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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00026 Jun 2007

 
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Dasn

    Sri. D.Ramaswamy Iyengar's   "THE LORD AT SEEVARAM"   is continued.

Dasan,
T.Raguveeradayal

THE LORD OF SEEVARAM

MEETING MIDWAY

 

        The signal shots  were nearer and  more frequent.  My father's utterances of Sri Vishnu's Thousand Namas increased in emotion and loudness.  My heart began to feel a very strange thrill, unfelt before even in similar circumstances.  I became like one dazed with something wonderfully pleasing to the senses. The hairs stood on end on my body.  I almost felt I had lost the heart to feel for anything else.  He had captivated it, and now was coming to take possession of it perhaps.  My father was touched to a still greater extent.  The fire of devotion was in his eyes which stared in the direction ; it was in his chanting which grew louder and more appealing ; it was in every cell of his body which had become alert and stiff with ecstasy.  Thus on we trod the road with quickened paces till ? till a faint glimmer of torchlight  was seen in the far distance , a mere speck of light . Immediately my father stood still , gazing fixedly in that direction till he could gaze no more , and then fell forward prostrate on the ground.  Tears of emotion , tears of devotion , tears of joy welled up in his eyes.  The Nayaka had come atlast.  A few  minutes , and He would bring His Form into sight --  that divine rapture -bound personality for which wise men yearn in this world, and which is but a counterpart of that radiant Form seated far beyond human ken.

 

            It was in such a state of mind that we first  hailed the Dandika which was His vahanam  (vehicle) at the time. O ! It was a moment of the supremest joy to me .There were a few drummers going ahead followed by a number of eager devotees who had walked  and run with Him all the way from Conjeevaram.  Behind them came the Sree?Bharam?Thangis (the bearers of the Divine Burden)  ---- those blessed people to whom is given the unique pleasure of feeling the intense enthusiasm of which He is the inspirer.  On their shoulders was the Dandika , which they carried now running , now walking , but ever with cries of  Go-o-vinda !  Hey  Varada ! --  cries of joy showing clearly how they triumphed over the otherwise weighty encumberance on their shoulders. And within this magnificent Dandika thus magnificently borne was seated a magnificent Form. Muffled up with a neat white silk up to the throat. He showed us only His face, a face which time has not spared , yet still possesses that most bewitching  of smiles which once had enslaved thousands of Gopis , and now turns every one of us also into Gopi. There was something at once highly superb and secret about His  whole appearance .  The body was unseable and the face was unreadable. And now our minds which had already been worked up to a high pitch went into raptures. The bliss was on me  --  so I felt in that supreme moment.

 

            It was a blessed hour. Being dawn, the east was slowly and gradually clearing up. Light growing in breadth and intensity was sitting on the eastern hilltops. Before it fled the darkness farther and farther into the west.  The winged dwellers of the air were stirring themselves into activity.  The loud cawing of the parent birds and the small low chirpings of the confiding young ones mingled in pleasant concord.It was perfect harmony everywhere.  Dull dead inanimate nature, moving senseless animate nature and living loving thoughtful nature, all combined produced the note of eternal symphony.  Nature discarded her shroud of darkness before the advancing light of the rising sun.  The birds and the beasts shook off their drowsiness and took to active life.  Men and women in their turn had all their mental  darkness and spiritual drowsiness dispelled by the purest ray serene flooding from the Source of all Light and Love.

 

            The procession was long , the hearts were full .  A strange  content took place of a vague desire of unsatisfied longing , and men and women tied together by the same bond of celestial love and saw each in the other and all in Him.  There was especially one spot in the procession that was unique. It was the place behind God and before the Vedic Brahmins.  Far ahead went the glimmering torchlights whose light mingled itself with the repeated beats of the drummers as they together gladdened the senses.  Immediately in front and nearer than these could be perceived by the Dandigai, its sombre-coloured  top and the long supporting  cane alone visible as it was moving on, the cynosure of a thousand eyes that eagerly clustered round it.  From behind came the sturdy sounds of the ancient  Marai (மறà¯?) as they emanated from the fatigued Brahmana Sreshtas who appeared to have vowed themselves to eternal kainkarya (service) to the Lord.  To the right  was the whitening east.  To the left  was the shadowy west.  It was a commingling of all the pleasant feelings that man is capable of perceiving.  Each sense in man had its feast.  The eyes were gladdened by the glimmer of the torchlights, the glow of the morn, and the glory of the Form.  The ears revelled in the familiar sounds of the beat?beat  of the Udal (à®?à®?லà¯?)  and Thiruchinnam  and in the supreme sweetess of the Srutis.  The mouth was pleasurably engaged in reciting Stotras  and Pasurams  or calling out the splendid names of the Lord such as  Saranya !  Apath-Bhandhava !  Anatha-Rakshaka ! Deena-bandho ! Deena-dayalo ! Varada ! Varada-Prabho ! and so on. The nose had enough to do smell the fragrance of the flowers that were then opening their buds  to the magic touch of the morning sun , and to inhale the divine odour that filled the whole atmosphere on account of the Divine Presence.  The body forgot itself in moving as one of the Adiyar Kuzham (à®?à®?ியாரà¯? à®?à¯?ழாமà¯? )  following the Lord whereever.  He might lead, even as the cows and cow-herds are said to have followed the Piper of Brindhvan.  Not a face but was aglow, not an eye but was a-lit, not a muscle but was alert.  It was a living instance of "Laya" that is being talked of  as the sublime state during samadhi.  In the most literal sense each and every one there had all his being in the Lord whom he followed.

 

                                               In the Village  ...... to be continued

                                                                                                                                

 

 

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