Meow and Muah

Muah’s version:

Indrakshi is Meow’s favourite goddess. On starting the pranic healing centre his counterparts and him began to perform this puja every year in the last sunday of June. They have completed almost 15 yrs of free service in pranic healing and the puja is 8 years old or so. What they started with a small photo has grown to be a big grand puja attended by close to 250 people in Meow’s house. Its about Gods and Gurus photos, flowers, chanting, lighting of a thousand lamps, the principle sri yantra and 27000 mantras chanted. The grand celebration in made possible with contributions from people in different ways some the means, some provide materials, some give man help and the method of the puja is a flow that Bhavesh instructs. This year was a different one.

Being my first year I was pretty lost in the show not knowing where to begin. So I started doing what I know best – cleaning! As I dusted the zillion God’s photos in Meow’s house, Meow and Jay burnt the mud lamps to clean the previous year’s remains. There were mystic chants and incense that set the mood to: DIVINE. Our hearts were light with joy and laughter. As I dusted the pics, I felt that I was guided to do one after the other, place a certain lamp here and offer flowers there. I connected to something and could not explain if it was from within me or these zillion Gods talking to me. For the whole month Meow was in utter panic of how to get things done. But during the week of the puja, what we found in every event was effortlessness. Money came effortlessly and in abundance, people came when called and work that normally took days took just few hours this year. There were enough supplies  that reached on time and the preparations happened in a zap. Never attending one before, I was unamused but both Meow and Jay were astounded. It was then revealed to us that the theme of the previous year’s puja was Gratitude. Everyone was asked not to ask, not to complain, but to give thanks for any little thing they could be grateful for. The gratitude offered last year paved the path for the organisation of this year’s puja making it effortless. As effortless is asking so should be receiving and gratitude makes this possible.

The grandeur revealed itself just before the ceremonies began as the lamps were lit, the photos garlanded and the pookolam that made the yantra with the big lamp in the centre. It was a sight to see. The puja is so designed that it caters to all the senses. These pujas can be done simple as well. Why so grand? The answer Amma gave was that as the puja is done is abundance, everyone will be overwhelmed. The flowers and the photos overwhelm the sight, the sounds of the mantras chanted overwhelm the ears, the smells of camphor, incense, the prasad overwhelm the nasal channels, the taste of the ghee filled 8 different prasads, all homemade are a treat for the tongue and the tongue that is used for bickering is now  chanting God’s name. Thus every sense is in a state of overwhelm that washes away all the negativity that they are normally used to. These 4 comprise the openings of the yantra. Thus what we feed into our ears, our tongue, see and smell effect out body, mind and soul. The mantras chanted into the yantra is it food. The yantra then processes the mantras and releases tremendous energy during the puja. Though there are hundreds absorbing this energy in one evening, the excess is stored in the zillion photographs. People who come back few days after the puja, receive the turmeric that is filled in the centre of the yantra, under the big lamp. This is the ultimate store house of the puja’s energy. I learned that its not only creating the puja arai and the yantra that has a method but even the deconstruction and removal has to be done in the reverse of what was done completing the circle.

What effected me the most for which I was in a state of amazement for the next 2 days was the Aarathi. The Aarathi take close to an hour with different lamps and offerings starting with incense, dooph, single, triple, and upto 108 holed lamps whence people called the ekmukam, panchamukam which pretty much over my head. The fire scared the hell out of me but it is the process of showing the flame that effected me deeply. Meow disappeared for that hour. Many time you would have done something out of instinct and said that it was a knowing inside me that made me do it. Here there was not even a knowing of the process. I saw Meow melt into the process and just do, not from instructions or insight but just the act by itself. Meticulous without missing a lamp or a picture in the same sequence for every lamp or prasad offered. It was with ease and elan but it was never him. It was devotion, it was prayer, it was a ritual, it was an offering, it was the invisible felt by many, it was a flow as that of the river, it had the tempest of the sea, it was a rhythmic dance, it was everything but human. He simply ceased to exist.

The windows were shut and the heat of the bodies and flames made everyone sweat profusely. Meow completed the puja and stepped into the ante-room for fresh air. There again I witnessed the extra-ordinary. Everyone with white hair or ponytails fell at his feet while taking the prasad. The much embarrassed Meow lifted his legs onto the chair, yet people could not help but show their respect to this one who lost his humanness and merged into the divine. I am not implying that he attained realisation or he has realised God within. But he single handedly manifested such tremendous energy, handled them carefully and was able to share a sample of his experience with the onlookers. Ego? One suddenly wonders where it disappeared.

Becoming a partner to Meow for an act such as this is more than a pleasure. Its an honour. There was so much learning and such excitement that everyone were temporarily suspended in the divine forgetting their personal lives, problems and thoughts. A few days before the puja, the mud lamps were prepared by applying manjal, chandhan, and kumkum. I was curious as to why they were applying all these three and asked. Meow, not wanting to admit he did not know why tried to shut me up by saying because its not auspicious. God knew I am not going to let go of it easily and will want to know it all. Such a meaningful reply came. Firstly the mud lamp is shaped symbolizing the shaping of a possibility. This possibility requires the heat of a resolve to manifest, thus the mud lamp is kept in a kiln to make it hard and strong. The chandhan is from the sandalwood tree that take many years to mature. Amma asked “Are you telling me something dead can actually give fragrance?” She said, that is the fragrance that emanates from the discipline and regularity of spiritual practices and sadhana. Not everyone is a saint to think only the good, sometimes the mind might just want to do away with people who bugs it. Hence the turmeric cleanses the intention of any negative thoughts. Finally the kumkum. Kumkum is made by adding lime or sunnambu to majal. Thus it gains the red colour and becomes ordourless. Grace in life is the lime in the turmeric. A drop of grace is all it takes to transform the individual irrespective of his modelling. Grace is needed to manifest our dreams, with grace one can do wonders and with grace anyone one can become a saint.

I am sure Meow has more to add to this, let me get him…..