Periyar - the source of his strength

Periyar

I finally got to see the movie about the most famous and controversial personality in the history of Tamil politics. Periyar, is indeed a great movie, with a job well done by actors Sathyaraj and Kushboo, directed by Gnanarajasekaran and music by Vidhyasagar.


Only when I saw the movie, did I understand the background that has been the basis of making Periyar what he was - a source of inspiration and support for all his intensity and actions. Not many may be aware that he grew up listening to Sanskrit chants and mantras, arranged at home by his devout Naicker parents.


The movie shows how the angry young man was driven out of the house by his father when the public complained to him about the son's iconoclastic activities. He then went to Hyderabad and joined a Brahmin twosome to Kashi. In Kashi he has a dip in the holy Ganga - a river that has inspired many a human who has turned a saint on the Indian soil. He has a small stint in a Mutt where he was invited to do some work and promised a meal a day. And what happened after his return to Erode is history. But his innate capacity to organise, question authority, to speak convincingly on issues close to his heart and be his own self at all times have all been a sequel to the divine inspiration that turn of circumstances chanced to give Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker. After all, both the theist and atheist fight about god and no god from the very consciousness of their being which is God!

A spiritual picnic

Camp Yelagiri

It was a spiritual picnic and my second trip to cool Yelagiri - just away from the sizzling heat of sweltering Chennai. The uniqueness of this trip with my Guru, Swami Akshara was that it was just the going, being and coming with the Master at Yelagiri was the experience. A walk around the mango orchards of the resort where we stayed, being in tune with nature, the lush prosperity of fruits and flowers, the trekking up a small hill behind the estate and the convivial talk with the few other members who went together. It was a trip where there was the time and space to be in silence and quietude and a memorable one at that.

Wisdom through silence: The Master at Yelagiri.

.soulmate.

.soulmate. launch

A thought that has been on my mind for a long long time, inspired by my Guru, Swami Akshara. It is .soulmate. a magazine that will report events happening in Chennai city to begin with and go national and international as time goes by. But, big projects have at first a soft and silent launch. And this is through .soulmate. It will be an online space covering events and people - touching all aspects of spirituality. It will talk of the different paths to a life of meditation, that leads to the one source of being in awareness. Your feedback, ideas and articles are welcome. They may be sent to swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com. Namaste.

What to write

I really don't know!

I made sincere attempts to create a new post since my last one in January. But for some reason nothing happened.

I visited Tiruvannamalai, an energy field in south India's Tamil Nadu. It was a short unchartered trek very early in the morning and I had a darshan of the temple town from above.

I continue in my tranquil mode, reading, meditating, doing my work, working out, practising Yoga. Actually, I have nothing else to say and I don't know what else to write! So till then...

Tranquil...

...Vision


Since January, I seem to be blessed with the knowledge of the means to remain in touch with my essence, to remain in that tranquility. It happened through withdrawing from the desires with the world outside, being with books, music, chanting and learning and enjoying the fundamental notes in my many musical instruments, the tampura, veena, keyboard and the mridangam.
I am delighting in being in the Saraswati state of consciousness, learning, reading and writing. I am in love with the notbooks, pens, pencils, colours, paints, brushes, all objects of matter that are the means to a liberated state of mind.
This morning, spending a tranquil Pongal and the beginning of the new Tamil month of Thai, which ushers in auspiciousness into people's life, I was chanting and I realised that every activity on the Earth or anywhere else, is just the conversation between the Consciousness and the mind.
The Consciousness provides the support for the mind to raise itself from itself, perform a specified task of thinking, working, speaking or resting, for a specified period of time - and then fall back into its own self. Everything, animals, birds, insects, non-living thing and human beings, fall in this dialogue between Consciousness and the Mind. They are too not different, but just the unmoving and dynamic states of the same self.
And in keeping with a Tamil proverb, 'Thai Pirandal Vazhi Pirakkum,' meaning with the birth of the Thai month, the way is born. In me, it was a way from the untruth of differences, to the truth of consciousness, from the darkness of emotions to the light of the one elemental unmoving stillness and from the fear of the impermanent to the confidence in eternity. Asatoma Sadgamaya - Tamasorma Jyotir Gamaya - Mrityorma Amritam Gamaya. Om Shanthi Shanthi Shanthihi. (The picture is of the Ganga Arathi at Rishikesh.)

Hmmm...

....New Year

New Year is happening all around me, celebrations with crackers, serial lights, church service, temple prayers, people with happy faces moving here and there.

Darkness and light

(Pictures are the Bay of Bengal near Tiger's Cave, Chennai and the evening sky on the other side of the waters!)

Climbing...

