had the food. All stepped out of the hotel with happy stomachs, i was walking ahead from my people.We could see the rath moving and also the crowd pulling it. I observed the crowd, there were people wearing pants and shirts, some were holding suit case in one hand and pulling the rath with another, there were women among them, some old, some young, that means irrespective of the age and profession, people were working together to make the rath move,i donno which force made me join the crowd, i felt like somebody pushing me to them, may be its krishna himself,i joined the crowds who were shouting jaikars, govinda gopala, i also did govinda gopala, the whole crowd was singing the same. May be that gave them energy to work, in my case that added to my energy. I was doing this in great spirit,i enjoyed doing the service. I felt a little bit dissatisfied as the rath pooja was over, i wanted to accompany the crowd for one more rath pooja, but can not because i'm leaving today.:-(.
The rath episode taught me something. The rath symbolised the challenges of the hindu as a community is facing. And the crowd symbolise the unity can make anything happen.Our rath of challenges is more mighty and we need more crowd to face it.Anyways i will adjust the timings of my next visit to here so that it'l coincide with the rath pooja.
I loved this place next to thirupathi.
After the participation with people associated with rath puja, i lost my people who did not participat, i directly went to the temple expecting them to see there.Joined the queue there just like today,and was a perfect timing,the arathi started just after i reached the front part.A unjalseva was going on,saw the sri krishna swinging, and the swami of some matt was doing the arathi.I got the darshan as today. After that we had meals there in temple itself. It was a nice time in ktka, we did our lunch and dinner in temples itself. In kerala you cannot dream of getting free food everyday from temples, only in our some temples we've that system.Kerala needs to learn from ktka, it onlY Needs to kick of atheists from the devasvam board,all wil be well if the kerala govt took this bold step.Anyways lets wait and see..
Taking only memories from this place, only because i can not take this place with me i'm back in train. I saw a sanyasi in railway station,i just went to him just to know from where he's, he's a north indian and has come to the sri krishna temple. He saw my tulasi mala asked from where did i buy, and commented that i should year a saat mukhi rudraksh if am a student,i said a namasthe and moved away. Why i donno, may be the lord sri krishna wants me to study better, thatsy may be he has put him on my way.
So now the train to e k m is coming,my pilgrimage is over, enjoyed sharing things wit you, hope you enjoyed listening to me, waiting for other pilgrimage, will share that too, keep in touch..
Proud to be in a country of temples which gives us some memories to live with, proud of being in a religion, which gave so many gods to choose whom we like,
proud of the people who came with me,without which this pilgrimage wouldn't've happened
proud of everyone who has read this blog,as you've given me a place in their heart
vandeMataram!

In GSB temples…

I 'm back again. This time after a sumptous lunch in sri ananteshwar temple in manjeshwar. Typical konkani gsb food from here,made my stomach think of samaradhana in our T.D Temple.Yes we were in a gsb temple here in manjeshwar,the prathishta here is Sri Lakshmi Narasimha. The premises of temple is not different from the temples we have in our city.The main difference i noted here is the temple priest here,i hope every gsb bhatmams should come here and learn how to do the archana and how to give the prasadam and the theertha.I can not help criticising our bhatmams in our temples when i see the priest(bhatmam) here. I'l explain his behaviour to devotees coming to temple in due course..
The temple is like our td temple,though smaller, have 5 sub temple (upa devall) for lakshmi,hanuman etc.We did 'archana' for each one of us and waited for prasadam.The bhatmam was an old man, who speaks louder than the youngest bhatmam, was active than people of his age. He came inside the temple garbagraha and gave deepa and dhupa upachaara to the god.Then temple door was closed for a while to offer the food to do the niveda,(act of offering the food to the god, and the food thus become the niveda). While it was being done, another man was singing a bhajan in kannada i think.But the language doesn't made the song difficult to understand. It took us more to the god's abode..The arathi was over and the bhatmam gave the prasadam to all. He doesn't simply give prasadam, he blesses each one, not in sanskrit but in our language. It make us feel we are really recieving the blessing of the god. He chant shlokahs like oushadi jahnavi toyam etc loudly when he give the theertha. Every gsb or every keralite should visit here atleast once to see how he does or in my uncles language each bhatmam should be trained here before he's given charge of a temple..He seems very dedicated to his job.
Some people criticize the priest recieving dakshina, but for them i should say something.For every job done there is a fees paid, what the priest does is not different from the job. He earns from this job, and he earns from what people give to him. You can call this in any terminologY, like spiritual marketing etc,marketing is not a bad term anyways, if both the producer and customer is sincere to his job…So do not put the priest in a separate class, they also have familY, they also have worries, they also need money..So giving dakshina is our duty.After the prasadam meals we are now leaving for the uduppi sri krishna swami temple.On the way we saw a temple inaugurated by former PM rajiv gandhi, we saw it from outside, as the darshan timings are over.
Earlier in the morning we visited the veera venkitramana templ in mulki, this is a ugra narasimha temple built and managed by gsbs.

