Awakening the God Within

Hi Readers, Welcome to Mirrored Mind! 

This one is going to be my first mind reflection. So Readers please bear this not so skilled writer yet want to be a blogger and here I go…

 I would like to share an incident which happened a year back when I had been to Pandharpur - Maharashtra’s one of the important pilgrimage city situated in Solapur district. It was one kind of family get-together and few of my maternal relatives gathered up for this not so exciting but lately turned into an unforgettable trip. Me and my cousin were wondering how our friends would react when you say them, I had been to a pilgrimage trip for this vacation and obviously their reaction made us unhappy. But we all were together after a long time and this indeed created a fun-filled moment. 
 

We boarded the Siddheshwar express from Mumbai at around 11pm and the journey began. It was Christmas time and no wonder Mumbai failed to show any instance of winter arrival. After almost eight hours, our train journey came to an end and we reached Solapur at 7 in the morning. To our surprise the climate was freezing cold which is otherwise usually dry and hot. Me and my cousin were finding ways to get draped into our mother’s saree pallu but nothing could save us from shivering. That chilling weather and garama garam chai.. Needless to say that was heaven!!

We headed to take dip in the river Bhima" also called as "Chandrabhaga". Though it was a holy dip for elders but for me this river bathe gave a kind of satisfaction of having my so called expected vacation that is because the ice cold water and beautiful scenic view was just beyond my expectations. Our hopes did not end here as our trip came with more unexpected, thrilling and adventurous incidents or rather we all experienced the real truth.  Finally we had a chance to get a glimpse of Lord Vithoba. We felt our souls rejuvenated with His divine serenity.  
 

It was around 5pm in the evening and the whole city was crowded with devotees seeking the Lord’s divine blessings. We could hear the devotees singing “abhang”- Marathi bhajans awaiting their turn to get darshan of the Lord. There were many other temples situated in the banks of the river, we all geared up for one of the temple which is located in the other side of the bank. The only way to reach the location was using the boat service and once again this made me happy and I was no longer regretting this trip. The wooden boat was large enough to accommodate our whole family. We were guided with two boatmen with us who were so kind and knowledgeable.  They told us much information regarding those temples and their history. We reached the destination, but by this time sun was sinking below the horizon and sky was slowly turning dark.  This did not drop our energy levels even by that much and had a peaceful darshan of Goddess AmbaBai, but what awaited us while returning was horrifying. The roads were complete dark and there was no sign of lights from anywhere but thanks to my Smart phone, it saved us till we all reached near the bank of the river.  What we saw next made us stand still. No Boat Service! Yes that’s what the local people told us as it was now complete dark. Hearing this, a horrible chill went down our spine. The two boatmen did not accompany us to the temple and nowhere could we find them. We all felt lost and a sense of fear pervaded all. Each one of us started praying hard for our safe reach.

And there came the surprise, the two boatmen made their sudden appearance with their genuine smile. Without any hesitation they were ready to take us in their boat and dropped all of us safely. We had no words to thank them and offered them with some extra money apart from their usual fare for saving our lives. Much to our surprise was their denial to this offer and their sincerity towards their profession.

Now it was time for us to return to Mumbai and we all were badly in need of some rest. So we all dozed off for a while in a dharamshala. That night we had to board train from Solapur, so we all left the holy city with much contentment because the two boatmen had won our hearts. We took a car for reaching Solapur junction. It was almost 10pm and we were late as we had to catch the train at 11:30pm. The driver speeded up well and we were confident about catching the train on time. After a while, my niece wanted to get her sweater so my uncle had to stop the van and get his bag above car luggage storage.
 

He couldn’t believe his eyes as there was no bag above and again a sense of shock and sadness made all of us restless. We couldn’t leave it and move ahead as uncle had some of his valuable items and most importantly our train tickets. We were already running short of time and couldn’t think much but some instinct made us believe that the bag must have dropped somewhere on the way. So we ordered the driver to go back all the way and search for the bag. As the roads were not very good we definitely came to a conclusion of the bag fallen off the car. There was complete silence as all were unhappy about such an ending to our trip and hoping things turned out other way. We all were scanning the roads to get a glance of the bag. For several minutes the tension mounted and our curiosity was rising every moment.

Tringgggg!! Came a sudden phone call to my uncle saying, is it Mr. Srinivasan? I found a bag near the petrol pump and got your name and phone number from the train tickets. Am waiting here can you please collect it?  Dumbstruck by what he heard, my uncle had a huge smile and said Thank you so much sir. Soon we spotted the Godlike person who was looking simple and humble. His name was Tukaram.  Again just thanks were not just enough for this great human being so my uncle asked if he could take some money. To this he simply replied No Sir Thanks. It was my duty. We all were overwhelmed by this young lad’s gesture. I felt thankful for being a part of this unforgettable journey.
 

Both the incidents made me realize the same truth – there exists God in the form of human beings. Let's try to awaken the God within us.

Jai jai Vithala Hari hari Vithala!