All In All

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!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Be Blessed!

Your words, your dreams, and your thoughts have power to create conditions in your life.What you speak about, you can bring about.

If you keep saying you can’t stand your job, you might lose your job. If you keep saying you can’t stand your body, your body can become sick. If you keep saying you can’t stand your car, your car could be stolen or just stop operating.

If you keep saying you’re broke, guess what? You’ll always be broke. If you keep saying you can’t trust a man or trust a woman, you will always find someone in your life to hurt and betray you. If you keep saying you can’t find a job, you will remain unemployed.

If you keep saying you can’t find someone to love you or believe in you, your very thought will attract more experiences to confirm your beliefs. If you keep talking about a break up in a relationship, then you might end up with it.

Turn your thoughts and conversations around to be more positive and power-packed with faith, hope, love and action. Don’t be afraid to believe that you can have what you want and deserve.
Watch your Thoughts, they become words.
Watch your Words, they become actions.
Watch your Actions, they become habits.
Watch your Habits, they become character.
Watch your Character, for it becomes your Destiny.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settle for.

In the search for Me, I discovered Truth.
In the search for Truth, I discovered Love.
In the search for Love, I discovered GOD.
And in God, I have found Everything.

Be Blessed

Watch how your circumstances and situations begin to change when you change the way you speak.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Save Time and Money!

You are working on an important project, and then up pops a new window, completely derailing your work. There it is: the dreaded Outlook reminder! You have a meeting in 15 minutes … 10 minutes … 5 minutes.

As the people of a global company that encourages input and collaboration, we all spend a lot of our time in meetings. Yet, many of those meetings seem like a colossal waste of time! Research shows that 30 percent of meeting time is considered unproductive.

Believe it or not, most meetings can be completed in just 45 minutes! That’s the perfect timeframe – according to research, the average meeting-goer loses focus after 41 minutes and starts planning his grocery list.

Be prepared …

* What’s the scope of your meeting? Answer that with just one, clear sentence! If you can’t, do more research first – you’re not ready for a meeting yet!
* Invite the right people, and only the right people.
* Respect the local business hours of your attendees.
* Write out a clear agenda and assign time to each item. Share it ahead of time – and don’t accept last-minute additions.
* Share support materials early, so attendees can review them before the call. If your materials aren’t ready, reschedule!
* If you are using a PowerPoint presentation, keep it short, to the point and directly related to the scope of your meeting. Plan to spend about 5 minutes on each slide: for a 45-minute meeting, you should have only 9 content slides!

If you are leading the meeting …

* Wear a watch! Start and end on time, and stick to the timeline in your agenda.
* Your job is to facilitate. Ask someone else to take notes.
* Keep the meeting on track and on topic. Bring the conversation back on topic by interrupting, referring to the point, summarizing the discussion, and moving on.
* Limit discussion, and agree to disagree when appropriate. Aim for consensus, not unanimity.
* Every action item should be assigned to a specific attendee, with a deadline!

If you are attending the meeting …

* Do you need to be there? If you don’t, decline the invite.
* Review materials before the call begins! If you didn’t, decline the invite.
* Pay attention! It’s tempting to answer email or IM. Don’t! Your focus will speed the meeting along.

At the end of the meeting …

* Recap the discussion and the action items.
* Be friendly! Socializing is important, too. Just save it for the end of the call!
* Take two minutes to evaluate the meeting and check in with participants about what could have gone better

After the meeting …

* Immediately write and send out a meeting summary. Capture all decisions and action items.
* Follow up! Make sure action items are on track. If the actions are done, it’s like the meeting never happened.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Recipe - Dhaal palak masala

Today I will give you a simple recipe of Dhaal palak masala. I prepared it today and it was very tasty. This dish can be used as a side-dish for chappathi and paraatha.

Ingredients:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Palak or keerai (mulai keerai or ponnanganni keerai) - 3 cups
Toor Dhaal - 1 cup
Tomato - 3
Onion - 1 (Can be prepared without onion also)
Ghee (Clarified butter) or oil - 3 tbsp
Red chilli - 2 or 3
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
Menthi - 1 tsp
Grated coconut - 1/4 cup
Ginger paste - 1 tbsp
Mustard - 1 tsp

Method:
~~~~~~~
1. Add 2 tbsp of ghee/oil in a pan, and add chopped onions and fry it till golden brown. Add tomato, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, red chillies, menthi and grated coconut. Fry all these items for 1 minute and grind to make it a paste.
2. Cut the palak leaves into small pieces and mix it with water along with the toor dhaal. Make it to boil for 10 minutes in the cooker.
3. Drain the water from the mixture and keep it aside.
4. Take a cooking vessel and add 1 tbsp ghee. to this add the ginger paste and saute for a minute. Now add the masala paste and saute it for a minute till the raw smell goes away.
5. To this, add the palak dhaal mixture and the drained water.
6. Cook for 10 minutes. Garnish with roasted cashewnuts and seasoned with mustard.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Friday, June 5, 2009

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