...Mountains

Even as my memories of the Himalayas may not fade in this lifetime, I am trekking each month as if the mountains are calling me for regular visits. The whole lot of news stories with photographs I have taken of the Himalayas are yet to get exhausted in The Hindu, but the lure of the mountains is hugging me close to them more often.
Last Deepavali, I was away at Yelagiri for two days, when I climbed the Swami Malai, a three-hour trek up and down. My guides insisted on taking me through the road not taken and I climbed up rocks, drinking cool water out of a spring, before I reached the top with a Shiva temple there.
Last month, I knew what it was to have an adventure when I climbed the Parvatamalai. Till one point, the trekking stops and from the rocky 'Gadapparai,' it is a climb up metal ladders, holding iron chains or rods, with feet firm on the rocks and faith firm at heart. At one point, the fear was unbearable as all around there is open space and all one has to hold on were there in two hands and two toes. The fear turned out into a song, a bhajan - Om Namah Shivaya - Prana Priyaya Parameshwaraya Mrityunjayaya Namah Om. Fear vanished and cheer set in as I soon reached the top.
Now it's another month since and I might be trekking in the Velliangiri hills at Coimbatore.
Till then....Good Bye!
(Photos: A face of the mountain at Parvathamalai resembles that of a goddess, a tea vendor told me. The boating with the background of dark clouds gathering for a good shower at the lake in Yelagiri.)

Himalaye Tu Kedaram

Ghushmesham Cha Shivalaye

It has been quite a long time indeed since I wrote anything on my blog. And the reason is this. I was away for 13 days, out of which I spent nine full days and nights wandering in the Himalayan mountains. All my planning stopped with New Delhi. From there on, my silent sojourn was plan-free. No schedules. No particular focus on seeing or doing something. But just taking it as it came along.
Taking things as it came by, I went alone jumping in and out of public buses, travelling on road for a whole day at a stretch, flowing from place to place and experiencing the expansive bliss of all that I saw along the way.
The spark began when my friend dangled a tour schedule book of the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam, Uttaranchal Tourism. I was truly inspired by the mere names of Badrinath, Kedar Nath, Adi Kailash, Manasarovar, Kailash and anything that had to do with the Himalayas. I immediately began to check out the tour possibilities and found that I could make it for the New Delhi - Badrinath - Kedarnath one. I checked out with the GMVN and was disappointed when on all the days that were possible for me, there was no quorum to conduct the tour.

It was my Guru, Swami Akshara who gave me the strength, courage and inspiration when he said, "You don't need a tour operator to take you to the Himalayas!"
I saw some light and I decided to go it alone. And right from the time I landed at the New Delhi Airport, till I returned after the nine days of Navaratri to the same place, the whole process was happening as if on some great divine master plan.
At the end of it all I discovered, it is not just during the nine days that such a plan is operative, but through all the time that has gone by, and all the time that is yet to come.
And so I am here, sharing my experiences and photos with you, through this blog.
The picture in this post is the vimana of the Jyotirlinga Temple of Kedarnath, accessible at the end of a 14 kilometre trek from Gaurikund. In the background are the mountain peaks glowing like gold in the morning sun.

Vande Mataram...

....the force of the nation

With the "I will sing - I won't sing," controversy going around the National Song, Vande Mataram, I go back to the days when I was chanting the two words as a Mantra. Today,
September 7, they say is the centenary of the song and my way of celebrating it was by singing it all to myself at home and revelling in its lilting music and devotion. This was by the way, my first song on the microphone, when I sang it together with my friend Kavitha Thampi in the sports ground of my school C.S.I. Ewart Matriculation Higher Secondary School, in class VIII. The reverberations of the song on that day, nearly three decades ago, still ring in my ears.
I found a book by Sri Aurobindo on Bankim-Tilak-Dayananda in my collection. There I found a translation of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Bande Mataram, original Bengali.
Besides the words that are commonly known to the public, the poem is in praise of Mother India, signified as the powerful voice of millions, the strength and wisdom.

Sapta Koti Kanta Kalakala Ninada Karale
Dwisaptakoti Bhujairdhrutha Kharakaravale
Abala Kena Ma Eta Bale!

Bahubala Dharinim Namami Tarinim
Ripudala Varinim Mataram
Tumi Vidya Tumi Dharma
Tumi Hridi Tumi Marma
Twam Hi Pranah Sharira
Bahute Tumi Ma Shakti
Hrudaya Tumi Ma Bhakti
Tomarayi Pratima Gadi Mandire Mandire

Twam Hi Durga Dashapraharana Dharini
Kamala Kamala Dala Viharini
Vani Vidyadayini Namami Twam
Namami Kamalam Amalam Atulam
Sujalam Suphalam Mataram,
Vande Mataram
Shyamalam Saralam Susmitam Bhushitham
Dharanim Bharanim Mataram!

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I offer my salute to the song that moved millions.
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