Maha Kaala Bhairavashtami

Kala Bhairavar fully decorated

Today is Kalashtami or Maha Kalabhairavashtami. The eigth day after the Full Moon or the Eighth day of the Waning Moon in the month of Margsirsha. As it comes exactly in the middle of the fifteen days from the first day after the full moon to New Moon day, this Ashtami is also called Madhyashtami or the Centered Eighth Day. This day is sacred to a Hindu deity called Kaala Bhairavar. This deity is a personification of Shiva.

There are many stories about Bhairavar. Some say he came from the head of Brahma. But the more plausible tale is related thus in the Shiva Mahapuranam. Those were the ages when Brahma sported a fifth head atop his four. Steeped in arrogance Brahma remarked to Vishnu that he was the supreme  being superior even to Shiva. Angered by this Shiva manifested Kala Bhairava from between his eyebrows. Kaala Bhairava immediately proceeded to behead Brahma and removed the very head that had blasphemed Shiva. But in this process he became a sinner guilty of beheading a Brahmin. Brahma’s skull stuck to his hand. He had to wander everywhere before he got his reprieve.

Kala Bhairava is a resident of Kasipuri. He is also Kshetrapalaka and the keys of every Shiva temple are deposited in the Bhairava shrine at the close of the Rituals. 

Gopura Dharshanam Koti Punyam

These photos were taken during a recent visit to Tinneveli district.

Nelliyappar Thirunelveli

Sankarankovil

Tenkasi

Thiruchendur

Goats

Nagapattinam Diary IV

Kaaraikal Pulambal (Lament from Kaaraikal)

Left Nagapattinam for Karaikaal. Birthplace of Punithavati Ammaiyar a.k.a Karaikaal Ammaiyar. Yesterday they celebrate her marriage to Paramadattar  Chettiar. Today there is a Mango Festival (Mangani Thiruvizha) in Karaikaal. This is in memory of the miracle the lady performed by praying to Shiva and obtaining a divine mango.

Visited the temple of Kaaraikal Ammiyar. The idol was worth the wait in the queue. Beautifully decorated the divine lady is shown with arms cupped together seeking the divine mango from Lord Shiva.

The people of Nagai and environs like Thiruvarur and Karaikaal are outspoken to the point of rudeness. In fact they call themselves modumutti meaning reckless one. They are insensitive to the feelings of others and highly indisciplined. They ride roughshod over others and believe their forceful tone can get anything done.  But they are cowards at heart. As we stood in the queue patiently, many of the worthy citizens of Kaaraikal simply forced themselves in causing a congestion at the small door to the samctorum. This actually impeded people trying to come out and slowed the queue down. Repeated requests to join the queue bore some fruit and we passed into the sanctum sanctorum. May Karaikaal Ammaiyar make these people wise!

Nagapattinam Diary III

For a person who believes in Universal Brotherhood, Naagai has a great example.  All the three major religions of India are represented here.

In the evening I visited Velankanni. It was just a walk away as I stayed at VPN residency at Velankanni. 
It is a cluttered tourist spot; stuffy and hot. The shops cram every corner and shut out the view of the seahore which is a great beauty of Velankanni. 

Rear View of the Cathedral

 Naduthittu church where mother Mary appeared before lame buttermilk vendor boy

Nadduthittu Church

Nagapattinam Diary II

We next visited a series of shiva temples. The Navanitheswarar temple at Sikkal, the Agastheeswarar temple  and Kaayarogana swami temple at Naagai. We were informed that there are in all  twelve shiva templeas in Nagai.

The oldest amonst these is the Kaayarogan swami samedha Neelayadakshi temple.
Highlights:

• has the samaadhi of Aribadha Nayanar a Shivaite saint who was born in Naagai.
• Is one of the Sapthaidanga Shetram (Lit. Seven (holy) places) and has the famous Thyagaraja Swami idols. 

The temple also called Naagai Karonam in the Thirumurai is huge though not in the same league as Thiruvaroor or Chidambaram. 

