சித்தமெல்லாம்
சித்தமல்லி
- 5!
Nivēthithā
Though Sundaranarayanan (SN) answered in the negative and reacted in the
mean spirit of compulsive alienator, would Perumal leave him scot-free?
It is a predestinate injunction that SN would be the prime mover of the
temple services to Perumal. The past-life Karmic merits were the causal
reason for SN to undertake the temple services. Therefore, the sower
reaps (gathers) the harvest. Let us find out later what he sowed. SN was
a nonbeliever all these years before the change of heart. How did he
accept God overnight?
Sundaranarayanan went to his son’s house in Chennai, after he threw down
the glove (Aṅka-vastiram) to Padmā Māmi saying he would never ever
participate in Perumāl’s temple services. Jayalakshmi his wife did not
like one bit of his manners, and defiance to Padmā. When she went to the
house of Padmā Māmi, she experienced as never, an ecstasy and
horripilation. She told her husband about her ecstatic experience in the
house of Padmā Māmi and advised him to forge ahead with Perumal Temple
services according to the recommendations of Padmā Māmi.
The advice by his wife was
ignored and did not persuade SN to move in the right direction. His
disposition was anathematic.
That night they all were in deep sleep. When there was total silence at
around midnight (12:30 a.m.), SN felt that someone tapped him to get up.
Startled as he was while waking up, he felt in his mind
(epiphany) sayings replete with Vedic significance (with the same import
as Mahā Vākyās). The words and phrases appeared in his mind repeatedly.
In a state of confusion and sleep arousal, he got up from the bed on his
own volition and put down his thoughts on a paper. Getting up in the
morning with wide open eyes, he realized the significance of his
writings. The poem started: ‘The mother earth remained buried inside; I
the moronic me received it as a buried treasure.’
The poem ended as if the invitation was extended to the people of
the world: ‘In the name of mercy of his
Grace who worshipped Mūla Rāmar, come all for temple worship worthy of
worldly praise.’
It was a surprise to him as a poetically disinclined and challenged
nonbeliever, how could he write poetry of such merit. Despite all these
happenings, his ideological attitude did not change. Not recognizing the
Anugraham of God coming to him in full measure, he went on his errant
ways with stubbornness. SN was a poem in pathos. But Perumāl was not
prepared to give up on him. Perumāḷ had other ideas. God had in his mind
to administer a shock treatment to SN in the following night. Not
knowing what is coming to him, SN went to Padmā Māmi next morning with
his handwritten poem.
Padmā Māmi having read the poem, said to SN, “Don’t you now believe in
what Thāthā (SrīRāgavēndirar) says?” He answered in a tentative manner.
Later, leaving his wife in their son’s house in Chennai, SN left for
Sithamalli.
That evening the house worker came to tell him, “Ayyā, as you said
yesterday, I irrigated the paddy fields.” SN was stunned hearing it and
sank in wonder and confusion. The reason is he came just a little while
ago from Chennai. How could he have told the worker to irrigate the
fields? SN asked, “When did
I tell you to irrigate the fields?” The worker replied, “I was in deep
sleep last night. You woke me up and told me not to forget irrigating
the fields, Ayyā.” That
brought to his mind a matter from earlier encounter with Padmā. When SN
went to the house of Padmā Māmi the previous day and after hearing all
that Padmā said about Perumāḷ, he remembered telling her, “You speak so
high of Perumāḷ’s grace and munificence. For the last several years, my
land gave me no crops because of the drought. You pile up accolades on
Perumal. If he is what you say he is, let him make my land give me good
crops. Let us wait for his munificence.” That was the challenge he posed
to Padmā. Padmā Māmi replied, “It is a certainty that Perumāḷ will give
you luscious crops. If he gives you a largess of crops, would you give
Perumāḷ a sack of paddy as an offering.” Sundaranarayanan agreed to the
proposal.
Perumāḷ in his will for SN to know of the strength of his grace, while
SN was in Chennai, Perumāḷ in his divine impersonation of SN woke up the
worker from sleep and ordered him, “There is a flow of water in the
canal. Go and redirect the flow into the paddy fields.” Sundaranarayanan
understood the whole episode was the divine play of Perumāḷ,
horripilated and as forecast by Padmā, the yield of paddy that year was
abundant. He gave one sack of paddy
as an offering to Perumāḷ.
Thinking of the grace of Perumāḷ in the divine impersonation of him
(SN), SN praised him and came to a determination to at least build a
palm leaf thatched roof over the deities. That thought jostled in his
mind, as the sleep overtook him.
The miracle changed the fundamental direction of his life that night. He
was in deep sleep at the stroke of midnight. Yes, SN had a dream. “You
put me through difficulties for 50 years by letting me scorch in the sun
and soak in the rain. I came to bring prosperity to your Kulam and the
denizens of the world, but you let me down. It appeared as if someone
was pleading with him (SN) to at least install a palm leaf thatched roof
(over the deities). Who else other than Perumāḷ, manifesting himself for
the simple reason to offer grace to the people of the world, could have
asked SN in such ways? Hearing such things in his reverie, SN soaking
wet in drenching sweat, was jittery and shaking, got up from the bed in
a startle, drank some water and took a much needed breath.
He woke up at 4 a.m., drank his coffee as usual and chewed pan. As he
made it past the backdoor in a saunter and as usual tried to spit the
pan-juice against the side of the backwall, a faint figure voiced in an
authoritative rebuke, “Are you poised to spit on Me.”
That is all it took to send a 1000-volt jolt of electricity to
make SN stunned and stand frozen.
The vision he saw…
The mind will be stirred.
Images: K. Satishkumar |