I don't believe in God Men, God women and other superstitions. I believe in God.
Having said that, I would like to narrate a weird experience I had several years back.
It happened at Kanchi Mutt on a Vijayadasami day in the early 90's when the older Sankaracharya was still alive.
I was there with a couple of my friends. Had just returned from short trip to US and had a VIVITAR camera with me. When I reached the Mutt I noticed that my 36 exposure film had only 16 left. I thought that I should not waste anything more.
Waited for the acharya to arrive. Finally he came and I clicked around 5 photos before the Mutt authorities stopped photographers. They said that the acharya might go inside if we continued, since he had just recovered from a cataract surgery. All of us stopped.
I went back to Madras and developed the film. To my surprise, all the photos before and after the Mutt incident came out good. The 5 photos of the Acharya were a Wash out !
I was surprised and still am. Could it be a camera malfunction. I don't know.
31 comments:
I know of other people who have reported a similar experience. In my opinion, the Paramacharya was not just any ordinary god-man (although it is a pity that the term has come to have a negative connotation).
Thennavan,
I agree. I had a lot of respect for him.
Virumaandi - I got goosbumps reading your comment. Ummm.!
Kanchi Paramacharya was not human at all. even parties like DMK never commented against him. such was his purity and devotion.
I do not doubt or belittle acharya. but are you sure the lighting was proper there.
same was said about St.Xavier's church in Goa. the place where st.xavier's relics are kept is quite dark.it will appear ok for the naked eye but it would be a wash out when capture it. at last one of my friends who had an advanced camera got it right and distributed to all of us proving the theory wrong.
Why is that the term 'God Man' is always used with sarcasm? and pronounced like con man. No doubt a few people who have for personal benefits posed as God men and played fraud on society and religion.
But India being the country with very rich socio cultural and religious heritage, have produced lots of real rishis, sanyasis and acharyas (alwars and Nayanmars inclusive). The contribution of these great souls cannot be bilittled.
I strongly believe that it is the mischief played by the media in being prejudicial against religion, that has percolated among us in being proud to call such people as con men/God men.
It was not my endevour to instill faith or belief in you that I had writtn this comment. I know my limits.
I had a great deal of respect for him. Dont have the same level of respect for the current head.
This could be an abnormal incident. I find it a little difficult to completely believe in the fact that pictures of temple shrines and great people like the Shankaracharyar would not come out with cameras.
Sir,
I second your opinion. As Thennavan told, i too heard such experiences with Paramacharya..Do you know that the clock in the room got stopped when he attained Mukthi?
Regards,
Sundaresan.
Nari, Have you read "Theivathin Kural".
This is defintely weird.
But ive heard similar stories and dunno what to think..whether its just a coincindence or..
:)
Such was his power and purity. Sad to note the current state of affairs. There cannot be a successor to Paramacharya. We just have one for namesake IMO.
Narayanan
Interesting...
What do you mean by 'wash out' ?
Is it possible that you didn't remove the 'lens cover' as you felt 'rushed' by the Mutt authorities ? If your film is negative is completly 'white' which would come 'black' when printed then it is possible that the lens cover was on..
It's a common thing lot of people do as what you see through the viewer and what the lens / film actually captures are different.
Ram
Godliness is a character. Purity dwells in those who are pure and good at heart. I personally feel, the present acharya of mutt doesnt have that. People dont hurt others. And pure devotees of Him never!
And there is nothing wrong in taking photos.. he'll not die if we took photos. prohibiting us from taking a pics of a human in the name of god is inhuman and very absurd.
the fault in those photos should have been caused by human error only.
sorry, for being harsh, ஆனா காஞ்சி மடம் மேல முன்ன இருந்த மதிப்பு இப்ப இல்ல!
I lose track of ur posts in my favourites.. threfore, blogrolling you..
My family has respected and followed Mahaperiaval as our only guru...though we follow Sringeri Mutt (for uninitiated, almost all tam-bram families will follow any one of the sankara mutts), my mom has this unexplainable devotion and affection towards him and that I have had rare opputunity to interact with him in close quarters , I believe and second thennavar's thots on mahaperiaval..he is no ordinary god man...
