“Your Religion? Money!” – The Lamentations of An Accountant!

Dear Manju,
I jumping the queue to say that that was a fantastic reply in your style to Sridhar's post!
You do seem to have a unique style of writing and the flow is also fantastic, and not to mention th econtents, and teh quotes....wow!
and i loved the mantra you live by....
"Atma Tvam, Girija Matihi, Sahacharaa Pranaah, Sariram griham.
Pooja they vishyopabhoga rachana , nidraa samadhi sthitihi
Sancharah padayo pradakshina vidhihi, Stothraani sarva giro
Yad yad karma karomi tat tadakilam
Shambho tava aradhanam"

Keep sharing your thoughts with us, to enable us to enjoy your delicious way of writing!( seem to have got hooked on to the image of love for good food, icecreams!)

Dear varalotti,

Thanks for the response to my post in a very interesting thread you have started. I have many episodes to narrate how my faith in God got strengthened and today it is an unshakable faith. After listening to my Guruji Swami Haridoss Giri's pravachans where he has nicely and clearly brought out the Advaitha philosophy I view God everywhere, in everything and in all living things.

The first episode where my faith in God got strengthened happened when we all went for vacation to Tuticorin to my uncle's place for a marriage. As we stayed after the marriage, Thai poosam festival came and we all wanted to go to Thiruchendur to watch the Thai poosam festival there. Upon reaching the bus stand we found all buses were packed to the brim and had to give up the idea and returned home. After some time my aunt raised a hue and cry saying that her 8 year old son is missing. Everyone started searching for him in the neighbourhood and there was no trace of him. My uncle went to Police station to report. Suddenly I remembered the boy declaring to me in the bus stand,' so what if the bus is not there I will walk all the way to Thiruchendur. When I told this to my other uncles, we three my two uncles and myself left to search for the boy on the road to Thiruchendur. We walked and walked enquiring on the way with everyone whether they had seen a 8 year old boy walking towards Thiruchendur. We must have walked quite a distance as my legs became weary and to make matter worse it became dark with three of us walking on the National Highway No.7. Lorry s and buses were whizzing past us and there was no sign of a nearby village where we thought we can rest and continue in the morning. It was at that time I started chanting' Anjaneya veera, hanumantha soora'. To our relief we came across a village and we went to the village shop and bought bananas to eat as we were hungry. Right at that time an elderly man came there and spotting us asked where from we are coming. We narrated everything and when we told our uncle's name who was a PWD engineer, the man said , 'Oh, easwaran he is my very close friend. We became friends when he came here to supervise the road making. He took us to the panchayath office, made arrangements for our dinner and beds and told us to take rest and continue the search next day morning. My faith in Lord Anjaneya increased many folds as we went to sleep after the dinner. Next day, we had coffee and took leave of the villager. He came with us to the main road and right at that time a bus came. The bus was stopped by the villager and when he inquired with the driver about the boy he told yes one boy was found walking and he gave lift to him and one of the passenger from Ettayapuram which is on the way took the boy to his house when he found that the boy's legs had big koppulams due to walking in hot sun on the thar road. We went to the house and found the boy who was being treated like a prince there. We thanked the couple who were to adopt him as their son and brought him back to my aunt.

Regards,

TDU

Dear Manju Reddy,
You rendered me speechless in prayer by your moving post. I read your post several times to take in the full impact.
And if I start to ramble in response to that, it will be a kind of blasphemy. Blasphemy is something I hate and especially in this thread it is a big NO NO.
I don't even have the heart to say, God Bless You, for you are amply blessed. Please pray for all of us.

regards,

PS: I am really touched by all these responses. I want to make this thread a regular weekly feauture. I request all the ILites to contribute to this thread.

Dear Sudha,

I have never thought of bowing down to God's power. For me being omnipotent or omniscient is just an incidental adjunct of being the ruler of the Universe. Any other ruler in his position would have the same features.

But what floors me, stuns me, makes me cry and makes me stand in awe with folded hands before Him, is His love. There is no reason for His love. We love God because he gives us so many things. But He loves us.. because He loves us. There is no need absolutely that He should love us. And still he loves us.

God showing himself in big things is one thing. But his showing Himself to us in the pettiest of things is His grace.

