My beloved guruji ,the PEETHADHIPATI of SRI RAGHAVENDRA MOOLASAMSTHANA MANTRALAYAM passed away yesterday . I present the following couplet in my Guru’s charanarvindam and relate my close encounters with him and influence on my life.
Havyavahan samah tejam Hrudabji Prakashit narasimham !
Raghavendraamsha sambhuutam SriSushmeendra Gurum Bhaje!!
Beloved Guruji had always been a guiding force in my life . Whenever I was in a state of despair , in whichever city I would be ,Swamiji surprisingly would be in the same city to offer me guidance ,good wishes and new enthusiasm to continue. For as a many as three times I faced sabotage in my life , surrounded by enemies as I was , my only hope would be Raghavendra swamy mutt , where would spend hours to seek solution , freedom from the web of enemies . Everytime Swamiji would somehow appear in that city as a part of his spiritual trip and my encounter and his darshan and Divya MOOLRAMA POOJA would immediately put my mind into calmness under the most impossible situation and I would always always escape enemy designs .
Some of the incidents that i could recall are thus
- I had completed my engineering from one of premier institutes of India in computer Technology , I had no wish to get a job for myself , I wanted to do something different ,My Father had given a clear dictat not to enter foreign land , Local industry was not aware of computer design and analysis and only thing Indians were attempting were a coding job , but I had three research papers to my credit , WHat should be my first steps in life ? I told my mother , that I am taking a break and going to mantralayam to seek answers for my future! My Father great astrologer as he was , has made note of tapasvi yoga in my horoscope and my mother always gets jitters when I mention I am going to Mantralayam . somehow I convinced her my aunt took the responsibility of bringing me back in case i don’t return .This time I wanted to experiment and put to test my spiritual endurance ,hence I left Hyderabad with only dhoti and shalya and only one way bus fares towards mantralayam and nothing else [ My contention was only Lord will orchestrate my return and i will only concentrate on my next immediate steps ,orders to be taken directly from the Seer] .I spent next ten day on the altars of mantralayam sleeping on the temple doorsteps on the ground ,fasting without taking even water was a usual practice in the house.BUt as friday was usual fast day , next saturday was ekadashi [ brahmins fast complete 36 hours from dashami night till dwadashi morning] but again sunday was an extra ekadashi and monday was vaman dwadashi a fast again . Thus four days went without water , I had totally dehydrated barely able to move [ think my three hours regular gym practise during college days had come handy in countering the stress] .The fifth day meals seemed like the only endeavour in life ,but somehow it was served at 10 am . The previous fasts had rendered me blank and I had forgotten the very purpose of my visit . There was a congregation of all major scholars , and my dressing was mistaken for one of the participants and as I was seated on a altar without hiring a room , people gathered around me to know few things general about philosophy and slowly about astrology too . NExt few days my airs of being Engineer too vanished I was observing myself being reduced to a rustic fakir. BUt my aim was to know my future .ON the eigth day I met MY VIDYAGURU ASTHAN jYOTHISHI OF MATRALAYAM, he initiated me into a mantra shastra , the next few days I spent my all day half dipped in tungabhadra practising what guruji had given the upadesha . My guruji had completed 10 crores of the japa thus I could easily see the difference the mantra was making on me because of his capacity . NInth day I had a dream of fabulous research [ which gave way for fantastic products later] . I wrote them down on a paper the next morning , presented it to my vidyaguru . Though he did not understand it [ computer science was not their subject, they had all the schooling in the matha pathshala in sanskrit ] ,guruji suggested , Shri SUSHAMEENDRA TEERTHA is guru for all of us ,so lets take his blessings .
I was skeptical what a religious pontiff would understand about a computer research , but my traditional upbringing and putting faith in everything uttered by elders forced me to the seer. I placed before him three bunch of papers of three different ideas, Swamiji gazed at it for pretty 15 minutes [ swamiji is known to be not so literate in his pre-sanyas days] , this was surprising me even more , after much afterthought , he flipped away the first bunch and then poured sacred MANTRAKSHATE ,on the other .