With Paramacharya anything was possible.People like him,Ramana Maharishi and Seshadri Swamigal were real legends because they truly stayed away from any sort of material attachments.The same is not the case with almost all of today's 'God men'
I respect him a lot, although not much can be said (now) about the other 2.
btw, Narayanan, I am linking your blog to my page, if that is ok.
Hey NaaniMachan, I guess belief or the lack of it is a very personal thing. I feel that they are not opposites, just two different thought process...
I heard my 80 yr old uncle say the other day that Paramacharya was a revered man nor b'cos of the God factor, but b'cos of his simplicity and more than that, his face reflected an inner peace that most of us try to attain in vain.
But just thinking aloud..
there are 1000s of pics of him on the net. This page has an official gallery. http://www.kamakoti.org/newlayout/images.html .
So it looks like the Mutt heads were never averse to photography. So why just your snaps?
I also don't understand why a man so omnipresent and divine didn't foresee the calamity to hit the Mutt in 2005 ?
No offense meant... but I find it a bit of a contrast that Jayanderar still says that Raghu is his brother, when he's supposed to be practicing thuravaram...Where, then is the place for any worldly attachments ?
I met recently through another pal, a samiyar near Porur who wanted me to create a site for the temple he's building there. My commercials didn't work out, but what impressed me was that this man lived in a thatch hut, slept on the floor, bicycled or walked, didn't allow ppl to fall at his feet, and didn't want his snap on the webpage. He believed that he could help folks with his healing powers,(He was probably using suggestion theraphy effectively)and was building the temple with the kanikkais. A far-cry from our run-of-the-mill God-men who dabble in arms, travel in Mercs and sit on thrones in silk gowns.
Oops...I got carried away , but my verdict is that your bad pics were cos of some bad light or some human error :-)
Folks,
Thanks for all your comments. Like I said in my latest update, I respect Paramacharya. He doesn't belong in the God-men group. God bless his soul.
About my camera - It was an automatic camera. When powered on the cover would automatically slide-in. The light was very good indeed.
Interesting discussions... bizzare world.. me yet to get such experience :)
Respect the individual not for their powers but for their noble deeds...
who can doubt about Paramacharya -- be it a discourse on ancient epics or a story to enthrall the minds of the listeners, he was a master story teller...any doubts? read "Kannadiyan kaalvai" a story in which he will explain how a "sluice" was built on river tamaraparani.....How many people honestly can tell the meaning of sluice in india.....in that story he will use that word "as is in English" in a very opt context....
he was the one who settled all the loan issues with the mutt....and built its asset base....he arrested the development of violent practices against people of Hinduism faith....
in the words of Maharajapuram Santhanam in raaga Basanth Bahaar -- "kaliyugam thandha kan kanda dheivam, kali theerkum kanchi maa muniyae......salikkum manathai oru nilaikkul nirutha undhan sannidhiyai naan naadi vandhaen....."
I too respect him.
But Sir, if you think that the photos did not come out well becuase he did not want to, then i guess its belittling him.Is it not?
Its tatamount to saying nothing wrong happened in this world when he was alive.
Or worse whatever happened in this world was with his knowledge and consent.
Remember great souls are not bothered about running their lives/ mutts well alone.
They care as much about this world.
They will not be bothered about anwsering their bhakthas prayers alone.
My point is why should someone pray at all if its all too clearly known beforehand to God?
If he was all powerful/omnipotent as he is made out to be then we are saying all was fine during his lifetime in Kanchi, Tamil Nadu, India, World etc.
You and me know better to believe that.
I am not atheist but just my concept of god is different.
I somehow believe we are distorting the essence of spirituality by all this omnipotent/worship theories...
spirituality/godliness are concepts well above and beyond all this i guess.
Just my humble opinion.
Apologies if i have hurt anybody's sentiments here....
Narayanan - Excellant Post, thanks for sharing it with all of us.