I think I was in class 5 or class 6 at that time. I still remember the day, the time and place.
My parents had gone for a movie. I was there in the house with my brothers and sister. I had played hard that evening. It was around 8 PM and I was famished. I was so hungry that I could have eaten anything. But those were not the days of refrigerators and stored food. There was no alternative other than to wait for my parents who might come around 930 or 10 PM.

I had started my relationship with God (do you remember my praying to him that I should marry my class leader....it was during the same period). I took the liberty of asking Him, "I want food. Right away. Can you give it or not?"
(Another problem with me is that I start talking to myself most of the time; and if I am ill I do it aloud. My wife normally does not stay in the same room. "Pulamba Arambichittela?")

You wont believe Sudha. My uncle, my mother's brother, who was in Chennai, at that time, walked in with his family. We all welcomed him. Within two minutes he took out a sweet packet and an orange and gave it to us to eat.

Why I am saying this is incidents like these give us the power to withstand our troubles, especially when he brutally refuses to answer our prayers.
(The beauty is that I have written a whole book in this strain. It has been accepted for publication. But getting delayed because of other snags. I have left it in His hands.)
Thanks for the participation.
regards,

Dear TDU,

Thanks a lot for accepting my request to narrate such incidents. I see that every issue of Gnanavoli has a lot of such incidents.

You have described it very well.

thanks once again,
regards,

Dear Sridhar,

I don't know how I missed this thread. Thanks to you for leading me here by nominating Manjureddy's post for FP. So, another example that FP is serving its purpose to the full.

Many months ago, we exchanged thoughts on a similar subject. Our believes and how we go about praying and worshipping. If I remember right, we had similar thoughts there. Here too, I agree upon all your sentiments regarding God.

I too have my own personal relationship with My God. I may not be doing the regular rituals and following certain principles of worship. But, I am glad about my equation with Him/Her. You are very right when you say that we often forget and do not give the due reverence to God. But His Grace is everywhere in our lives, touching every small insignificant thing. The bus ticket incident you wrote of sent shivers in me and I had goosebumps. True, how was that possible if He had not intervened?

I often lamented that the new Millennium brought me a lot of hardships and problems. But I was given the Divine assurance that all is fine and the Grace is guiding us. I feel overwhelmed even to write about it. But He knows and that's all matters:)

Great incentive from you Varalotti, you sure seem to bring the best out of everyone :) Not only your post, I enjoyed everyone's contributions in this thread.

L, Kamla

Dear Malathijagan and Vandhana,

Your posts touched me to the core.

Malathi, very often it happens that God is by our side and we do not know of it. Your experience with Venkatachalapathi was thrilling. You are blessed, I can simply imagine your amazement at what happened in the club. Thirupathi is the only holy place I have visited time and again since my childhood. As a child, I remember going there with my parents and one early morning, after the bath and getting ready, I had some free time and just wandered off from the cottage in the direction of the temple all by myself and walked right into the Garbagudi and had His dharshan!! Was that in another era...was that me?! Can you imagine that happening today? The last visit, we stood in front of the Lord for a nanosecond ( to use Sridhar's words!) , that too after my bil thrust some notes into the hands of the priest right under Balaji's eyes!!!!! Now, I am not so keen about visiting that place any more. Like you say, He is right here in my house, in my puja room...I don't need that pujari's permission to see Him :)

Vandhana, it is putting it mildly when you say God was protecting you. Imagine the havoc it would have caused if your little one had not insisted. Sometimes, you never know when and how we are blessed.

L, Kamla

Oh my GOD...Manju:)) ....

I have to take the Almighty's name even while appreciating your post, ofcourse! Manju, I am stumped and at loss for words. What a fine write up! Like Sridhar, I should stop right now and not say more, because it should be obvious to you that I am impressed...for lack of any better word!

