भक्ति ! Aka Devotion

Four posts have gone by and how can I resist my temptation to blog about Goddess Andal and her divine implorations to Lord Krishna in the form of tamil poetry. Goddess Andal is an epitome of "Bhakti". The ancient sage Narada from Hindu mythology defines Bhakti as "intense love" for God.

"My Lord, though endless pains afflict me, I will not cease to look for thy mercy." ~ Nammalvar

Though I am not sure how much justice I can do in attempting to describe one of the most extraordinary personalities in the Hindu culture, I am attempting here to give a very brief history borrowing text from several sources. This post is mainly about Goddess Andal who is the only female out of the 12 Alvar saints . Alvar saints in hindu tradition are known to travel from one holy place to another composing and singing poetry out of immense love/ bhakti for their divine beloved Lord Vishnu. Lord Krishna is one incarnation for Lord Vishnu and Goddess Andal's poetry portrays her immense love and yearning for Lord Krishna's divine union. Her compositions exemplify bridal mysticism and include the Tiruppavai and the Nacciyar-Tirumozhi which form part of the Nalayira‑Divyaprabandham. Here goes her simple romantic story.

A devout brahmin named Vishnucitta lived in Villiputtur. One morning, he discovered a cute baby girl with lovely curly hair lying under a tulasi plant in his flower garden. He named her Kothai which in tamil literally means one who has curly hair and 'Godha' in Sanskrit which means one who is dear to the Lord. Kothai grew up in an atmosphere of love and devotion.The love Vishnucitta had for his beloved Lord intensified further in his daughter, and before long she was passionately in love with Lord Krishna.

Entry Gate to Tulasi Maadam where Andal was found

Andal blossomed into a beautiful young woman as she came of marriageable age. When asked to marry, however, she stubbornly refused, saying that she would only agree to marry Sri Ranganatha, the Lord at the great temple town of Srirangam. Vishnucitta despaired, wondering what was to become of his daughter. One night, Lord Ranganatha appeared in his dream and asked that Andal be sent to Him in all her wedding finery. Simultaneously, the Lord appeared before the priests at Srirangam and asked them to prepare for the coming of Andal. Vishnucitta once again was filled with both joy and sadness; joy that his beloved daughter would attain her goal, but sadness
at losing her at the same time. He made all the wedding preparations and arranged for Andal's journey in a palanquin to Srirangam.

SriRangam Temple Gopuram

Andal waited with excited anticipation as the wedding party approached Lord Ranganatha's shrine. As they entered the temple, she jumped out of the palanquin, unable to restrain herself any longer. Running into the temple sanctum, she embraced Lord Ranganatha and disappeared in a blaze of glory, having joined her Lord. She was only fifteen at the time. 


                             Translation of the Thiruvaimozhi Paasuram sung in the below link


                                                Andal's Imploration - Click here to Listen :)

In the desire to have the darSanam of the lotus feet of my Lord who resides in SrI villiputtUr with its abundance of the gentle-walking annam birds playing all over, my two beautiful fish-shaped eyes are fighting with each other and refuse to close for sleep. Oh cuckoo! Please warble sweetly so that the perumAn who measured all the worlds will come here. If you do that for me, I will let you be friends with my beautiful pet parrot who has been brought up by me with great care and affection, by being fed delicious food and sweet milk.










                  My visit to Sri Villiputhur - birthplace of Goddess Andal yet again ( thanks to dad ) this weekend and the occasion of Krishna Jayanthi happening today ie. the birthday of Lord Krishna prompted me to write this post. Below is a picture taken at Sri Villiputtur Koyil Pravaham(temple premises). The painting on the wall is that of Lord Ranganatha. 

Reading and learning the life history of Andal and her pure love for god makes me reverberate on the meaning of love . These lines on genuine love from the book "The Road Less Traveled" by M.Scott Peck come to my mind at this point.

When I genuinely love I am extending myself, and when I am extending myself I am growing. The more I love, the longer I love, the larger I become. Genuine love is self-replenishing. The more I nurture the spiritual growth of others, the more my own spiritual growth is nurtured. I am a totally selfish human being. I never do something for somebody else but that I do it for myself.And as I grow through love, so grows my joy, even more present, even more constant. As John Denver sings:

Love is everywhere, I see it.

You are all that you can be, go on and be it.

Life is perfect, I believe it.

Come and play the game with me. 

Ending this post with a birthday wish to Lord Krishna on his birthday today ..

