Places \n I began \n In February,<\/i><\/b> In March<\/i><\/b>, I In April<\/i><\/b>, I \n In May,<\/i><\/b> we \n <\/p>\n In June<\/i><\/b> came \n <\/p>\n From July to \n <\/p>\n In November,<\/b><\/i> Also in \n This brings \n
\nimpact you<\/b><\/i> for a variety of reasons. And the same place impacts different
\npeople in different ways. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual
\nexperiences, where every single person\u2019s experience is unique. And personally,
\nevery spiritual experience is unique, the same person can have different deeply
\nspiritual experiences at different places, at different times. This thought has
\nemerged because of my own experiences over the years, but especially so this
\nyear, with different and unique experiences at various places I have visited
\nrecently. <\/span><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEind7D3c5MNhFhF9NtiraahwfG0X52gkYOIy8Ex8199xfyazoCEqjaYXIlkUGzt-hiXMNy35Tej6HDIyNY78AZqnfQ2U0YwmRG68saGEhgX2GKbLM5rWMpYMZ4mCOhRKxQ5S5z6OXYpymo4E-Fq0AQ_b1f1vEMEXhYj6NBY68hhFhkAfWF_xjmDYZaUujGe\/s1080\/Picsart_23-12-12_12-36-18-250.jpg\")
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\nthis year <\/i><\/b>with a visit to Baroda (Vadodara) with friends. It was meant to be a
\nrelaxed trip, a touristy trip, with our sons. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt,
\nbut the highlight of that trip was a visit to the Lakulisha temple at Pavagadh.
\nIt was the iconography of the temple that I connected with, and I spent a few
\nhours simply lost in the details of the figures carved around the temple. There
\nwas an indefinable connect with the sculptures which brought the temple alive. <\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nI visited our kula deivam<\/i> or family temple, at Nainar Koil in
\nRamanathapuram district of Tamilnadu. I attended the Shivaratri programme at
\nthe temple, staying awake through the night as abhishekam was performed to Lord
\nShiva. The night is divided into four quarters and the second quarter\u2019s
\nabhishekam is traditionally performed by our extended family. Some more family
\nmembers had gathered for this auspicious occasion, and as I sat awake, watching
\nthe abhishekam being performed, chanting the Rudram, there was another kind of spiritual
\nconnect I experienced. This one was very different. There was a sense of belonging,
\nas well as a sense of responsibility, of keeping this tradition alive.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhad another kind of spiritual experience, one where I went with a group of
\nfriends to Pandharpur where we sat in the mandap in front of the Lord and sang
\nsongs in his praise. I have written about that experience on the blog here<\/a>. This
\nwas a totally new experience for me, and I was deeply moved by the act of
\nsinging in the hall where many great saints had sung, and where the Lord had appeared
\nin front of them. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nwent to my father\u2019s ancestral home town of Kadathur near Palani, also in
\nTamilnadu. The occasion was the inauguration of a new temple to house an
\nancient bronze sculpture of Nataraja. This experience was once again unique,
\nbecause this is a temple and a village we had completely lost connect with, since
\nmy great-grandfather had moved out when he was young, and no one ever went back.
\nI have been visiting the village and the temple since 2002 and have experienced
\na deep sense of coming home every time. This time, the feeling was stronger,
\nsince, for the very first time, we stayed back for the night in the village, at
\na distant relative\u2019s home. I was deeply conscious that I was the first person
\nfrom my family to have stayed at the village in over probably 150 years. <\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\ntravelled to Binsar. This was our annual family holiday, and the aim was to
\nrelax. While there were many highlights of this trip, the spiritual connect
\nhappened at Jageshwar. We had visited the temple on an earlier visit more than
\na decade back, so Samhith and Shankar decided to stay back in the resort, while
\nI decided to go to the temple again, mostly to see the museum which I had
\nmissed on our earlier visit. The museum was of course outstanding, and I loved
\nevery minute I spent there. Visiting the temple was a very standard temple
\nexperience, nothing to talk about. However, it was as I was walking around the
\ntemple, clicking pictures, that the spiritual connect happened, through a
\nrandom stranger who was chanting Rudram. I joined him in chanting as I continued
\nto click photos, and suddenly, there was a deep sense of connection that
\nhappened in the midst of the chanting. I simply sat down and continued to chant
\nfor the next half an hour or so, simply basking in the experience. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nour trip to Vaishnodevi, and the connect there was completely different, which
\nhappened on the walk to the temple and standing outside the entrance to the
\noriginal cave. I have written about that experience in detail here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nOctober<\/i><\/b>, I was busy with studies (for those who don\u2019t know, I am doing an MA in
\nphilosophy) and other things, and travel took a backseat. However, the spiritual
\nconnection happened through the books I was reading, especially the Viveka
\nChudamani by Adi Shankara, which is part of one of my papers. Shankara\u2019s verses
\nare not only beautifully composed, they are also deep and thought provoking,
\nthough he makes it sound so simple to connect with Brahman. This period was
\nalso marked with festivals, which kept the spiritual connection alive and busy!
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
\nI made a trip to Puttaparthi, in Andhra Pradesh, the abode of Sathya Sai Baba, my
\nspiritual mentor. I attended the akhand bhajan<\/i> for his birthday, during
\nwhich people sang bhajans for 24 hours continuously. While I didn\u2019t have the
\nenergy to sit for the entire stretch, I managed to sit for quite long stretches
\nduring the day and parts of the night. This was another beautiful experience of
\nnamasmarana, singing the name of the Lord. Here, the bhakti of the singers was
\npalpable, and made my connect with Swami all the more effortless.<\/p>\n
\nNovember<\/i><\/b>, Shankar and I visited Bidar, in Karnataka. Our main destination was
\nthe Jungle Lodges resort, and seeing Blackbucks. We also visited Solapur, Tujapur
\nand the Naldurg fort. However, the highlight turned out to be a tiny temple
\nwhich wasn\u2019t even on the plan. We heard of this temple at the resort when they
\nscreened a video about Bidar and its surroundings. It was en route to Solapur,
\nso we decided to stop along the way. A temple built during the Kalyani Chalukya
\nperiod, it seemed to be a precursor to the more elaborate temples of the Hoysalas.
\nIt is a temple dedicated to Lord Siva, at a place called Jalasangvi, and once
\nagain, I connected with the sculptures here, which made my day! <\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nme to December,<\/i><\/b> and the trip I have just returned from, to Dharampur. Dharampur
\nis in Gujarat, near Valsad, and is home to the Srimad Rajchandra Mission,
\nfounded by Pujya Gurudev Sri Rakeshji. I had heard of them since some time, and
\nappreciated the work they are doing, so I joined my husband and a group of his
\nfriends to visit the ashram. There is a beautiful temple to Mahavir, and to
\nRajchandraji, at the highest point of the ashram. While the temple is built in
\nthe traditional style, the other buildings in the ashram are absolutely modern,
\nwith a cuboid theme. Both, the modern and traditional architecture are
\nexcellent, and worth a second, and third, and fourth look. However, while I loved
\nthe architecture, it wasn\u2019t the temple I connected with, but the massive seva activities
\nthe organisation does. We visited the 250 bed hospital, which is not only up to
\ndate with the latest technology, but built with the idea of serving everyone. Built
\nin an area where access to good medical care is difficult, the hospital treats the
\nlocals for free, or at the most, a minimal charge. They have outreach
\nprogrammes wherein they visit the villages and treat people, and bring those who
\nneed further attention to the hospital. From the design of the hospital, to the
\nway it functions, it an example of compassion shining through seva. <\/span><\/p>\n