I had never planned to go to Parvathamalai after my friend HP Narayanan told about the boulders and steep climbs. But destiny has it that I shd visit Him atop on the given day - who could stop it...! This is the writeup of my experience to Parvathamalai - which He guided me up He gave The Darshan and He guided me down...!
Long since we were invited by Annamalaiar for Girivalam, my friends and self formed sort of a group which was always together in such pursuits. Amongst these friends were HP Narayanan, PSL Narayanan, and PSL Venkat who made a visit to Parvathamalai last year. The story HP Narayanan told me later was scary...! He clearly sounded 'Never Attempt'. I was in no mood to attempt either way, since I always thought He decides what we shd do and yearning for something which we may not be fit for is of no use. Later in Mar '08 we all had our first Darshan of Mahalingam at Sathuragiri, later Mahalingam called us again during Aug '08 to provide another Darshan.
After all this, never was a thot of going to Parvathamalai came into my mind. Me and my wife were planning to come Sathuragiri again on our Marriage Day falling due on Nov 29th. Then was the travelogue of Shri Krishnan Sir got my attention and probably there was subconscious decision made to go to Parvathamalai...! I'm still only making a guess, because there is no logical trigger that made me think of this possibility, given the heavy frame that I'm.
Then on a fine day PSL Narayanan called me 'generally' and was enquiring 'kshema laabams'. I put in him the thought of Parvathamalai, which he imm'ly accepted. PSL Narayanan is one person who has got some amount of instincts, and I always felt this was because of his other yogic practices. He is a family man managing his spiritual side very well, which I felt was due to some Kundalini awakening within him. He never discussed this in detail with me, but only uttered few words of wisdom on the same here and there.
PSL Narayanan was actually very upbeat about this possibility. Then I talked to HP Narayanan, who is the younger Narayanan who was always fine to the possibility to visiting Parvathamalai. The surprise here is, the same souls who were heavily apprehensive earlier, were now more than forthcoming...! It actually did not strike me then.Now, I had a cousin brother of mine, Anand, for whom we had one-point-agenda 'getting-married', whom also I asked to join me. The crowd now became bigger and two more relatives joined and one more friend also joined, totalling to eight of us.
I started collecting details fm the google, as a truthful IT guy, to understand all about Parvathamalai. I actually started losing sleep when more info was available. As I told everybody, the feeling was like newly wed Girl, with fear, anxiety, worry, thrill and other mixed feelings. But I had one point in my mind, it was He who will do what has to be done. He will guide us up, He will show us the Darshan and He will guide us down and make us reach our homes happily.
The date was changed fm my Wedding Day, since people felt that on Wedding Day it is better to be at home and get the Blessing of Mom than to go out. The date later became 19th Dec 2008. It was me, Narayanans (2), Nagarajan, Vichu, Vijay, Ravi Anna and Anand. We were in constant touch with each other and were exchanging info on Parvathamalai we knew.
The day beckoned, on 19th Dec 2008, afternoon we set off to Thiruvannamalai. We wanted to get the permission of Annamalaiar before venturing on this. We reached Thiruvannamalai at 9 pm. We literally ran to the temple, which was said to closing down by 9:30 PM. When were entering the temple I saw a person taking alms. I went to him offered little money, he in turn told me a mantra on GangaDevi. He asked me to recite it thrice, which I did. I also informed him that we were planning to go to Parvathamalai. He looked very happy and blessed us and told we will have a Happy Journey. I was astonished by the kindness of Annamalaiar, it, in hindsight, looks likes Annamalaiar's words.
We went had an excellent Darshan of Annamalaiar, inface we went back and forth thrice to have more and more of His Darshan. Later when were moving to have a Darshan of UnnamulaiAmmai, we were struck with the Darshan of MahaDeepam atop Annamalaiar...! This is the first time in my life I'm seeing the Jyothi...! I literally screamed and called others to have Darshan of the same. What were seeing is the Worlds First Celebration...! All Ithihasam and Puranams has got reference to This Deepam...!
We went and had good Darshan of UnnamulaiAmmai. Here also I came back again to have peaceful Darshan on a plank. When we were through with our Darshan and started moving out, a Old Periyavar called us and gave us Abisekham Milk. What more can u ask for? We thoroughly felt that we had all His Blessings for our visit to Parvathamalai. When I was moving out, I wanted to have a glance of UnnamulaiAmmai again and looked behind, believe me, the doors were closed...! It looked Ammai and Appan were waiting to give Darshan for us only...!
We stayed in a hotel that night and started the next day at 4 AM. We never knew we were getting into a memorable journey of our life by then...!
(To be continued....)
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