Saw on the way an ad by idea, "save paper, use mobile". I think i'm actually practicing it. I type this in mobile, store this in web space.Wow! Now moving to uduppi temple, the sri Krishna 's place, supreme personality of godhead lives there..By the way two good news for me as a writer, my letters to editor of new indian expres,kochi got finally published, and another i got a comment from another blogger, i did not expect it,because till now i made my friends read the blog (some time using force). Thank to that friend who read and commented on my blog..
Now in the hotel room after having the darshan of sri krishna. Superb experience, i love this temple very much next to tirupathi only.If i write about it here the blog will become extra large, so my next blog entirely dedicated to the uduppi sri krishna swami..
Govinda Gopala
gopala govinda..
Vande Mataram!

In Mookambika, amme narayana

Yesterday was very tired as we reached back very late. So i decided to write it when am in good mood. So now writing this from taxi moving at a speed of approx 70kmph to manjeshwar and mulki, the two gsb temples near mangluru.On Both sides of the road,i can see the trees, standing firm!
So yesterday we reached the mookambika in the evening after four, the temple is not very big,but the people visit the temple in large numbers. That itself shows that we do not visit a temple only because it gives a material pleasure of enjoying the beauty of the external structure of it, but also we count the spiritual wealth of the temple, which is at its most in this mookambika temple.The people visit there irrespective of their religion, to have a glimpse of the universal mother, the mookambika! This place is famous for the vidyarambha during the navaratri festival.
Today as we reached earlier, there was no big rush, so we got the darshan twice in one go, i chanted some parts of INDRAKSHI Sthothram and 'ya devi sarvabhooteshu' and asked for the blessings of our jagad amma!We sat in the temple premises for a while and after that went for shopping, i bought some Charadu and tulasimani mala and later decided to give it for poojan.We had a poojari friend there in temple, he did the pushparchana . He helped us do the sankalpa with sanskrit shlokas, i could understand some part of it. The content of sankalpa was this.."we are doing this archana with flowers to the devata here,to cleanse ourselves from the past sins of this janma and the previous janmas, everything including the brahmahatya papa will be washed away with the blessings of the ever pervading devi here, let all of us be happy and live according to dharma after the archana here,let all our problems be solved, we dedicate ourselves to the devi here." it was a very nice time with the poojari here, when the meaning of samskrit shlokas become understandable, the joy of performing archana gets doubled.Paying my respect to this great language, the mother of all language, the language of our ancient seers, samskritam!
After that we got our charada and the mala with the devi's presence in it, we wore it ourself. My little sister asked why we wear this.. My answer was fantastic (not boasting). I said "see, if we think of doing harm to others or doing prohibited things, when we see the hands with the charada, we realise we shouldn't do it, we feel the devi's presence in our hands, and will restrict ourself from the bad actions we are going to commit. Also when we were harmed by other people, we could react with great power, as the devi's strength is with us. ". So this is to help us do the right things at the right time..
Here also devoteed are provided free meals, we waited for the prasadam in the hall exclusively made for annadaana. We had our meals and went to the pujari to collect our kashaya theertham..There was mangalarthi and rathapooja during that time.The temple was closed at about 9pm.
We couldn't go kudajadri because it wil consume more time, but we visited the sowparnika river there during evening.Washed my hands and face there, remembering the song 'sowparnikamritha veethikal padum..' we visited the garuda guha, the place where the garuda did tapas once, that place is crowded by monkeys, all naughty, naughtier than the naughtiest of their human counter part, they were fighting with each other, during that fight one fell into the river, and was humiliated. We saw the guha and returned to our taxi.
So this was yesterdays experiences. Todays in next blog, photos taken at mookambika temple will attached later!
See you all..
Amme Narayana!

