Monday, November 21, 2011

What is happiness? What is distress?


Happiness and distress are concomitant factors of material life. One should learn to tolerate, as advised in Bhagavad-gita. One can never restrict the coming and going of happiness and distress, so one should be detached from the materialistic way of life and be automatically equipoised in both cases. Generally, when we get something desirable we are very happy, and when we get something undesirable we are distressed.



Can anyone answer this question? Have you treated life the same way when you were happy and when you were sad? Any experiences?

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Ways of Karma!

Every object in this universe is endowed with four characteristics - dharma, karma, prema and gyana. Of these, karma is the most talked about and the most misunderstood. The Bhagavad Gita says 'Gahna Karmanyo Gathi', which means unfathomable are the ways of karma and yet it seems to be the only logic to explain this whole creation, its existence and the cycle of life and death.

Karma is beyond all logic and reasoning. The more you understand it, the more amazed you are. It causes people to be together or separate. It causes some to be weak and some to be strong. It makes some rich and others poor. The literal meaning of karma is 'action'. There are three types of karma - prarabha, sanchita and agami. The first is the latent karma which is karma as an impression or seed of action. The second is karma as an action, and the third is karma as a result. Prarabha means 'begun'; the action that is already manifesting and that is yielding its effect right now. You cannot avoid it or change it, as it is already happening. Sanchita is the gathered up or piled up karma. It is latent or manifested in the form of a tendency or impression in the mind. Sanchita karma can be burned off by spiritual practices before it manifests. Agami karma is the future karma of the action; that which has not yet come and which will take effect in the future. If you commit a crime, you may not get caught today, but will live with the possibility that, one day you may get caught.
Karma is also always bound by time, because every action has a limited reaction. If you do something good to people they will come to thank you and be grateful to you as long as they are experiencing the effect of your action.
It is often asked, "Why do good people suffer?" No good action will yield a bad result and no bad action will bring a good result. This is the law of karma. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Karma is that which propels reincarnation. Why are some people born in a very violent environment and others in comfortable environment? The stronger the impression, the greater the possibility of the next life being according to that. So, often you reincarnate like the person you hate or love. The mind which is full of different impressions leaves this body but the impressions wait for a proper situation to come back. So it is the last thought that is very important. Whatever you do throughout your life, in the last moment your mind should be free and happy.
Getting rid of karma means getting rid of impressions. Some karma can be changed and some cannot. As human beings we have the ability to erase fear through meditation. If you meditate, become hollow and empty, whatever the fear is will just dissolve and disappear.
Our perception of suffering, of good and bad, is always relative. God is absolute reality; witness of all. See God as a movie director, rather than as a judge. He has no ill feeling for the villain and no special favour for the hero. Each one is playing his role. Live with the karma and not be attached to it. Awareness, alertness, knowledge and meditation will help erase past impressions. It has the strength to dissolve and destroy any karma and bring freedom to you.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Trip to Sri Mantralayam and Sri Navabrindavanam



How to reach Sri Mantralayam:
1. Take Dadar Express or Mumbai mail till Mantralayam Road station.
2. After reaching the station, take an auto or share auto or bus to reach Mantralayam.
3. It takes half an hour to reach Mantralayam which is about 16KM from the station.

Accomodation:
There are rooms and dormitories with locker facilities available near Devasthanam. It is better to go through the Devasthanam for accommodation. They operate a central reception office through which getting accommodation will be easier. You can avoid going through middle-men. Room tariff starts from Rs.100. Basically the place is maintained neatly so people don’t need to worry about cleanliness.

Dharshan:
Thungabadra river flows through the town. It is good to have a holy dip there and proceed to the temple. You can have a beautiful dharshan of the Sri Raghavendra brindavanam. In the evenings, usually, there will be three different chariots with Bhaktha Prahladha in them going around the brindavanam: wooden chariot, silver chariot and golden chariot. It is believed that Sri Raghavendra is an avatar of Bhaktha Prahladha. This is the reason for the circumambulation of Bhaktha Prahladha around the Brindavana. Temple timings: 5AM – 2PM and 4PM – 9PM. Lunch can be had at the Sri Raghavendra Swamy (SRS) mutt.

