Kailash-3

Dear Friends

Those of us who were fortunate enough to make ourselves available for the “Sankalpa Pooja” last afternoon were witness to and experienced the benefits of preparing the “right attitude of the mind” for undertaking the Kailash Yatra. Those among us who missed it due to pre-occupations can be sure that their sankalpa was performed by their other fellow-yatris who prayed for their absent friends.

We understood that the worship of the Lord that we did yesterday was a combination of our actions with our body, mind and intellect. We intellectually understood that the sankalpa was an aid at our self-purification for undertaking the pilgrimage in the right attitude of the mind. We mentally felt one with our fellow-yatris and cultivated the emotion of devotion for the Lord in our actions. We bodily performed actions with our five Indriyas; viz: eyes, ears, nose, tongue and hands. With the eyes we beheld the “linga” form of the Lord and saw his altar decked with floral decorations, with our ears we heard the sacred chantings of the Lord’s glory and His names, with our nose we smelt the fragrance of the flowers and dhoopa that were offered to Him, with our tongue we repeated His names as was instructed to us and our hands were sublimated in our prayers at His holy feet. Thus with “manasa” (mind), “vaacha” (word) and “karmana” (action) we prostrated before Him and sought His blessings in undertaking this great pilgrimage that we have embarked upon.

While we are on the subject of worship, I will now narrate the way Kannappa Nayanar worshipped Lord Shiva. Kannappan, a hunter in a forest, used to worship a shivalinga in the forest. As a hunter the only known food to him was meat of the animals that he killed. So he used to carry meat of these animals in one hand and in the other hand he used to carry flowers. Now he had a dilemma; how could he carry water to do abhishek of the linga? So he filled his mouth with water and used to wash the linga by spraying that water from his mouth, decorate the linga with the flowers and offer the meat at the altar. After he finished his “pooja” and after he left, the priest of the temple used to come and find the linga in such disarray. The priest would then curse the hunter who did this, and perform the pooja in the “prescribed traditional manner”. The priest would mutter to himself that he was such a pure devotee of the Lord whereas the hunter who desecrated the linga was a blasphemous idiot. One day when Kannappan came for his “pooja” he found that Shiva was bleeding from one eye. He was aghast at the Lord’s agony. He therefore took out his hunting knife and plucked out one of his own eyes, affixed it on the linga, and stuck it to the linga with the “vilva” leaves. He suddenly found that the Lord’s other eye was also bleeding; now he was in a fix. Although he wanted to offer his other eye also to the Lord, how could he see the linga while fixing the second eye, because he would have become blind by then? So he put his foot at that point in the linga where the Lord’s second eye was bleeding, for identifying the location, and plucked out his second eye and likewise affixed it at the point where his foot was placed. Pleased with his devotion, Shiva presented himself before Kannappan, restored his eyesight and declared that Kannappan would be known as one of his most ardent devotees. Even today, in Tamil Nadu Shiva temples, Kannappan is worshipped as one of the 64 principal devotees of the Lord.

The principle we learn from this story and from what we experienced yesterday is that no matter whatever rituals or offerings we make and no matter what is the manner and method of our prayer, if our devotion to the Lord is pure, He is sure to bless us with infinite happiness and peace.

Continuing from the knowledge we gained about involving our three personality layers; body, mind and intellect, in the process of realizing our spiritual personality layer; I will take up these three personality layers in my next post. Till then; Om Nama Shivayah!!, With Prem & Om