My dear friends and fellow co- travellers, I have not written much in the past since the last segment-C drew to a close. And from the time with the inception of the new segment D there have been mainly visuals on the blog of the places that I have travelled to recently. I don’t know how many kilometres I must have covered but I have completed the whole set of five destinations starting from Kanhangad caves in Kerala in Nov’11and finishing it with Khajuraho temples in Madhya Pradesh in the beginning of March’12.
My Param Pujya guruji Shri Mahavatar Babaji had carved out this plan for me in the month of Sept/Oct’11 and I happily obeyed his divine instructions without bothering to know the reasons of doing so as I felt assured that new learning experiences must be coming my way as there is a never ending process of spiritual personal tutoring with him.
The role of a wise disciple is to conform to the instructions of the learned Master while the role of a Guru is to forever teach the disciple in case he or she never ceases to learn. And so my journey began on a high note to many noteworthy places like the dynamic caves in Kanhangad where Swami Shri Nityananda of Ganeshpuri had meditated years ago and from where I got recharged and set out to many places of ancient heritage sites of India.
Kalsubai mountain in Maharashtra gave me an enjoyable experience of trekking and learning the nuances of photography in Dec’11. Ajanta Ellora happened just when the new year arrived and a place where my eyes could not rest enough because there was so much to see and appreciate. I also went to Grishneshwar temple of Lord Shiva, one of the twelve jyotirlingas in India in Aurangabad. Had I not gone to see Ajanta Ellora caves, I could not have seen this clean and very tranquil and isolated temple of India. Both the sites are very close to each other. I guess the Ellora caves must have been chosen at the present site closer to this temple because this temple is older than the caves and it ‘s name is also mentioned in our holy scriptures.
In the month of Feb, at last arrived the opportunity to go to one more isolated spot of pilgrimage and that was Mallikarjun temple in Sri Sailam near Hyderabad, the Kailash of South India. I consider myself very fortunate to have done two jyotirlingas in a short span of three weeks and I take it as a prasad from my Param Guruji Shri Mahavatar Babaji. I, on my own could never have done all this because I did not even know that these sites were so very blessed and sacred. Their energies were phenomenal more so of Mallikarjun precincts. One should go there to experience the blessedness that prevails in the air since thousands of years. I could feel the presence of rishis, munis and all the wise ones in the atmosphere. They must be visiting there in the astral form to take the darshan of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati residing in the temple. All along I was thanking God and my gurus for their kindness to have asked me to go to such powerful holy places. I also realized that we spend so much of our time and money in unproductive and useless things and never have the wisdom to use our resources in such a wise, enriching and inspirational manner.
My visit to Orissa in Feb end was a never ending learning opportunity cum vacation apart from seeing the splendour of majestic temples of Kalinga architecture like Mukteshwar, Raja Rani and Lingaraj temples. Jagannath Puri temple was awesome and one of my desires that got fulfilled after waiting for many years. Going to far east of India never happened because of distance and now I wonder how could I manage all this in such a short span of time? Puri was calling me since a long time and I had dreamt of making it on a number of occasions but it did not happen. Why it was calling me so often was discovered just a few days ago as everything fell in place. My meditations have become more dynamic and my consciousness seems to have expanded considerably since I have gone to these places of worship. Konark Sun temple was not a place of worship but a place of art, culture and architecture of medieval times.
Then came Khajuraho in the first week of March and it was surely much awaited. As an avid learner, I had wanted to see Khajuraho once in my life because I used to wonder why so many foreigners come to see this place from trans- continental distance. What do these temples depict? What do they say? There was something magical about them always. And so Khajuraho was also visited recently and I wrapped up my travelling itinerary with this remote and sleepy place in Madhya Pradesh.