Sikkal Temple

Kaayarogana Swamy Temple

Agastheeswarar Temple

Nagapattinam Diary - I

Some thoughts  I had and, of course photos taken during a recent visit to Nagapattinam district also known as Nagai.

Visited Nagoor dharga. This is the samaadhi of a muslim saint.

The Entrance to the Darga

The four minarets can be seen

The tower in front of the Darga

Comfort Zone

In Life Own Satisfaction is better than Success because Success is a measure decided by others, while satisfaction is a measure decided by us. 

Thought on this saying:

Can this also not result in complacency and indolence? Sometimes we need to use external benchmarks to evaluate whether we are at peak performance. 

Reliance on them absolutely and becoming frustrated on this account is the reason for stress and despair.

As, usual balance is the key!

Calamity creates Opportunity

14.06 2013

I am in Hydrabad to conduct a one-day public program on Excellence in Negotiation Skills. 

Red alert in Hyderabad. The Telengana rally has girdle-locked the Twin Cities. All main roads are blocked. Hyderabad is under quasi curfew. My Coordinator and I started very early and took a long and circuitous route through Panch Gutta and  Jubilee Hills to reach the Hotel Golconda in the Masab Tank area.

Weather looks like rain. Windy and cloudy with occasional showers. 

The Telengana crisis has made hotels and malls with glass fronts quite wary of stone throwing mobs. So huge nets have been erected shielding these road-fronted, glass-encased,buildings from a random Telengana stone.

The company that makes and sells these nets must have had a windfall out of this if not a tidy fortune!

Reclining Buddha

Reclining Buddha--View from behind the feet.

A different view showing head and the base of the feet. The fingerprints are clearly delineated by mother of pearl in lay work!!!

Picture Post Card View of Emerald Buddha Temple from Outside

The Grand Palace _ Bangkok

Grand Palace Outer View

I could take some beautiful shots of the Palace and Emerald Buddha Temple.

This complex consistes of three parts:
The Emerald Buddha Temple
The Middle Palace and
The Inner Palace.

No one is allowed inside the inner palace.

The Thais are highly ettiquette-driven. It is  not correct to enter a temple scantilly dressed. Our guide a stout tThai woman kept poking chinese girls who were in mini skirts or shorts and forcing them to wrap their sarongs. It is not seemly in Thailand to expose the upper ans lower torso. 

On the Banks of the Chao Phraya

Here I am...once more gazing out of my hotel window at the wide expanse of the Chao Phraya river flowing throgh the middle of Bangkok. I am here this time for a meeting with a client. The hotel is the Anantara Riverside Resort and Spa, a wonderful and huge property right on the banks of the river.

The entire place is alike a museum with carvings, sculptures and bas relief adorning the walls and corners. The elephant motif is pronounced.

Bangkok is the same old traffic loaded, ancient yet modern city. Every time I drive through Bangkok, I feel India could have achieved this long long ago. Till 1995 we were looking with awe towards Singapore, Kualalampur,and Bangkok as developed ultra modern cities. They were foren. We were Indian. Today any metrocity in India looks as modern as or better than cities like, for example, Bangkok. A drive through Bangkok today is no different fromn a drive through an urban sprawl like Gurgaon or OMR in Chennai. Bur in Indiua this modernization is still in pockets while here it is evenly spread. This is not to say that there are no poor underprivileged people. But here they seem to be contented with their lot and sincerely attempting  to do something.

We had dinner at a nice Indian restaurent called the Indian Cor
ner opposite to Maa Hotel. There are lot of north Indians here who are traders and businessmen. But there is no service oriented community as in Dubhai or Muscat.

Ooty Flowers

Managed a two-day break at Oootacamund en famille. These snaps were taken during a leisurely stroll through the Botanical Gardens. 

I liked this quotation engraved on a slab in the Rose Garden:

Roses for the Garden

Roses are a gift of price 
Sent to us from Paradise
More Divine our Nature grows
In the Eden of the Rose.

