Stroudsburg PA - Srividya Mahakumba Abhishekam

My Experiences with The Divine Energy: Koushik Venugopal

 

I wanted to relate an extraordinary paranormal event that happened to me in the summer of 2008. It happened on the 12^th of July, 2008 when I participating in the Mahakumbabhishekam festivities organized by the Sringeri Vidya Bharati Foundation Inc., US at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. I had joined some of my inner circle of Baba devotees to visit the temple during these festivities. The program for the day was the opening of the Kumbhabhishekam event here with Jagadguru H.H. Sri Sri Bharati Teertha Mahaswamigal’s speech in Hindi, followed by a procession with Sri Sharadamba’s Padukas. Adi Shankaracharya’s padukas and Acharya’s padukas. The Athirudra Mahayagnam was to be performed seeking world peace and harmony. Vedic scripture recitations were to be performed by the Vedic priests, totaling 170, drawn from all parts of India and who had been flown in for this special occasion. Throughout the day, there would be pujas and homams performed and I was expecting to be in the midst of all this action, in the sea of devotees who had come in from all parts of the U.S.

My companions to the temple on the 12^th July were Mr. Kutumba Rao and Mr. MK Anantha Raman. Kutumba had offered his services in videotaping the events of the day and MK had offered to help out with odds and ends. The trip from South Brunswick to Stroudsburg is a 1.5 hour car ride and Kutumba was running late by an hour. We reached just when the Kumbabhishekam procession was starting out from the temple. To add to the confusion, the parking lot was full and we had parked in an unofficial lot and here I was dropping Kutumba off and ferrying people from the parking lot to the temple. I had come well prepared for the event. I changed into my Veshti and angavastram and sat down to watch the Ganesha Homam. The Vedic scholars (Ritwiks) were chanting mantras and I could feel the amazing spiritual energy emanating from the mantras. The area with the chanting Ritwiks was cordoned off from the general public. I had initially sat at the back of the public gallery and had to move away from the noise to the front of the line as people were talking. I felt the need to concentrate on the wonderful positive vibes in the air brought about by the utterance of the mantras.

Eventually I moved to the other side where only the Ritwiks were present, with no members of the general public, thankfully. Kutumba was taking video and watching the flames of the yagna dance in front of my eyes, I saw the shape of Lord Ganesh take form. Struck by this observation and wondering if Kutumba had also observed this, I went over to talk to Kutumba. At this point, a volunteer for this event approached him and politely reminded me that I could not sit in this area reserved for the Ritwiks. He wanted to know whose permission I had taken to come here and all I could say was that Satya Sai had granted me permission. The volunteer did not rebuff my claim and he left.

The Ganesha Homam was followed by the Kalasa pooja. The water from the kalasas (metal containers) was used to perform the abhishekam for the deities. The statues of Sharadamba, Siva- Chandramouleeswara, Adi Sankara, Devi Bhavani, Mahaganapati, Subramanya, Krishna, Hanuman, Veda Vyasa, and Navagrahas looked resplendent. The procedure to perform abhishekam was to wash the deities and cover them with a thin cloth. The deity was covered from the eyes of the public and only a priest was privy to the deity.

Upon offering mantras, the deity was revealed. The statues of the gods and goddesses were placed in the order in which the puja was done and the volunteers led a procession of the deities to their final destination within the temple. To be a volunteer at the event, one had to have had the distinction of recited the Gayatri Mantram 30,000 times. While I watched the volunteer utter shlokas, I stood nearby soaking in the japas.

At that moment, a gentleman (I presumed later, from the manly voice) tapped me on my shoulder. He said that I should remove my angostram, tie it around my head, and help carry the deities. I did not turn around to reply to him and missed my chanced of getting a glimpse of this person. I did however mention that I was not a volunteer and stood back. The volunteers moved in frenzy to carry the deities and picked those which they could handle on their own. This struck me as strange as no one was forthcoming to pick the large deities. The ones that had not moved were the idols of Ganesha, Shankaracharya, Garuda, and Lingam – these were the heavy ones. As people were whispering amongst themselves that the fortune of carrying the deities was indeed a lifetime opportunity, I pushed ahead and chose the statue of Ganesha. One of the Ritwiks watching me commended that I was an extremely heavy statue but his words did not make a difference to my resolve of transporting the statue. And heavy it was – I had never held anything this heavy in my life. With the help of another volunteer we moved the statue only a couple of feet that I felt the statue slipping. The washed idol had been oiled and was extremely slippery. Not wanting to let go on my end, there were several changes of hands on the other end of the statue. I wanted to take the short cut instead of doing the pradakshina like the others before me had done, but was dissuaded from doing so by my inner voice. So with sweat pouring profusely out of my pores and lips chanting Sai Ram, I was pleased that I completed my task of taking Lord Ganesha to the spot allocated for him within the temple premises.

I was vibrating with divine energy and my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the presence of the Lord and it was as if some megawatts of energy had passed through my body. Unable to hold myself upright, I collapse. Padmashri Gowri Shankar from the Sringeri Mutt, who had been observing the volunteers place the statues, approached me and asked if I was alright. I looked up to answer him and was unable to. Again, this was a specially cordoned off area out of bounds to the public with only the volunteers and Ritwiks allowed to perform further pujas to the status in the outer perimeter of the temple prior to the statues being transported physically to their shrines within the temple. Although I was in the grip of this divine energy, vibrating and quivering under its’ influence, I was conscious enough to notice people milling around me and forklifts being brought around to move the other statues. I had collapsed into a sitting position facing the idols and that moment all conscious activity ceased. I do not recall where I was although I was aware of people sprinkling the kalasam water on me and trying to revive me with the ashes from the homam. Someone placed kumkuma on my forehead and another placed fruits in my hand. I was so overcome with exhaustion that my head hit the ground with the same force a coconut would as it falls off of a tree. Kutumba who witnessed this asked people to clear and give me some air assuring them that I would come around. I was fortunate to have experienced this divine paranormal happening with no broken bones. Later people have asked me how it felt to be in the presence of such divine energy and my answer is that I cannot relate such feelings. One has to experience it. There has to be no expectations or ego in this process. It is everything and yet is nothing. I felt richer from this deeply moving spiritual experience and I do have my fair share of skeptics who question the events of that day. All I can say to those who question such paranormal activity is that what I had experienced on that hot summer afternoon on July 12^th was as real as real feels in this living universe. I am extremely thankful and grateful to my gurus and baba for having provided me with the opportunity to feel the divine energy and vibrations that few can in their lifetime.