A few years back had been to Chicago Aurora Temple, clicked away a lot of pix of it and with me and a couple of friends (including Anand, twin-gemini blog) but lost the camera due to inexplainable reasons.
Anand - If you believed in the Paramacharya, shouldnt you also trust him for anointing Sri Jayendrar as his successor. How can he go wrong?
Donthecat - Narayanan gave the reason why he the Mutt Authorities stopped them taking snaps - the Paramacharya had just had a cataract operation !!!!
Paramacharya was never a God, he is and will remain as a Guru.
Please read http://www.kamakoti.org/acall/ac-gurubhakti.html
Many of you here have been asking Why this and Why that and questioning God, Guru, Faith.
Have you made any sincere attempts to have these Answered? Have you sought a Guru, he is there to answer them? Have you read books like 'Acharya's Call'? You would find some answers there.
When you had questions in your Subjects, did you not ask your Professors or Friends who had knowledge in that Subject for Clarifications?
Seek and ye Shall Find :-)
I am also a paramacharya devotee. I've always had goose-pimples whenever I was in his presence.
narayan,
As someone said hundreds of photographs of periyavar have been already taken.So the theory of
1)"you cannot take pic of a divine figure" is wrong.
2)We want to believe what we want to belive.If you shot pic of your friend or relative and 5 pics got washed out.It wouldn't have mattered.It would be a no incident ,but when the same thing happens with a spiritual personality we tie so many things with it.
3)Most of the god men flourish only because of "word of mouth" stories. whether it is sai baba or premananda.So let's not add one more word of mouth story and bring God into this 5ft figure with this simple 5 pics not getting developed story.
No offence, just my views.
Senthil - No problems. Wonderful thoughts indeed. I hope you read my poem on Godmen today.
Subha - I used to be.! Yeah, he was truly wonderful.
Surya - Good thoughts, I found your blog on Gurumurthy interesting.
Prabhu - Nice comments. Thanks.
Krish/Anony - thanks.
Naani, I guess you started an interesting thread. Should we build a Forum on it ? :-)
I agree with Senthil.. If you had said that 5 pics from your Yesomite Trip got washed out, you'd have just a couple of tsktsks and not such profound comemnts...( If you wife had been in those pics, you'd heard some private comments at home, though )
My point is simple and answers Surya's ??s too. Why allow the 5 snaps to be taken or cameras allowed in the 1st place? Naani's shutter could've mysteriously got jammed,the battery could have drained....why waste film ?
And I've been reading, asking questions...just that the unconvincing answers raise some more ..which means I'll continue asking :-)
donthecat -
the answer is within what you wrote "Naani's shutter could've mysteriously got jammed,the battery could have drained....why waste film ?"
Don, I never thought this will go this far. I only wanted to highlight an incident.
But definitely, IMHO, camera,light everything was good.!
Battery - It was fine too.
Surya - Good thoughts.!!
The tremendous charisma that C.S. had, and a famous temple like the
Kamakshi temple in Kanchipuram - one has a ready-made formula for success
in attracting a following. The sad part is that the sannyasis involved
take advantage of the general reverence that people show them, for their
own ulterior motives.
In India, among south Indian Brahmin circles especially, when this topic
comes up for discussion, most people usually say something like, "The
Kanchi math is also doing so much for the cause of dharma. Why rake up
this issue?" My answer is that firstly it is the Kanchi math which forces
one to rake up the issue by ceaselessly continuing its propaganda of
disinformation. Secondly, and more importantly, an institution like the
Kanchi math which supposedly is doing so much for dharma, should not forget the most basic dharma of all - satyam vada. FYI Kanchi Mutt was never ever established by Adi Sankara and much of the credit of fabricating history goes to its predecessors.
Mr. Narayanan
1. Are you called "Naani" - my cousin brother's nick-name is also Naani (he was one of the founders of Viveka Fine Arts, while he was studying in Vivekananda College decades back).
2. On Kanchi Periaval (Paramacharya), I wish to share that it was he who gave me my name when I was born. I saw him only twice, though.
D. Chandramouli, Jakarta
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