[till date the matter written in the first bunch could not be either proved or productised however dogmatically i spend my time in the lab I could see some flaw or the other creeping up in the equations . BUt the other two research immediately saw the light of day and i have found accolades for that coming easily my way. BUt the stranger aspect was guruji's words to start it all by myself , my father was a bureaucrat in Government service and I had no great wealth to start a business of my own , but as lord's grace would have it everything started with zero and piled up into a huge business . ]
Slowly it was 12th day , my only dhoti and shalya were already mutilated , that afternoon shalya gave way into in the river , I mentally refused to go back . 13th day dhoti edge tore off . now it was a must i acquire a new one or go back . I looked at Swamiji ,he signalled to make a move , but how ? I had nothing to back , i prayed RAghavendra swamy that if something would come by all by itself i would go back else i will sit here on his altar . that evening a trader from miraj came by sat besides me and asked , if I could tell something about his life, I told through palmistry that he was a perfume trader and had two wives , one of whom was untolerable ! tears rolled by his eyes , he then went on to ask many remedies and in the end placed a 100RS note before me , That made up for a ticket to hyderabad , with only dhoti and bear chested , I was a spectacle to watch in the bus.
2. Second time was when in mid twenty I had just about made a installation of a system that was first of its kind in India , and a very big business house wanted to acquire it and my father was against giving it up and I skipped a grand party and gathering given by the business tycoon[ at mumbai's five start hotel] to announce our merger , i was in no mood to join them , I cooly switched of my mobile phone [ those were the days 16rs /min outgoing call] and went away to Mantralayam without informing anyone , the party went in my absence giving hiccups to my managers and brothers who were co directors were finding it hard to explain my absence .
The non merger in business sense was a great mistake in everybodys’ eyes , for me my fathers’ words were more important , I took refuge in Sushameendra teertha alongwith my vidya guru , who reassured me i would never come down in my life .Merger failed but gave way to many enemities.
3. In one of the cases of sabotage from unwanted sources , i had lost everything ,my establishment ,wealth and near dears , I somehow escaped the fatality and reached Jogeshwari, my father had expired by then , and I was trying to find out the whereabouts of my near and dears , just then Swamiji was there and he ordered a pooja to be made on my behalf and many people were given bhojana on account of the occassion , and lo , I dared to go all alone as a lay man to a minister’s house [ ALL my acquaintances had shut door on me on account of fear of goonda forces acting against me], standing outside his house for twelve hours [reciting atharva sukta], by evening I had the previlige of meeting this high profile minister as he descended from his car . HE accorded me a warm welcome and within minutes a huge force was employed to trace the whereabouts of my near and dear the guilty though the most powerful then were brought to book by SHRI SUSHAMEENDRA TEERTHA’s grace.
5. I restarted the whole thing again and at the peak of my days , I visited UDUPI stayed there for 10 days for the purascharane of HARIVAYUSTUTI saptaka and on the eighth day I performed a homa of purashacharne , it was first time full format homa was being done , a seven by seven feet kunda was constructed and homa lasted for four hours . , a convoy from MAntralayam had come down and his disciples notified swamiji was in my native the next day, I rushed to see him , and the very morning as i Reached home , My mother complained of chest pain and was hospitalised in one of speciality clinics ,under observation 24 hours , this was a moment i was desperately in need of assurance from elders or seers. Swamiji was there ,communicating through his eyes , and at the end of aarthi he declared all will be well. Just by Doctor came and assured things were all right. I thanked Swamiji for calling me back to native . MY mother needed more my presence than udipi [ where i had planned to stay few more days].
6.[I had thought of marrying and settling down ] and again at the behest my vidyaguru And we met SriSushameendra teertha swamiji and this swamiji was in the midst of prayer , as pushpabhisheka was being done to Sri MOOLARAMA at MAntralayam , Swamiji took one rose out the bunch from the feet of RAMA and threw it at me [I was seated at 20ft away] and swamiji blessed with a smile . It seems he had already known the purpose of my visit.I was blessed to have one of the most beautiful women in my life and a wonderful marriage remembered by near and dears for many many years even now.
As i write this my mind is unable to accept that he is no more ,This great seer who is the amsha of the RAghavendra swamy himself [ also appanacharya] will always be with us to be beacon light in our lives .
GurusarvaBHAUMA Govinda Govinda
