Building Guru Raghavendra Mrithika Brindavanam: Experiences

Hare Srinivasa!!! I Wanted to write this post for some time but could not get down to do it till now. We wanted to perform a Go-dhana in the name of our father before atleast 3 months passed after his demise! As some of the visitors to this blog would be aware, there is a very beautiful and serene Rayar mutt established and run in a place called Hanumantapuram (very close to Chidambaram in TN). There is a famous Sri Lakshmi Narayana temple which is supposed to be a very old temple visited by SriMadwacharya on his way back from Sri Mushnam. This is also the first swarna brindavanam for Rayar was installed and consecrated in the last week of December. You can visit http://hanumanthralaya.in/ for more details on this temple. We set off on the afternoon at around 1PM on Jul 9th to this place from Chennai since we wanted to do the gho dana on Sunday Jul 10th. On the drive down from Chennai, one of the temple trustees who was accompanying us from Chennai, mentioned that Bhuvanagiri - the...

Thanks to all of the visitors who had sent emails asking for the lack of any new posts for the last few months in this blog... Happy to note that this blog detailing our mystical experiences with Rayar is being followed actively... The main reason behind the inactivity of the last few months has been owing to the sad demise of our father, a man of 86 years old. He was suffering very much for his last few months with the advanced stage of Parkinson's disease in which slowly one by one his organs refused to continue working. While he was struggling in the last few months and with the slow degradation of his memory, one of the questions that he used to frequently ask was "What is the name of the place where Raghavendra is there", "What is the name of the railway station that we have to get down for going to see Raghavendra" etc. During the time when we were deeply saddened and worried what to do next at those excruciating days, suddenly out of blue, I receive a c...

@03-Mar-2011: A lot of people has been sending communication either in person or on phone mentioning the reasons behind why the blog is not getting updated frequently now... It got to show how many people had been following this blog and are well wishers for this project. It is nothing but HIS grace... The main reason behind not being able to update the blog has been simply because of the fact that we were all extremely busy to make the fund raising concert by Sangeetha Kalanidhis Smt Saroja and Smt Lalitha a success.... As every reader to this blog knows, this concert was planned to raise funds towards the construction activities of this temple. Smt. Saroja and Smt. Lalitha, veteran musicians not needing any specific introduction - No awards in this field has eluded them till date possibly. They are ardent devotees of Sri Guru Rayar and this devotion showed when they instantaneously volunteered to give this fund raising concert on a request by us. It was one of our other experienc...

@15-Jan-2011: Hope the Sankaranthi (Pongal) festivities had gone off well for all the blog visitors!!! I just wanted to narrate an incident that I came to know of today evening. One month back, when I was meditating in front of Rayar brindavanam, I got frantic calls on my cell from a landline number but didn't attend to the call since I was sitting in front of Rayar. After finishing the darshan and coming out of the temple, I had just wanted to check out who had called and returned the call. There was a lady who was on the other side who said that she is calling after seeing the advertisement about the brindavanam construction in TV. She wanted to know if she can get the prasad and I told her that you can come and collect the prasad since I had recently returned back from Mantralayam. But after a couple of tries, she could not come and collect it. Yesterday, suddenly, I felt that I should be giving them a call and ask them to collect the prasad since I just returned back fro...

@01-Jan-2011: By the grace of Sri Hari, Vayu and our Guru Rayar, the work of the stapathi has started. Here are the first set of videos on this. The following youtube video shows the side view of the level to which the temple is going to be raised from the current ground level - it is expected that the basement of the temple will be around 6.5 feet above the current ground level - to take into account the future raise of road levels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLaTy2eLnvI The following youtube video shows the aerial view of the maha mandapam, followed by the artha mandapam and the main sannidanam (in which the mud has been kept inside for doing the leveling work). This then zooms in on the current development work of drainage sump that is currently in progress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkOOZieuMn8 Devotees are requested to contribute their mite in what ever way they can towards this noble cause. Please spread the word around and have contributions in kind/cash sent ...

11-Dec-2010: Yesterday, Friday, the 10-Dec-2010 was an auspicious day - Shravana, panchami thithi, Thiruvonam Nakshatra, Sukhla Paksha - was the earmarked date by Sri Guru Rayar for doing an auspicious minimal pooja for Sthapathi to start his work on the site. A small puja was done on the site by Sthapathi himself before the Rahu Kalam started at 10:30AM. The initial work will start off on having the Moola sthanam done after which the artha mandapam will be constructed. Once these are completed, then finally the maha mandapam construction will be taken up. All the plans for each of these have already been posted in earlier blog posts. As mentioned before, this place will be one of the very few mrithika brindavanams for Sri Guru Rayar following the pancharatra agama sastra. As a major support initiative towards the fund raising for the construction of this divine project, the famous Carnatic musicians - Bombay Sisters (Smt. Saroja and Smt. Lalitha) were very kind enough and spontane...

@4-Dec-10 By the grace of Sri Hari, Vayu and Sri Guru Raghavendra, the foundation portion of the temple office, madapalli (kitchen), go shala and the residential places for priests and office bearers have been completed. A small video footage of the completed part taken on the project site is available at the following URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m97AxwBJCxU NOTE ON THE VIDEO: This footage starts off with the foundation part for the temple madapalli, office and the gho- shala and then moves towards the left a little where you see the foundation for the residential areas that is being constructed for the temple priests and office bearers. Taking into account the location of the place where this divine project is coming up, it would be not possible for archakas to come in from some place like Kanchipuram and then do the nithya kainkaryas. So, it has been decided that some basic accommodations are made available to the archakas which will emable them to stay there itself a...