Building Guru Raghavendra Mrithika Brindavanam: Experiences

Sincere pranaams to all! Over the last few weeks, as part of the various activities in this gigantic project, I have been observing that even small activities have been getting pushed and pulled along for no reason without getting completed till very late. Some of the examples that has continously happened over the last few weeks that has been made to write this blog item are: a) Even a small erection of a shamiana and pandal just on the eve of the performance of initial suddhi homa on the project site could not get completed till around 11:00PM the previous night when the proposed start of the homas was around 6:00AM the next morning - This got delayed to such an extent that we had to switch on the head-lights of the car to have some light for the erection of the pandal since it was totally pitch dark otherwise in that area at that time of the night. At least, HE had given me the wisdom on that evening to decide to visit the site the previous evening without which this would not...

Friday, Feb 05, 2010 was an important date and a critical milestone on the development of this project. Achar had suggested that some initial homas and poojas are better to be done on this site to suddhify ('purify') the place before the actual construction begins. In this regard, it was suggested that we do the ganapathi homa, sudarshan homa, srisuktham and purusha suktham homa, manyu suktha homa along with hari vayu stuthi punascharana. The main significance of manyu suktha homa is to purify the place with the offerings to Lord Sri Lakshmi Nrsimha. It is said that Bheema (who was a Vayu avatar) in Mahabharat war after killing Dushasana, took his blood in his both hands, and offered to Sri Lakshmi Nrsimha by reciting this 'Manyu Sukhtha Homa' - which helped to purify the complete place. Hari vayu sthuthi is the rendering of a great pandit and one of the favorite sishyas of Madhavacharyar called Trivikrama panditar - after he had a divine vision of Sri Madhvacharyar...

The site pictures that has been taken after the plants has been planted are available at the following location: http://picasaweb.google.com/vasan.vs/200912091#

It was ordained that today was the D day where I would get to meet up the learned person from Srirangam who will offer his consultation on the pancharatra agama sastra to be used for the construction of the temple. The material on this agama sastra is very difficult to get for the common man as there are not much of resources available on the net on this topic. For some details on this agama sastra, you can visit the wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pa%C3%B1caratra By HIS grace, it looked like this meeting with the learned pandit also should happen only in front of Sri Pandurangar in the usual temple that I frequent very much. It served as another lesson and reiteration of the facts that he is continously blessing us on the success of this endeavour!!!! Sarvam Sri Krishnarpanamastu

Today was Sunday, December 06, 2009 (Karthiga month, Ravivar) - a very auspicious day for Sri Lakshmi Narasimmar. It looks like that the initial seeds in this property has to be planted on this auspicious day. In the morning today, we went to the place with all the small plants and seedlings to plant the various trees - cocunut, mango and various flower plants - in the proposed property which once grown can be potentially used for the various requirements in the brindavanam temple. These have been planted in various locations of the property in a distributed manner throughout. Let Lord Lakshmi Narasimmar shower his blessings and ensure that these plants blossom into bigger plants/trees producing different items that could be offered back to HIM itself on a daily basis!!! Sarvam krishnar panamastu

Yesterday, I had taken one of my close relatives to the location where the rayar brindavanam is proposed to come up. Like all of the people before who were taken for the first time, the immediate comment from the relative was that 'it was a very far off place' and 'people will not come to the temple at this remote place'. Immediately on hearing these comments (although this comment is not the first time coming from somebody seeing the place for the first time!!!), my heart skipped some beats thinking of whether have we made any wrong decision.... Immediately, I realized that this was not MY decision to go in for the temple in this location but it was HIS decision. This also started my thinking bells.... Why do people go and visit temple? Why do I visit any temple? Is it because like a hotel or a cinema hall we visit the temple for recreation purposes? If so, yes it has got to be in a place that is very close to residences or easily accessible if they are far off from a ...

A couple of weeks back, my wife broached up the topic of what are the next steps that we should be doing in this project and how we are going to handle the finances since it was a pretty big project. All that we had earmarked for this brindavanam to come up we had pretty much spent for all the tasks currently, and she was pretty worried about the fact that we need to somehow have remaining funds for this brindavanam to be constructed. I just told her that this is something that Rayar should be taking care of since this is HIS place that is being planned currently. After this discussion that happened between me and my wife, in just 2 days, the first contribution of Rs.2000 started coming in from an unknown Rayar devotee. Taking into account the recent discussion that my wife and I had, this message from Rayar was interpreted by both of us as Rayar's response to our worry on the finances.... Subsequently after this incident, every weekend, Rayar is making sure that the contributions...