Happy birthday Krishna ! Hope you had a blast ;)          
                                                - As Always 
                                                 Love Vidya ....

दया ! Aka Compassion

I am writing this blog post based on an experience I encountered this thursday. This week had been pretty rough and hectic and I started to a class at Stanford after work with unusually less amounts of enthusiasm. There was an assignment due that day as well that I was supposed to turn in as a hard copy. I managed to quickly cram up and do the assignment and send it as an email attachment instead adding an apologetic explanation on how the printer at work gave off on me unexpectedly.

This post is mainly about the course instructor and to give some background on her I would describe her as a pretty fair lady in her early forties. Their was an unusual calm and quietude around her and I liked her style of teaching right from class one. Later I came to know that she had acquired this calm aura by meditating for an hour each twice a day over a period of one year. Unfortunately this class had been canceled for the last two weeks as her dad had passed away and she had to be with her family in Colorado. I had been preoccupied with thoughts and events happening in my life and had quite forgotten about this incident of hers while heading to class. I entered the classroom which was dimly lit than usual(which I thought created a soothing atmosphere) and all the students were sitting in a circle around her. I couldn't help but observe a certain inner strength she was displaying despite her loss and admired the way she was putting up a brave front and attempting to teach the class.

Must say, this particular class was very different from any I had attended as a student in my life.  She would discuss some course material but for brief moments helplessly go back in time and narrate what she remembered about her dad or what had happened the last 2 weeks in her life and feel guilty about digressing the class at the same time. It was evident that this was the first loss of a parent she was having to deal with. I was observing passively for the most part of the class as I saw other students trying to give her suggestions on what books or materials she could read to help cope better. It was a 2 hour class and the class went on like this with her attempts to forget talking about the loss and stick to the course content. With an urge to try to make her feel better, at around 8 o clock I managed to interrupt and come up with this suggestion to the class. I was not sure if I was doing the right thing but I thought it was worth a shot.  I asked her (if she was comfortable with) to just talk about her emotions and feelings instead of trying to stick to the agenda of the class. Empathy was one of the topics that was discussed as part of this course and I added that this would in-fact be a good practical session for all of us with regard to learning on how to empathize with one another. The entire class and she in fact was taken aback a bit by this suggestion of the mine( the youngest student in the class). She thought for a moment and replied after a pause "in fact that would be a great idea".

She admitted that she was feeling very vulnerable and bit awkward by so much attention from all of us who were strangers to her but I could see she was gradually opening up and was becoming more comfortable. I was glad to see that after 20 minutes or so she was able to focus and conduct the class with some cheer. Towards the end of the class she opened up and told us that she had lost her teaching job as well which made me realize that it was more than one loss that she was having to cope up with at present.

After the class a couple of students stayed back and I was glad I was one of those. She was narrating to us how she was trying to put together a website and resume and how she was attempting to look for work. She also narrated how people around her had been kind and sympathetic towards her offering her food, kind words, neighbors placing flowers at her door step etc these last few days. She further opened up and told us about her 80 year old mom dealing with a terminal illness whom she admitted in a nursery after her father's demise. I was standing next to her all along listening silently. I could sense her inner grief though I knew I could not fully understand what she was going through at that moment. Some students offered her constructive suggestions on how she could improve her job search via linked in etc. One of the students asked if she had doubts continuing her life. I felt terribly bad that she was asked such a question.

All I could manage to do was in the end reach out to her and while holding her hand for a couple of minutes muster these words softly looking into her moist eyes " I know this is not easy, but time will heal and the good times you had with your dad will always be alive in your memory and I know you are aware of the dreams and hopes your father had for you to live up to" .

I am not sure if my words made her feel better, but for some unexplainable reason, I could feel more peace and calm within myself. Suddenly all the problems I thought I had in my life seemed to become minuscule. This incident also makes me look forward to the quality real time I can have with my dad when I visit him this time to an even more greater extent :).

It is surprising and fascinating to see how by attempting to help others we in fact really help ourselves indirectly. These below sentences I read elsewhere come to my mind now.  

"It's liberating to realize that our problems are in fact our richest sources for rising to this ultimate virtue of compassion. Indeed some of the very wounding experiences in our lives prompts us to bringing compassion towards the sufferings and joys of others" .

Though I was sorry all this has happened to the course instructor, I was glad in a way that I was there at class that day and was able to listen to her as it made me resonate on the truth of this quote from Dalai Lama  


If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. 
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.