If you recall, I had written in my last post ‘And the last one to Khajuraho, the land of ancient temples’-
“As we landed in Khajuraho, it felt as though we were taken back to old times when life was at a very comfortable pace. The whole atmosphere was very calm and placid. The people were gentle and are far from commercialization and modernity. Our hotel was exactly two minutes away from the airport and the complete range of old temples was within a circumference of barely five kilometers. However, once we started seeing the temples, we ran out of time and energy. There were so many and each temple demanded a lot of our time and concentration. We forgot to eat and drink water later in the day, they were so engrossing!! People who like history and appreciate one’s past rich heritage must visit Khajuraho once. Except for excess unchaste engravings on almost all temples, everything was very welcome. I guess there was a lot of competition between all the kings of Chandela dynasty at that time and hence they must have not exercised moderation and sanctity rules in places of worship like these. The next post shall continue with this thought and context and my experiences on the same line of thought.”
If you really ask me I saw the Khajuraho temples with the eyes of my Guru Mahavatarji and with my mind fixed on him. For not even a minute could I break from my yoga, called the mind connection with him since the word go. Whether it was planning, booking, travelling, catching planes, or sitting in auto rickshaws the unity did not break even once. He says that the unbreakable unity and oneness which was bonded without my knowing is my Prasad that he gave me because of my obedience and devotion towards him. For unremitting more than six months or so whether I could meditate or not, whether I was at home alone or amidst noisy people there has been a constant unity of minds, a dialogue between us even while I have been travelling zealously. There has been no time to do anything else but to constantly learn and get divulged inspirational, lengthy discourses on grave topics from him as I was walking or seeing people or walls of temples or just being by myself. The bond never broke.
Subsequently, there was a continuous stream of disclosure and discovery and unfolding of many secrets and mysteries of the bygone times. I have travelled back in very far off times with him in Sri Sailam when I could feel the presence of Lord Shri Ram visiting that place or for that matter Arjun doing his penance to get the Pashupati Astra form Bhagwan Shankar before the Mahabharat war. I remembered living there once upon a time about thirty five lives ago on a small hill near the present temple. It was a pleasant experience to know about one’s identity and my connection with the past.
However, I underwent a sense of twinge when I was there at the Sun temple as I could feel and hear the curse of hundreds of innocent workers who were sentenced to death just because the temple for someone’s fault could not be made in the way the king had wanted when there was a fault in the architectural plans and designing!! His dreams of becoming a renowned king were shattered. No wonder this temple has not been able to withstand the onslaught of nature while many others older than that one have. Ours as well as humanity’s past, reveals a lot about our past personal or collective behaviour if you scrutinize historical places with a divine eye.
I could hear the voices of so many innocent lives whimpering and groaning at the site of Kalinga war at Dhauligiri. My heart melted and regretted for those lives that died mercilessly at the senseless and erroneous decision of a king whose lone desire was to be the emperor of united India. Even though he regretted his unwise decision later on and converted to Buddhism, made Buddhist temples, and did a lot of charity and missionary work, alas it was too late!
I was seeing the temples of Khajuraho with the eyes of Mahavatarji and my mind was always in collusion and agreement with his. So in moments of deep meditation when I saw godly Light along with his divine presence he took me to the times when Khajuraho temples were made. He enlightened me by revealing that Matangeshwar Mahadeo temple, the Shiva temple, medium in size and simple in form, was the first temple that was made in Khajuraho approximately one thousand eight and a half hundred years ago. It was God who gave the inspiration to the first king of that dyansty to make this temple. That king was a fair and just ruler and his character was noble so God chose him. It was God’s plan to plant divinity in one place so that the effects of bad karmas of masses could be nullified and the earth would stay pure and clean. Surprisingly even today this is the only temple that is still in use while the others have been vandalized and figures and idols mutilated by the Afghan and Mughal raiders at a later stage in history. The king made this temple with his own money and some tax that was collected as a treasure from the populace. He did not burden his people and made it with devotion and love for God and his own people. Afterwards, a little later sadly the next generation kings began to indulge and wanted to make more temples to gain honour and fame but with the money of the general population. They were taxed heavily. The corpus money of the kingdom was saved and instead used to buy jewels and finery for their queens and children. As a judgement for grave wrongdoings from God, the minds of future generation got contaminated and more and more unchaste carvings were made on the temple without realizing that it was competition with former rulers that were driving them into unholy acts and therefore slowly the noble dynasty declined and vanished into oblivion.
