Saturday, December 27, 2008

Arunachala Parikrama

Swami Gaurangananda




I was talking to Swami Gaurangananda today morning in Ramakrishna Math, Hyderabad. He is a senior swami who has had the oppurtunity to go for Kailash parikrama a few years back. He has put forward very interesting aspects about the concept of parikrama.

Everyone of us who have done the parikrama of Arunachala have done with utmost faith in Bhagawan's words that its merits are indescribabale. But do we know why?

The Swami while explaining the concept of parikrama asks us to imagine the time we have gone to Tirupathi to see Lord Balaji.

Remember the stress, the hours long wait...etc.

Finally when we are in front of the Lord,we spend a few seconds and then we are immediately pushed so that others behind us can have a darshan. We too feel very happy that we have seen the Lord even though for a few seonds and move on. We do not mind the hours of stress because we were able to the Lord for a few seconds.

What would we do if we were given a chance to be with the Lord for hours together?

We would jump in joy. :)

This emotion is easily realized with parikrama.

As we circumbulate the Divine, we are with Him every second, every step.

We get to spend more time with the Lord. Also, the Lord is a centre of infinte grace which flows equally in all directions. Hence when we circumbulate Him we receive holy vibrations of the Godhead which makes parikrama even more practical and holy.

I thought these were beautiful words about a beautiful ritual.

The other famous parikrama sthalas are

River Naramada Parikrama (3000km)

Govardhan giri parikrama (30km)

Vrindavan Parikrama (10km)

and the very famous

Mount Kailash parikrama

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