Namah Shivaya, Shivaya namah om

Woke up today, hearing a child crying,at 5.30am, thanks to that kid, as my mobile alarm did not ring.Couldn't judge for a moment where i was, then slowly came out of the sleep, saw a ttr, checking tickets of everyone who are awake,saw me too, asked me something, couldn't make out what he meant by moving his head,i showed him ticket, he checked,and went satisfied.Mobile charge was too low that time, had the charger with me, fortunately we had pins in our train,connected the charger, and saw the charger blocks in mobile is moving. Hurrai, it worked!The train was still moving with a good speed,the sun was only about to rise, i got down from my berth, went to my people, helped my mother and sister to join my uncle and family.
Finally we reached the railway station uduppi, the front part of the station is more or less like a temple, yes uduppi is a land of temples, got the darshan of sri gopala krishna from the railway station itself, i've took some photos there,but i've no good camera with me, have to adjust with vga camera of my mobile.The pic of krishna was taken from the railway station park!Good happy to had the darshan, we moved to the hotel, the taxi was arranged in advance.
Now reached the hotel,got a room with ac, tv, hot water etc.. A good hotel, part of which is under construction. Saw the indian express here also, but the bangluru edition,filled with news about govt and its policies here.I got a very bad coffee, made by myself with the milk powder, nescafe and hot water, now waiting for a bath.Could see the sun shining near the window, very bright,hope its a cold sunny day.
Yes had the bath,now in hotel mangala, they say break fast is buffe, we've to take what we want, i thought there'l be a lot of choices, but ha ha, only poori masala and bread roast. Wonderful! We've to make the tea ourself, this time i didn't take the risk. Upsetting stomach is dangerous when we are in a journey. So the break fast is now over, ate 5puris, drank a good coffe, now back in room!
Now we'l visit some temples around here, going to kollur only in the evening as its the time to get the kashaya prasadam,an ayurvedic prasadam. Worthwhile during break fast we had discussion whether to buy a camera from here itself, because no one of us had a personal digital camera,after the round table conference, we had a positive outcome.I will get a camera this time.. Its great!
I like photography a lot, have crazy ideas about making small documentari films,needed a good camera very badly.Going to get one soon,..:-) 🙂 :-). Now waiting for the taxi man to come!

Now in our taxi which i believe the owner is a kannada language lover, because the number plate is writern in kannada lipi.First time seeing such a no. Plate written in language other than english.Feeling proud being in a taxi owned by a person who loves his mother tongue..
We started our pilgrimage starting from small temples, yes we visited a small hanuman temple,unlike in our temples, we can be close enough to see the vigraha, and can ring the temple bell any time. I rang it once, put the kanikya,got the prasadam, put the red thilak on the forehead and now moving on.Near to that temple is the amriteshwari temple, a devi temple, i chanted the shlokah silently, ya devi sarvabhooteshu, vidya roopena samsthitha,namasthasyai namasthasyai namasthasyai namo namaha. our driver said in konkani,(ya he knows our language too cos his friends belong to our community in manglore,his mother tongue is thulu) pointing his fingers at various shiva linga around the temple that they are swayambhu and these stones grow automatically like some plants. I chanted om namah shivay with great feelings,vishwaso phaladayaka!Out side the temple, there is a small temple of kali, with bhaya and bhakthi i prostorated before the universal mother.

