Dear All
Greetings!
Of late, whenever I make a visit to any temple, I could not desist from relating the sthala Purana of the temple, with any of the current day happenings. You may remember that in the last issue, I wrote about “Patteeswaram temple and Manu Needhi Chozhan" who did not hesitate to kill his son under the wheels of his chariot, in order to render justice to a cow and compared it with the mute and passive response of the Dharma Devatha, under the present circumstances. A number of people have telephoned me, wrote to me praising the contents and shared their concern. I intend to share a similar experience in the current issue too.
You may remember an announcement in an earlier Kalyanamalai issue about a community meet at Trichy. To participate in the meet held on 24th February, members of Kalyanamalai, me and Thiru Mohan had been Tiruchy. After the concluding of the meet, along with our Operational Head Thiru Anand and in charge of Trichy branch Thiru Ramesh, we all went to Tirupattur Brahma temple in the evening.
In short, the sthala Purana of the temple says, how Brahma became proud of being a creator and his Thejas, how Lord Shiva cursed him to lose his importance and how finally he got everything back by offering prayers at the temple. The story offers us a lesson about, why we should not feel self proud and how such an act by Brahma (a god) has brought shame to him by the curse of Lord Shiva and the need for us to remain humble.
In the same temple only, saint Pathanjali, who taught the world the yoga, has attained Jeeva samathi. The essence of yoga, is achieving spiritual attainment by having a controlled mind and body. I thought it was most appropriate for the saint, to have attained Jeeva samathi at the temple. The holy temple informs us, how one will become rash and proud, when he/she do not have control over the mind or action, by relating it to the story of Brahma and how yoga can bring relief to such a situation. I can even call this temple as one that teaches us the essence of life sciences.
This temple, offers a lesson for those who gloat over even the smallest of their achievement, who are heady and have no control over their action or utterance. It further tells us, those, including the highest god, who do not have control over the mind and action, will have to face the consequences at one time or another. In order to save ourselves from such an ordeal, we must set our life goals and try to achieve them, with a controlled mind. This is possible by learning the art of yoga and practicing it every day.
Make a visit to the Brahma temple at least once and you can feel the experience literally.
With love
Meera Nagarajan
Editor