Dear soul mates
I feel very blessed to have gotten the opportunity to organize the Anugrotsav of Swami Jyothirmayah at Bannerghata Rd along with my fellow teachers and volunteers on 17 Sep09.
I must say I got inspired after reading the experiences of Suresh Nair and Raj Waghray of organizing a similar Anugrotsav in their areas. And the "biggest" inspiration was reading about more than 1 lakh people getting blessed by our Swami Jyothirmayah at palkhad, kerala in 2 consecutive days with Swamiji standing continiously for 12+ hours on each day blessing people.
Thanks to our teacher Bala (returned from Middle East and is a full-time teacher in Bangalore now) who had blocked time of Swamiji for 16th & 17th for Madiwala & KR Puram. Since KR Puram area had course during that week, the slot on 17th Sep was available and Bala suggested if I would like to use it, given that I was planning to open a new center.
I just said "YES" to Bala knowing well that we had just 4 days in hand for 17th and what followed was sheer grace and miracle.
On 16th, Swamiji was in Madiwala area blessing people and I heard around 4000 people got blessed that day. The field report indicated that there were about 30-40 AoL volunteers and teachers who made the event in Madiwala a success.
Given that I was planning to open a new center on 17th, I just had the support of 2-3 volunteers who stayed near my house. That was a sheer contrast to what Madiwala had.
What follows is the sheer hand work of Gurudev when you have YES mind and give 100%. I personally called all the teachers in South Bangalore and requested them to grace the occasion with their volunteers apart from sharing in this teachers group id. I flashed the message on multiple yahoogroups on the day of Anugrotsav and sent FREE group SMS'es using gupshup to AoL devotees with Amuthan's help.
Unfolding of THE DAY - 17Sep09:
Swamiji based on his previous day experience at Madiwala had told us to make him stand in the venue sharp at 5pm (1 hour before original plan) to be able to bless more people. We quickly altered the plan to accomodate this new schedule.
I was to pickup Swamji from Ashram at 4pm and he called me at 3:20pm and asked me if it is raining at Bannerghata Rd. It indeed was raining that time but showed some sign of subsiding at Bannerghata Rd. As I was about to reach Ashram to pick up Swamiji, I saw unprecedented heavy down-pours happening around Nice Rd and Ashram area but some thing told me it will be taken care.
Swamiji arrived at new center sharp at 4:30pm. After Purna Kumba, Mangala Arathi, Padha Puja & Guru Puja and formally inaugurating the center, we reached Meenakshi Temple at 5:15pm. There was no sign of any rain (you know whose hand work was it) and people started coming on their own for blessings. The priest of Meenakshi Temple kept telling me to bring Swamiji inside temple for Puja but I told him once Swamiji starts blessings, he wouldn't stop in between and when he finishes with all blessings, he would come in. The priest felt (based on his last 10-yrs experience) that the crowd won't last more than 30-mins in Meenakshi Temple given that it was early & remote. But the crowd kept adding up one-by-one and it went on for 2-hours. We had close 20+ teachers/volunteers working actively to streamline crowd, hand over new course launch handout and Guruji's picture, standup-satsang etc., I had also taken police permission from 4 police stations if we were to go on padayatra. We had close to 7 policemans deputed at Meenakshi Temple to take care of the event before we arrived.
At 7pm, Swamiji decided to get in to temple for Puja and then we moved to Reliance Mart, Arekere.
Swamiji was standing in the big parking lot of Reliance Mart and started blessing people and people started pouring in. Here we vitnessed a great miracle of one Mr.Bernard whose mother was missing for last 4-days, getting a SMS confirmation on his phone that his mother Marry was safe, the moment he took the blessings. He was jumping in JOY and we recorded his experience in multiple languages as he could speak 4-languages.
At 9pm, we moved to inside Arekere market place and here again people started pouring in. People from all walks of life automatically started standing in the queue. We saw a bus driver and conductor, leaving the bus in the middle of road and come running for blessings. We saw traffic constables coming together taking blessings. One more miracle we recorded in Arekere market was that one lady who came to Meenakshi Temple to take blessings was very moved and wanted to get her sister and daughter to take blessings. But by the time she brought both of them, we had left Meenakshi Temple and the priest had told her that we were planning to go to a temple in Arekere (that was the original plan which we changed on the fly). This lady with her sister and daughter waited in the Arekere temple for more than an hour and was feeling really terrible for not being able to get blessings. And they were returning home and alas they find Swamiji standing right in front of their house (Arekere Market) and blessing people. All these 3 people were jumping with ecstasy after the blessings and kept saying Gurudev knows how to answer a sincere prayer.
Swamiji finished blessing people by 10pm and thus ended an eventful day of blessings with Swamiji blessing close to 3000 people in sheer span of 4+ hours.
When I went to drop Swamiji to Ashram, we updated Gurudev about the event and HE was happy to note the details. I even showed HIM the recorded experiences from my blackberry.
Special thanks to all teachers in south bangalore who came with their volunteers to make this event a grand success; it was just a day notice and all of them were there to grace the occasion & contribute. Special thanks to teachers: Bala, Manikantan, Vaibhav, Rekha Prasad, Manjunath, Shankar, Girish, Hema, Bharat (he came all the way from Marathahalli), Supriya for personally coming and making this event a memorable one.
So what are you waiting for - Just get going with Anugrotsav in your area - If 3000 people can get blessed in an outskirt like Meenakshi Temple, Bannerghata Rd, it is beyond our imagination. People are just waiting to be blessed and this is the BEST way to spread AoL awareness in mass in your area.
Looking forward to read your sharing / experience of Anugrotsav soon.
(Content Contributed by Srinivasan Ramachandran, AOL teacher, Bangalore)