Dharshan:
Thungabadra river flows through the town. It is good to have a holy dip there and proceed to the temple. You can have a beautiful dharshan of the Sri Raghavendra brindavanam. In the evenings, usually, there will be three different chariots with Bhaktha Prahladha in them going around the brindavanam: wooden chariot, silver chariot and golden chariot. It is believed that Sri Raghavendra is an avatar of Bhaktha Prahladha. This is the reason for the circumambulation of Bhaktha Prahladha around the Brindavana. There are various pictures around the temple depicting the life of Sri Raghavendra. Temple timings: 5AM – 2PM and 4PM – 9PM. Lunch can be had at the Sri Raghavendra Swamy (SRS) mutt. There are also Panchamukhi (SriAnjaneya) and Bhikshalaya temples on the other side of the bank. This needs atleast half a day to visit.



How to reach Sri Navabrindavanam:
1. Better way to go to Navabrindavan is by car and it is advisable to start early morning. It is about 200KM from Mantralayam. Roads are very tough but both sides of the road are covered by greenery with paddy, sunflower and cotton fields. There are also mountains nearby. So it is better to enjoy the nature than to complain on the toughness of the roads.
2. It would take around 4 hours to reach the destination. From Andhra border, car will go inside Karnataka border to reach Anegundi.

At Anegundi:

Car will stop in Anegundi, which literally means elephant pit in Kannada. It is a small village in Koppal district of Karnataka state, located on the north banks of the Tungabhadra River on the opposite bank of the Vittala Temple. After reaching Anegundi, passengers can have breakfast at Hotel Sri Tulasi Garden. They give homely food and the owner arranges for travel by car also. You can go to SRS mutt nearby and inform them to have lunch there. They would tell you to return by 12PM sharp to have the prasada.





You need to walk a little bit to reach the banks of river Thungabadra where you need to take a motor boat to go the other bank. After reaching the other bank, you can have a holy dip in the river and go to Sri Navabrindavan dharshan.



There are 9 jeevasamadhis of the Madhva tradition. They are:

1. Sri Padhmanabha Thirtha or Padmanabha Tirtha
2. Sri Jayathirtha/Sri Raghuvarya
3. Sri Kavindra Thirtha
4. Sri Vageesa Thirtha
5. Sri Vyasaraja Thirtha
6. Sri Srinivasa Thitha
7. Sri Rama Thirtha
8. Sri Sudheendhra Thirtha
9. Sri Govinda Odeyaru

You need to circumambulate 9+2 rounds to complete the dharshan. It is mandatory to walk outside the yellow line which is marked there. Also make sure to have dharshan of SriRanganatha and SriAnjaneya above the rocks. It is recommended to light 9 ghee lamps for the 9 acharyas, 1 ghee lamp for SriRanganatha and 1 ghee lamp for SriAnjaneya. There is also one more Anjaneya diety near the brindavanas wherein the face is in the form of SriAnjaneya, shoulders in the form of Bheema and the script in the hand in the form of Madhvacharya. At the back, Sri Nrusimha can be seen. It is better to get flowers, ghee and any archana items before reaching there as there will not be any shop near Navabrindavan.





After having dharshan, you can have lunch at SRS mutt and proceed to SriRanganathaswamy temple nearby, Chintamani temple – place where Vaali vadha took place, Anjanadri – birth place of SriAnjaneya (need to climb 600 steps up the hill), Sri Durga temple, Sri Lakshmi temple and Pampasarovar where Lord SriRama had taken holy bath. All these places are said to be the places mentioned in Kishkindha Kandam in SriRamayana. There is a Lakshmi Nrusimha temple while returning back at Urukkundu.



Hampi is about 15KM from Anegundi or if you go by boat after crossing the river the distance is even more reduced. But we didn’t have time to see Hampi. But if you wish to see Hampi, best place to stay is Hospet and from there you can continue the journey. You would need atleast one day to sight-see Hampi. There are temples like Virupaksha, Vittal mandir, etc. All these areas belong to Vijayanagar empire.

Contacts for travel:

At Mantralayam:
Mr.Balu,
Cell: 09885596006
Residence: 08512-279819

At Navabrindavan:
Mr.Bhakta Vatsalan
Sri Tulasi Garden,
09480464487, 09449743509
Residence: 08533-267880

Madhwacharya guru ki jai!
Sri Raghavendra mahraj ki jai!
Sri navabrindavan guru maharaj ki jai!