SithamalliOnMyMind05

 

சக்தி விகடன் - 29 Sep, 2015

 

        

       

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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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