My personal experience

My personal experience

 

There may be many stories in the epics to convey these points. I have personal experiences to narrate. I will tell two here.

 

I had been to velur. There are powerful Ganesha temples there in the place called senpakkam. Not one or two, but 11 vigneswarar statues. More importantly these were not carved by sculptors. All are self formed! We have heard of 11 rudrars. Here we have 11 vigneswarars. The shape of the formation of the 11 idols will look like the letter Om.

 

The middle part of the formation of the idols had gone down buried under the soil. Perhaps, to demonstrate that he is the lord of the "earth" principle, the lord vigneswara has played a prank by burying himself under the soil. A maharastra king with the name tukkoji was going in his chariot during night time along that way. Suddenly the axle broke and his chariot stopped. When he got down he saw blood on the ground. He however, could not see any person. Not able to guess what could have happened, he was very disturbed, and stayed at that place the whole night. As it was possible to repair the axle only after dawn he had to anyway stay there overnight. Feeling upset that his journey faced an obstacle, he prayed to lord vigneswarar and went to sleep. The lord appeared in his dream and told him, "in that place my 11 idols are buried under the soil. When your chariot knocked over them, blood came. Do not worry about it. I only willed this event, deciding that it is enough for them to have been buried so far, and let them have a temple built and let them shine for all the people as boon givers. You build a temple for them and earn good merits in your life." What ever sorrow Tukkoji had previously went away, and he felt great joy as if one got back his principal with interest.

 

I was going on a procession along the direction of that temple. At that time what happened was…

 

Junior acharya was coming riding on the elephant. That elephant was not moving from that place and was going round and round. Whatever tricks the mahout and others tried to beg the elephant did not work, and the elephant was stubbornly not moving for a long time. All were quite worried and were having jitters in their stomach, "junior acharya is on top of the elephant. Why is the elephant doing this? Has it got into musth? In addition, a lot of people have crowed around that place."

 

Only then, suddenly I realized and remembered that the senpakkam vigneswarar is near that place. I had prayed earlier that we will break 108 coconuts for him. But at that time, I totally forgot about it.

 

Not just forgotten. I had ignored it, due to my carelessness. I had not forgotten about the procession, when I received the various felicitations and garlands, and prostrations. I forgot my promise to the lord vigneswarar. That is carelessness. I realized that the lord performs this obstacle, to teach me a lesson that I who is responsible to remind people about sincerity and devotion to the lord should not behave in this careless manner. I noted that he made that happen to junior acharya and the elephant that he had mounted on, as I would not have cared so much if an obstacle had come to myself. Junior acharya was bravely sitting without fear. The worry and fear and the lessons were all for me who had made the prayer, and those attendants who knew about it!

 

Immediately we broke coconuts for lord vigneswarar.

 

Very quickly the elephant started to walk forward as if it were normal.

 

I saw this episode with my own eyes.

 

On another day, we performed full special rituals with bath, and worship to the lord vigneswarar there.

 

By breaking coconuts, offering ritual baths all these, we are not providing him anything by which he will profit or get happiness. He is always happy, and ever contented. He makes us do these, and let US get happiness and spiritual benefits.

 

When an activity happens without obstacles, we feel gratified that he was accomplished without obstacles. This is quite true. However, what is more pleasing than that, and when more satisfaction and gratification occur, is when an obstacle happens and it is removed leading to the successful completion of the task. We will know the value of shade when only when the sun is shining hot. When a golden decorative border is attached to the black cloth then the border looks even nicer. Similarly, when a task completed after an obstacle is overcome, we get additional satisfaction.

 

Let us keep aside the successful accomplishment of the task. Together with that, more important is the blossoming of devotion and happiness. We get a great satisfaction and happiness "though we forget, that grand lord, who does not need anything, and the one who fulfills all our needs, reminds us about our trivial prayer to him without forgetting, teaches us the lesson that without the lord's blessing nothing can be accomplished in a manner that brings about the knowledge and humility in us, in the guise of obstacle he actually bestows on us a great blessing".

 

The one who removes obstacles, and who in order to remove the obstacles latter, creates them first – verily he is the vignaraja.