Dear friends,
I have just arrived from an extensive travel- trip- pilgrimage cum personal journey to Orissa. I had informed you about this in the last article and those of you who have just come in on this page may refer the last post- Listen to the voice of your soul-II. And so we shall pick up from there and continue our journey ahead with this new entry titled –Another enthralling journey to ancient India’s heritage sites- first with pictures then with words.
I have spent some good five days there trying to cover as much as possible. On the first day I visited Lord Jagannath’s temple in Puri. I had my camera and cell phones with me and as per the rules one cannot take them inside. Hence I dropped the idea of going in because the arrangements to keep fragile and breakable items were missing and I decided to come again the following day. As photography was strictly prohibited, I cannot show you any. There was a sea of people visiting the abode of Lord Krishna with his brother Balaram and sister Subhadra. It is the only temple in India where Lord Krishna is worshipped along with her dear sister Subhadra and his other sibling Balaram. The yearly rathyatra is synonymous with this temple. It is believed that Lord Jagannath himself comes out of the temple to give darshan to all the people liberally on this day.
The temple was very beautiful and spread out and looked quite old and graceful. There was a touch of antiquity all around it. Except for lack of good management in the premises, everything was perfect. Some holy places of India are for the brave and devoted ones. One should visit the holy place with the eyes, mind and attention completely fixed on the set purpose ignoring what is happening around oneself. I did the same and tried to absorb the aura and hidden divinity present in the temple. My long held back desire to make a visit to this holy place, one of the four char dhams of India was at last fulfilled on 22nd Feb’12 evening. I sat there in the temple at sunset thinking to myself how does God deal with the multitude problems of humanity and how come so many people have such great faith and reverence in this place and how does God respond to so many people’s inner feelings, hopes and needs. Only God knows!
The next day I left my room at 5.20am to see the famous sunrise of Puri beach. When I went at that time there was hardly anyone except for one lady, me and the security guard who was deputed for me by the manager of the hotel. The fishermen were waiting for the sun to break with their nets and boats. It was pretty dark and quiet and I enjoyed every bit of the mystic feeling permeating in the air with sound of the sea waves in the background, rising and falling in darkness. Slowly the activities picked up with more fishermen jumping in the sea and one by one people of all ages coming on the shore to watch the Sun coming up from the horizon in the Bay of Bengal. After waiting for quite some, the mist and haze did not relent but the fishermen kept on plunging in the sea with their companions and fishing tools. Because of unexpected mild fog, the Sun was seen only after it was quite high in the sky and sadly I missed the opportunity of appreciating the actual Sunrise of Puri beach.
Friends, as this month has 29 days only and the stipulated date of another post is on 30th of every month, I will make a short presentation of the events of this trip to heritage sites of ancient India by putting up a short picture gallery every day of the various places and events starting from Puri to Konark to Bhubaneshwar. As there are many things to share and see, I will post one photo gallery each day . So there will be a short post everyday with lots of pictures to explain and to cover this splendid journey to the East. And after that there will be one or two articles comprising of my spiritual insights once the viewing of the photos is over. Some readers are keen that I share my photos with them therefore I begin the first day with the pictures of Puri beach.
The places that I visited apart from the beach were the Chilika Lake, Konark Sun Temple, Dhauligiri and many temples in Bhubaneshwar- Lingaraj Temple, Mukteshwar, Raja Rani and a few others. So here I begin…..
At the sea beach of Puri to watch the Sunrise early morning.
From darkness to Light…literally
When returning to my hotel, I came across very colourful homes with a lot of beautiful paintings at the entrance. Apart from flowers and creepers, there were images of Lord Jagannath also.
Sacred feet of Goddesss Lakshmi at the threshold to bring home prosperity.
Lord Ganesha to bring good luck on the right side. Found the lord of the Universe- Jagannath in every nook and corner of Puri- truly omnipresent and universal in essence and form….