...But...I shall indulge myself and carry on. Your thoughts about God and our personal relationship with Him is truly great....As the famous witticism goes, "god does not need us, we need God ; If a God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent one" ......There is a powerful truth in this line...Jo thum thodo piya, mein nahin thodun re, tho so preeth thod Krishna, kaun sang jodun re?" It is me who needs God , to whom will l look up to otherwise?!
... After wandering through a maze of philosophies and credos - which in the ultimate analysis are only other people's opinions -I have gone back to being the child who had accepted the wayside Ganesa as her playmate and co-conspirator. ......Bravo That is also a sentiment I contribute to. It is good to know the thoughts of other wise persons, but we should also have the wisdom to realize that they too are struggling with their thoughts and putting forth their ideas. We can learn, but the real feel should come from within oneself!
And that Mantra you quoted and live by, that was the crowning glory of your post. I am not quoting it here as it already has been done by others, but it has been quoted and marked and kept away in my heart Manju , forever reference:)
Profound thoughts. Once again you leave me wanting to better my expressions and imbibe your writing skills:)

L, Kamla

Originally Posted by Manjureddy

Dear Varalotti


I no longer view God as a Supermarket to which I run with shopping lists and little bribes. Right or wrong, I am also quite careless about formulated rituals and try to live by the mantra:
"Atma Tvam, Girija Matihi, Sahacharaa Pranaah, Sariram griham.
Pooja they vishyopabhoga rachana , nidraa samadhi sthitihi
Sancharah padayo pradakshina vidhihi, Stothraani sarva giro
Yad yad karma karomi tat tadakilam
Shambho tava aradhanam"
( The soul is You, the intellect is your consort, the vital airs are companions, the body the house. All pleasures enjoyed are your pooja, samadhi is sleep. the steps i walk is your Pradakshinam, every word i utter, your hymns, what ever i do in this world is your Worship")
This is my Religion.

Wow! Such a powerful message. I don't know howmany people who read this thread could understand the depth of this. I am tempted to give out some which I understood.

"the steps i walk is your Pradakshinam" - this does not mean that you need not to go to temple and do pradakshinam. It implies that "do not walk without thinking God. When you make each and every step, think that you are doing pradakshinam around God." If one understand the science behind this, he/she would resolve to follow that from that moment onwards.

When we think of anything, we gather knowledge about that - right? Basically, our mind revolves about that object or subject. Based on our present knowledge, when the mind revolves around an object or a subject, we analysis that and gather info/knowledge about that object or subject. This is symbolically said in the ThiruvilaiyadalPurana story - Lord Vinayaga circumbulate Ammai-Appan and get NJANA pazham (Can I translate it as Wisdom fruit?) and Lord Muruga circumbulate the world and became NJANA pazham himself (Niiyee NJANA pazham....)

The human body is a condensed/materialised form of the mind. (I am going to skip explaining this statement). So, when someone do pradakshina around God, he/she get NJANA.

Ok, why is important to think of God with each steps? - I heard an Enlightened master saying that when you make any movement, the emotion at that moment is stored in all cells. So, thinking of God with each and every steps is like re-programming all the cells with the Divine thought (just as Lord Muruga become NJANA pazham himself).

Similarly another statement from the prayer "All pleasures enjoyed are your pooja" does n't mean that one need not to do puja but enjoy the pleasures. This means that whenever you enjoy any pleasures, think of God. When you eat, think that you are giving that food to God. There is energy involved in the spiritual growth. That's why highly spiritual people can materialise anything with their mere thoughts. When a human being indulge in enjoying sense pleasure, a lot of energy is wasted in that. But say we need to eat, to eat but at the same time to save the energy and energy not to be wasted at the sense, think of God.

Similarly each and every sentence in the above prayer has indepth meaning. In order not to misunderstand spiritual teachings, BHAKTHI and VAIRAGYA are necessary. Then Njana flowers. I may write about this in another time.

The benifits comes by doing these are tremendous. If you are used to meditate, you can go deeper very quickly. I found many of the rituals/habits that we follow are deep rooted into science - there are definite science behind that

Dear Varalotti,

This is a a lovely thread. I wish some Atheist gets to read these article and then question themselves... :)

What one thinks is what one becomes. And every minute when we think of God we get absorbed into divinity and guess just the thought of God can come to our rescue. It may not be rationally proved but none can prove the divine to the mundane. To understand God one surely must definitely understand the language of his silence and trust what we have is the best we deserve.

I guess all the people who've experienced this will surely agree. May we all get to remember God not only at times of crisis but also every time evil (greed, jealousy, selfishness, anger, so on) knocks the minds door. God in us, alone can show the right path. All the best, fellow readers.