Oh My God! Episode 2

Dearest DD Vashini,

You are right. Historians have now exactly identified the date of birth of Swami Ramanuja. It is 13th April 1017.

Thanks for the Yadavachala Mahathmiyam slokam. I am reading it for the first time. Thanks for fillling some gaps in my education.

Thanks for the nice words, dd. Coming from one's daughter they have a greater intensity and effect. And thanks for invoking blessings on my behalf.

Will be eagerly looking forward to see you on 10th, our next date.
love,
your acchan

 

Dear Jaya,

I had that experience Jaya. Of listening to the original through the words of my teacher. Well, the original is recorded as an aithiham (the word aithiham can be broken into ithi + iham meaning it happened thus) as part of commentary to the song. But the original script is in Manipravalam, half Tamil and half sanskrit which I can't understand. But when my teacher told me in the Tamil that we use everyday, it was an hair-rising experience for me.

The Lord sets more value on one's faith than on one's intelligence or effort. In fact at one point our traditions says intelligence and efforts are hurdles to spiritual growth. Kondi's faith in the Lord in her Guru was absolute.

Thanks for coming in Jaya. Will be waiting for you on 10th April for the next in the series of dates.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear bas,
thanks for reminding what happened during the ALS project. I am sure the same loving force will take care of this as well.
And am really thrilled to know that Akshaya is aware of all the stories. I am sure she and all the children will like the next story which will be up on 10th April.

When we say we throw a challenge at Her it is only a figure of speech. Who are we but a speck of dust that is on another speck of dust called the earth and where is the One who can create and destroy a million universes in less than a nanosecond?

It is just a way of knowing whether He too wants the book. But this time I am going to wait for the right publisher. whether it is one day, one year or all my life. This time the other member of the team namely the publisher should also be of the same spiritual mindset. So I am not going to rush things.
My first priority now is to deliver quality stories to you week after week for quite some time.

You are right bas. She was with me even when I sothapified the game with poor scores. But that time when I played I could feel her presence as the jewels began to fall on their own and the scores shot through the roof. Proably He is saying that with the book coming out lovelessness will fall like those jewels and the sale of books and the love in people's hearts will shoot up like my scores. Lets wait and see.
thanks once again. don't forget the date on 10th.
love,
boost

 

Dear Malathi,

First many more happy returns of the day. Happy to note that you share my star. You are panguni pooram. And I am chithirai pooram. And yesterday I was in a bank branch about 70 kms from madurai. Suddenly during lunch the manager told us that yesterday was his star birthday.
Many more happy returns of the day. May the Lord of Seven Hills, Sriman Narayana bless you with everything in life.
I want to say so many things, malathi but I am afraid this will become longer than the leader post. Let me try to be brief.
The other day my guru was teaching a very beautiful concept - ananya seshathvam. That is we should be bound only to the Lord and not to anybody else.
I have been worshipping God in another form. And I timidly asked him in the middle of the class, what is to be done.
He told me with a smile, 'The Lord whom you worship will show you the right way to Narayana.'
That was a great answer.

To know that the Lord sent you sweets for your birthday and let you go in the chosen path... well you are a blessed person, Malathi. Please do pray for all of us.

This happened 27 years ago. I was staying in a relative's house in Chennai and was attending training in a TVS factory in Padi. It was April 29th, my birthday. There was no one to greet me. In those days it was not fashiionable to greet somebody on their birthday. And we did not have phones. We did not even have a land line at our house. I was not married.

But my Uncle with whom I was staying suddenly remembered it was my birthday when we were having our morning coffee. He asked his wife to prepare payasam for me. I still remember the words of that aunt.
'Who has the energy to make payasam and all? If you want to make payasam for your nephew, do it yourself or get it from a hotel. I cant do that kind of stuff.'

I had to run to the bathroom to hide my tears. If the aunt had just told that she would make the payasam but later acted as if she had forgotten that, I would not have been hurt.

I remember it was a Friday. My colleague was repeatedly asking me what was the problem. I said it was nothing. Suddenly I wanted to abandon everything and run away.

At 12 in the afternoon I went to the factory canteen for my lunch. The lunch was just Re 1.
As I was eating my lunch suddenly I heard the voice "Sir paayasam". Stunned I looked up at the person with tearful eyes.

'Yes sir, every friday we serve sweet and payasam. There is no place in your plate. I will give that in a tumbler."
And then a mysore pak was served.

I was the only person amongst some thousand employees who took food on that day who cried on seeing the payasam.

I was going there for more than a month but somehow or other had not eaten in the canteen on a Friday.

Needless to say the payasam tasted the sweetest. For didn't He hand-deliver it for me?

As you have said He is there waiting for us with open hands. Only we behave like fools in turning our faces from him. When he can answer our silly questions in a loving manner, how can He let us down? That's the only thing impossible even for a God like Him.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear EQ,
First I got the divine blessings. And now the Royal Blessings. Thanks for your prayers, EQ. Thanks for the nice words which moved me.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Mindi,
thanks for joining us. For the next episode I hope you will be there when the whole thing starts - that's at 5 30 pm in the evening, tomorrow.

I have been having this suspicion that writers are in a way a special kind of messengers. They see, hear, listen to something which disturbs them. Slowly the intensity of the disturbance goes up that at one point they could not even survive with that disturbance still doing rounds in their system. They go out of the way to bring that out of the system.

And these stories my role is that of a selector, translator and a despatcher. First I have to select the best from out of the hundreds of good stories before me - some in the Aithiham and commentary texts, some told by my Guru. Then I need to translate the selected story into English and finally despatch it to my dear friends here in IL. If this courier job gets such an appreciation I can't even imagine the value of cargo handled by me.
Though we should not seek death, we can't deny the fact that the natural, god-given death is a profound spiritual experience. It is only at the threshold of death do we get the ultimate spiritualism. Kathopanishad was lectured by Death himself. Tibetan Book of Death is their sacred scripture. (If you are interested, you may please read Roya Singpoche's Tibetan Book Of Living and Dying). May be all those things came to my mind when I was describing Kondi's death. Her death is not an accident; it is not an interruption in her journey. It is the continuation of her journey at another level. Our texts say that he saw a 10-12 year old boy. With all those factors I just imagined how she might have felt and wrote it. Glad that you liked it.
Remember Mindi, the next date is tomorrow. 5 30 pm IST.
love,
sridhar