A page out of my life-An incident that happened on 22/02/08-continued

....... Now, every one reading this piece may wonder, ‘what is so interesting about this incident. After all nothing serious happened.’
But to explain this, I would have to travel backwards in life and narrate a lot more events that would reveal the amazing ways of That all pervasive Supreme Being.
Do keep following this post to know God’s special ways!
If you do not follow the above line please read my first part and come back to this again! The link is-

http://www.indusladies.com/forums/snippets-of-life/21799-page-out-my-life-incident.html#post247886
Before I go back to the past, one more information that I missed out in the previous episode was that, on the same day(22^nd February) another gentleman with his family, who too happened to work in the same company that my husband is working for (but is unknown to us since he had recently come here on transfer) was traveling to Thiruvannamalai and his car too met with the same problem where a monkey came in the way and the driver,while trying to avoid hitting the monkey applied the brakes and the vehicle lost control, hit against a tree and all the occupants except a woman died on the spot. The fate of the woman is not known. Now, was this mere coincidence, divine intervention or destiny? The merciful Lord alone knows!

Part II
I got married in the year 1984. In February 1985, along with my hubby’s friends we all went to Mahabalipuram for a happy weekend. While visiting places of interest, we entered the shops where granite sculptures were displayed for sale. I saw a cute ‘Maakkal’ Anjaneyar statue and was at once enchanted by its beauty. I instantly purchased it. I brought the idol home and kept it in my puja room and offered prayers to it everyday. This went on for many years and I had a special liking for this deity as I felt all my prayers got answered. From our rented house, we moved to our own apartments and here too my favourite idol was given a special place in the puja room. Slowly my outlook of praying had changed due to reading lots of books on spirituality and also because I had started practicing meditation. I felt there was no need to pray standing in front of the pictures of Gods since I had given them a place in my heart. Slowly, the puja room ceremonies became mere formalities, to keep up with the Gruhasthashrama Dharma. But that did not mean I had become an aethiest. I started giving importance to meditation and I could feel my inner strength rising and my confidence levels too becoming stronger. While I would not like to go into the details of my experiences during meditation, I would certainly vouch that Fearlessness becomes one of the traits of constant meditation, besides confidence-building and inner peace.
Now, coming back to my Anjaneyar idol, suddenly, I noticed one day that it had vanished! Of course, I didn’t know since when, as already mentioned, I had started paying less attention to rituals. But this disturbed me a lot. I felt that because of my new found ways of practising spirituality, God had been angry with me and had started testing me!
I approached my husband with a little bit of guilt feeling and shame and asked him if he had removed the idol. He answered in the affirmative and said that it was more than a week since he had removed it and how come I was asking about it now! The reason he gave was that our family priest who happened to see the idol in the puja room had said that it was not advisable to have a ‘Bramhachari God in the puja. I learnt that my hubby had placed the idol along with the ‘Kolu Bommais’ on the loft! This really upset me and I felt that something bad was going to befall us! I lamented about this to my father over phone. At the time he was residing in Pallikkaranai.He comforted me saying that nothing would go wrong since I had not committed any crime and God was not all that cruel that He would punish His true devotees as He knew them in and out.
I had to live with this feeling for some time. But slowly I got over it!
I think, it was in 2002 December. My father said that he would like to have the Anjaneyar statue in his puja room if I didn’t have any objection. (He was a staunch devotee of that God.) I was only too happy to accept this offer since I felt relieved that my favourite God was going to a new abode where He would find a more committed Bhakta.
To be continued....
Regards,
Malathi