Now reached the annegudai vinayaka temple,around the temple walls we could see stone cravings which symbolised various incidents in puranas.The idol of vinayaka is very big,and beautiful too..A big pimpal (baniyan)tree is outside this temple making the temple more beautiful..Now where next is my next question.. Life moves on…
From man built temples to nature built temples,i'm now standing before the mighty arabian sea under the noon sun, i remember the gita where the lord krishna says "i'm the ocean" and also a beautiful stanzas "apooryamanam achalaprathishtam.." describing the ocean, the yogi should be like the ocean which remains undisturbed though various water join them from various sides.Spent some time near the beach drinking the coconut water i recollected the famous scientist newton's words that he 's just a small kid playing with some pebbles on the seashore.Yes then what are we playing wit?
Again in the taxi, i think next we are going to shiva temple. Details i'l tell, hang on..
We are moving now to muradeshwar temple, haven't reached the place, seeing throug the windows of the car i'm travelling i could see many women walking in black dress, covering their faces, some doesn't close their eyes,some are fully covered,wondering how they live inside this dress,i thought about our women who enjoy great freedom comparing to these,but always complain they are in chains.Hmmm…! Atimoham! We the hindus evolved with time, we modified our culture and our ways according to the time, rules and regulations should be changed from time to time,else we'l lose ourselves in the flow of time. That doesn't mean we've to give up our culture, we've to adjust, thats all i meant..Now i saw the murudeshwara gate way, going to visit it, eager to see..
Yes now on my way to kollur, saw the muradeshwar temple, the gopur is a big one, have got the photo. Hats off to our ancestors who did all these without any selfish interests, that too with this much perfection and beauty. Nearby the temple gopur we could see the great shiva statue,that was built recently, ten yrs ago or so. But the temple as such is very old. The construction is such that with all the cranes and modern engineering tools we can not construct the temple with this perfection and spirituality.Grateful to the culture i belong to.:!!
We had the darshan of the lord shiva their, i went inside with a vibration of gratitude, chanted om namah shivai, and had a great darshan..
The important feature in ktka temple is that all those who are visiting the temple is provided free meals prasadam here, it was a different serving of meals there. Like all south indian temples we've to sit in the floor, and different from other places we are given the plate, first a person carries a bucket of water to each individual and he'l pour it in each one's plate, we've to wash our plates and another man'l come with another bucket to which we've to pour back the washed water.I liked that system very much, first we had the payasam and later we had the rice and rasam.I loved the prasadam lunch, i took some good photos using my uncles 1.3mp mobile camera, will attach in a later blog.
Some correction needed in my earlier para, the gopuram is not the ancient one, it was constructed recently since the earlier gopuram was damaged. Anyways i'm not disappointed , but rather encouraged with the fact that people still such large temples.And still the people visit them in large numbers, large doesn't means simply large, its a big number..So we moved from the big dining hall to the temple ground..
There is a big shiva statue near to the main temple, its huge and we can go very close to it, near the statue we saw geetopadesham, and saptharishi's sitting in tapas, beautifully made, amazing with spiritual touch..The photo blog will be selfexplainatory.
Hats off to temple management system in ktka!

From the shiva temple in muradeshwar to shakthi temple in mookambika our journey was very good, saw some mirage in roads,the mookambika temple is situated in a mountain, we reached there at about 4.3o, the first thing we were searching for was obvious
ly toilets, hotels were not clean, atlast we located a temple toilet there. It was very good. After that we had tea, as we were very tired after the two hour journey.After eating masala dosa and chapathis, i mean satisfying our vaishwanaragni, we moved to visit the devi there..
I'l give the details in my next blog, along with the pics which i took today, now very tired after the return journey going to sleep..
India is blessed with the temples and the people who visit them..
Visiting each and every temples in bharat is my next dream..
Dream dream dream..
Good night..
VandeMataram.

Amme Narayana…..

Yeah as i said in my previous blog, i'm attempting a travelogue on my pilgrimage to the famous temples of south india, the KoLLUR Mookambika devi kshethram and Uduppi Sri Krishna temple. Me writing this sitting inside the marusagar express,away from my people,as we got our seat number scattered in different places.So i thought i should write something here.
Now the train has started moving with a moderate speed,i dont feel the wind, because the windows are closed, as this is an air conditioned compartment.I'm first time in an ac compartment, obviously because i dont travel much in train, i'm a less travelling man who has become a travel crazy man recently..
The forward motion of train causes a perpendicular displacement to its passengers, exactly like a sine wave each passenger is moving with respect to the observer outside the train. Oops the physicist in me woke up at a wrong time.Anyways the life moves forward!
I've Heard a quite lot about the temple which i'm going to visit, but i'l be there first time.Have read a pilgrim account bY our mega star lalettan,i was inspired by that.I could read Its a temple with a natural back ground,where the nature is worshipped, the devi there fills each particle of that forest.So moving fast to see the place at approx 8okmph.