Whenever there is a dearth of dharma, there will be decline in prosperity, wisdom and virtuousness. The power to discriminate wrong from right will be distorted and hazy.
And this is how I got my answer as to why such obscene private life of humans should be displayed on the walls of temples where God is worshiped. To my utter surprise, Konark Sun temple specifically was so filled with the same trend and the other temples of Orissa also depicted some of this trend but in a low key manner. Wherever worshiping of God and deities take place, certain rules have to be obeyed and scriptures should be followed so that the sanctity of the place is maintained.
There is one Devi, Mother of the Universe temple called Jagdambi mandir in Khajuraho. I liked it a lot and that night before I went to sleep during meditation, Divine Mother unfolded one more thing to me, “The kings cleared mountains after mountains to make these temples. The precious and semi precious stones were dug from beneath this part of the earth to add to the treasure of the kings or as idols in Shiva temples. Iron and other metals were also used to make this temple village. And if you take so much from nature and in return give nothing back to it, then God punishes the lineage or generations by degeneration of values and culture and poverty in return. We must return immensely in terms of goodness, material wealth and virtues back to society after extracting and using so much wealth from the face and womb of the earth or else we are cursed.”
Tryst with my destiny.
On next day morning, that is on 11th of March in Khajuraho, I discovered that once I had lived in the same place and have also made one temple with my spouse dedicated to a holy deity there. I was made to understand that fortunately I had a sense of detachment and could understand at that time that the wealth and fame that one gets from God should be shared with all or else the future generations become corrupted and dull in mind as far as spiritual wisdom is concerned. I thanked Divine Mother for telling me all this so that I revive my spiritual lessons all over again. In fact, she told me that in the coming days, Shri Mahavatar Babaji will tell me more about my few past lives. I once again respectfully bowed at the holy feet of Divine Mother and thanked her profusely for bestowing me such meaningful insights.
Since I returned from Khajuraho Mahavatar Babaji has given me many new spiritual lessons and insights, some of which can be shared with all of you. They are-
“Liberation or Moksha is a very long journey. It takes many lives to conclude the futility of one’s ego and desire and material clinginess. Just a few are successful in this long marathon full of births and deaths. Those who succeed are blessed by God as they nullify all their bad karmas and afterwards regenerate innumerable virtuous karmas because of which they never fall again in the web and maze of repeated life cycles.
The Maha Guru after enlightening you will again send you to those main landmarks in your soul journey so that you can recall how much hard you have strived to reach a stage of complete purity or nirvikaar, the stage of Brahma, a stage of perfection. The uppermost chakra called the Brahmarandra is the most difficult to open and recharge and happens only with the blessedness and grace of the gurus and God.”
My dear ones, I have recalled my past life when I have lived in Puri some births ago while I was there in Feb lately. I also saw that site where I lived once and on which is today a temple of Krishna’s supreme devotee . Back then also I was involved with the making of one of Krishna’s temples in Puri when I was there in the royal family. I was also given an opportunity to see that old temple during my visit to Puri in which I was involved too. Some of the present big temples have been made by the kings on old small temples made centuries ago by others. Obviousl,y we all cannot know this because no one lives that long but the maha siddha yogis have special eyes of divinity that can reach out in any time and space.
It doesn’t end here dear readers. When I have meditated I could also peep in my past and have got to know that I lived near the site of present day Ajanta and Ellora caves once. No wonder I know now why I was sent to these places by my Param Guru!
I was quite surprised to learn that I was so deeply involved in constructing holy sites in my past lives and could also connect to the present trend that I still continue to have in this life. It has struck me now that it was because of all this that Shri Mahavatar Babaji is so appeased with me and never gets tired of working on me. I am extremely grateful to him for the never-ending effort from his side that goes on in making me. My many, many namashkar and pranams at his divine feet!
This is Matangeshwar Mahadev temple in Khajuraho, the only temple which is functional today. It is the first temple that was made here. It has a Shivalinga which is nine feet above and nine feet below the earth, one has to climb up to worship it.