Roses, why for silver sell?
O, Rose merchant fairly tell
What you buy instead of those
That is costlier than the Rose

Kis I of Mreve

Unusual Vs. Not Usual

Another casual shot. As I came out of my house, I saw these EB workers using this contraption to fix a bulb on a street light. Thought it's not an usual sight though it may not be an unusual sight!

Dolie-Walas Relaxing

sabhari Malai Dolie Walas Relaxing

I  took this snap from my Nokia Lumia 920 mobile camera during my recent visit to Sabharimalai. After an exhausting descent from Neeli Malai, my son and I had almost reached the comforting shelter of Pamba Ganapathy Sheds. On the left sitting in the shade I saw these Dolie Walas with their dolies neatly stacked in a  row! Liked the frame-snapped it!

Nicholas Nickleby and Mahabharath

This is a 2002  movie adaptation of Charles Dicken’s third novel. Dickens is able to bring out the stark black and white images of ‘good” and “bad” in his novels. The Victorian idiom enables these “passion play” imagery.

Ralph Nickleby is the personification of evil or to use its Indian equivalent “adharma”. Nicholas Nickleby the honorable nephew is “good” or “dharma”. The story is essentially a tale of the triumph of good over evil.

As I was watching the movie, I could not help but speculate on the parallels between Nicholas Nickleby and the Mahabharath! Both are tales that describe the travils of dharma as it is put down continuously by evil. The pandavas are personified in Nicholas and Kate. The insults thsat Kate undergoes in Ralph’s house from his evil friends are similar to the famous scene where Draupadhi is dishonored in public in Duryodhana’;s court. Just as we have Vikarna and Vidhur who try to counsel evil, we have a friend of Ralph’s who not only advises Ralph and hios cronies to desist but also feels guilty for not having spoken up! We even have a “pair of Krishna equivalents” in the Cheerybyl brothers.

The comparison rose up naturally in my mind and there is no contrivance here. I think this only proves the essential fact that the fight between good and evil, the initial victory of the latter and the eventual triumph of the former are essential themes deeply embedded in the human consciousness so as to transcend cultures and continents. Of course, in the complicated world we have cocreated, there are no convenient pegs for hanging good and evil. Our times are more Elizabethean than Victorian! There is a lot of grey!

But, the real battle between the forces of dharma and adharma is happening outside but inside each one of us! Each one of us has a little bit of both Ralph and Nicholas in us. The battle within is the Kurukshetra. It is both a Dharmakshetra and Kurukshetra. It is Kurukshetra because we can’t transcend our own inner evil by inaction. It is only by action that we help dharma to emerge victorious.

Action is neither good nor bad. It is the coin of life. We exchange time for action. We accumulate karma with action! To stop acting is itself an action! “So, Act!” says Krishna. But, act within the framework of love and good. Any action that is prompted by a general desire for doing well by everyone including oneself and that is rooted in love and a sincere commitment not to harm others by thought, words or action is preferable over inaction.

We wonder why evilis victorious. We wonder whether good will triumph at all! Yet, the Lord has promised to return whenever there is a threat that good will be totally destroyed. How much more should evil win before the balance is irretrievably tilted and the cosmic force in irreversibly released in the final battle against evil?

But this is the revelation; the second coming and the Hope! Amen

Unconditional Love

My wife does not love me unconditionally. She loves me within certain value parameters. But, it doesn’t matter. Because, the parameters she has set are actually good for my long term growth as a human being.

Therein lies the nub. Most women/Men love or think that they love or that they ought to love their partner unconditionally. This means, they deem it their duty to ignore the other’s faults or shortcomings. They have a humongous blind spot. This creates superb victims or martyrs depending on the other paty’s response to this ‘unconditional’ love. This is a Lose/Win contract that’s destructive for the victim/martyr.(Try trelling this to them!)

Most unconditional love has subtle value parameters. pretty girl marries a rich man and loves him unconditionally as long as he provides her with the material wealth she seeks. The conditions she places are not for the benefit of the other person but for her own personal benefit. As long as love is filtered through ego, it is not unconditional. But where conditions are not filtered through ego but a genuine wish to improve the other person, such conditional love is better than the unconditiona love that destroys and deludes either or both the partners.