Oops! I hate walking inside the train,loses the balance,'ve to move like a drunkard,we are six people and got the ticket at 5 different places, with many permutation and combination calculations,we are now divided into 3 groups,me being a single member group,is alone in b2 compartment.The calculation was never easy as we do in maths, here it was like a physical exercise, talking to various people, compromising talks,some do agree, some do not even look at us, some say they cant defy rules, some murmur something, atlast some kind hearted people do agree. Dont think we are the only sufferers, majority of the passengers are sufferers! I think train is carrying more sufferers than travellers.Trying to recollect a lalettan dialogue "Suffer"on ki zindagi kabhi nahim katham ho jaati hai. Shambo mahadeva…!
All settled, now am on the upper berth, trying to sleep, below me i can see the ttr sitting confused in middle of many sufferers.Ttr too suffers. Watta train. Many people showing tickets at him from many sides, i wonder whether he'l actually survive this test. Mera suffer khatam ho gaya, now watching others sufferings..!
The ac is on, and the time is fifteen min to ten, me happy with the fact that we got the best possible answer to the p & c question,is thinking whether to help others solve it. But now i decided not to interfere,and not make it more complicated. I gave sleeping pills to my 'sympathising' mind,me not feeling sleepy as the lights are on.
Below my berth, i think they are a family of many members,all speaking to each other in some malapuram malayalam language. Quite interesting the way they speak.I can hear the train moving forward but couldn't guess where we've reached as i cant see outside.Seeing the people in this train, i realise how this mode of traffic play the important role in people life. The train is full with passengers, capacity of train, not very sure, is certainly more than thousand, that means atleast thousand people move from one point to another each day.Its quite interesting, that this much people shift their position each day.. May be some are getting transfered, some might be on a trip like me, some may be shifting their place of living to a new place, some may be visiting their relatives, some others for some other reasons.The life moves and it moves,what ever the reasons may be.If thousand people are leaving the station, the same amount of people are getting down at the same station,that means the no. Of people living in a place is a constant, but the faces do change..
Another fact that i realise during this journey, is about the population india contains. Every train contains atleast 1k people, how many trains are running today in india at various places, let it be X ,multiply 1k wit no. X, will get an amazing big no. Yeah, i know india's population is 115cr,thanks to GK books, but now i feel that the population does exist..Thanks to my amazing thoughts..
Yes some've stopped talking now, have switched off some lights, two more bulbs waiting for a rest, me too waiting for them to rest.Thinking about words of my friend, after hearing it which i started doubting why should i blog,'he adviced me not to blog personal things siting the reason that no one will read or no one are interested to know what i do. Yes he's right, no disagreeing, but then why i'm typing this all?'. But now i understand why should i, i'l explain..
First reason, for me typing in a mobile is not a difficult task, or its very easy.Two,when i'm alone or travelling, what should i do else,just look at others faces? its ok if the faces are worth looking at, but what if there are no such faces? so this help here.Third, you cant express all the thoughts verbally to someone, they'l think we are crazy, but this place, i mean web space is the craziest place in the world where we can upload our craziest thoughts.Fourth, i dont want many readers to my blog, i want people who really know me to read this, ha ha, i cant demand like i did in my previous sentence, because the people who care about me will dare to read what i write.Anyways thanking them from the bottom of my heart, i mean the place where the blood pumping take place.
These fantastic four reasons made me start writing again, i'm optimistic again, because i know i'l get atleast one follower, i mean myself, i'l read it myself and enjoy my experiences at some point of my life.I can see a no. 12k on my screen which indicate, i've writtern here the blog of size 12k. That means approximately 6oo words or more if my multiplication is right.Am Planning to stop todays blog when i see the no 13k,its still 12k.So what else? Yes last two days i was having bad days for bloging, as no ideas were comin to me, no noble thoughts were coming to me from any sides,i couldn't complete them,i didn't get the ideas about what i should write. Yes mood depends, the approach to anyone or anything depends on our mood, you speak nicely to people when you are in good mood, what we do is not important, because our mood controls what and how we do!
Yes 13k has reached, i love the no. 13,some fools hate it,now i can stop my blog about todays experiences in train,now perfect timing, i stopped writin, they switched off lights, bulbs 've already got rest, let i also take some rest, now journey starts to a dream world..
See you all tomoro,
amme narayana!
Devi narayana!
lakshmi narayana!
Bhadre narayana!