Another combination is a situation where one party is too critical or abusive. (In fact, this is ususlly the other party in the ‘unconditional’ love example we saw above. This is not conditional love. This is simply no love at all.It’s a Win/Lose relationship that’s going nowhere.

Imagine a marriage where both parties love each other unconditionally. That is to say both are willing to ignore their faults and shortcomings. While they will be extremely happy in the short run, in the long run they would have made so many mistakes in life that the whole point of a healthy marriage would be lost. This is a lose/lose marriage. They laugh but do not smile. They are living a lie and delude themselves. These people are usually the educated middle class who need to put on a show of happiness. This breaks down once the children settle down and the social need to live together is gone.

It is better to be honest to your spouse. Shortcomings and faults should be discussed and addressed as both the parties actualize their fullest potential on the parallel and adjacent paths they have chosen to take voluntarily and out of a deep (but not unconditional) affection and admiration for the other. 

Dove in Flight from the rear

Dove in Flight; Flying away

Why I am a Donkey

Because

I am the Whole; I am Perfection; I am Eternal Bliss.

Yet I delude myself that I am this

 limited, imperfect, unhappy 

combination of Body, Mind and Intellect!

A Tale of Two Swamijis

I was a  bit reluctant to publish this post as I have done my best to avoid negative comments. Yet, the sentiments expressed here are meant to promote thought rather than provoke comment. 

There was a swamiji. He was the local head of a spiritual organization. The swamiji was a great orator. People loved to hear his fiery discourses. Some even felt he was almost like the founder of the organization.

The organization was a registered society. To increase the number of members the organization forced the parents of children joining their schools to become life members. A life member is someone who will be your member till he dies. But these parents lost their interest once their children finished school and went to college and then abroad and so on; some stayed connected. Most did not.

So although there were thousands of LMs on the record only a very few helped the organization. These were people who admired the founder and loved his teachings But  the monthly News-letter had to be sent to ALL the LMs. That was the rule! This cost money!

Now, the swamiji was upset. But as he was a brilliant swamij and he got this idea. So he called a meeting of the LMs. A few attended. At that meeting the swamiji made them pass a resolution that any LM who did not attend two General meetings will cease to be a life member (No! The swamiji will not kill them! But they cannot be life members! How? I don’t know! Luckily I am not a swamiji. ;-)

Then the swamiji called another meeting. The swamiji did not call the meeting. He has to be detached. Someone else did it. In the invitation to that meeting it was stated that any LM who did not come will cease to be one! The LMs who were connected to the organization and who admired the founder came to that meeting.

They came because they valued their membership.

But many LMs did not come. May be they were parents of children who had left the school and had gone to college and then abroad and so on.(I don’t know).

The swamiji was upset. He started haranguing the LMs who had come. He was upset with the people who had not come. But he gave a severe lecture to the people who had come! The swamiji was quite upset. A few people mildly pointed out that some of the things the swamiji was proposing to do were not correct. The swamiji lost his cool then! He pounced on these blasphemers and started accusing them of disloyalty and arrogance,

The swamiji became an Angry Man.

Huh!

An angry man can become  a swamiji by conquering anger,

How can a swamiji become an angry man?

But this is what happened. Forget it.

There was another swamiji. He was a brilliant writer of spiritual essays and books. These essays were published in popular magazines. The swamiji was famous all over the world. He had many rich devotees. These devotees gave him lot of money so that the swamiji could lead a luxurious life. They themselves preferred to live like beggars.

The swamiji liked to have young girls near him. It is good for a young girl to be near a swamiji. But, is it good for the swamiji?

Hinduism says it is better to enjoy life and then become a sanyasi. But many swamijis is think it is better to become swamiji and then enjoy life.

Why can’t we all enjoy our life and allow others to enjoy theirs? You don’t have to be swamiji to be spiritual. Just be a good human being.