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“Why Fear? I Am Within You and Protect You Always”—Murugan

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Insights into Hindu Temple WorshipInsights into Hindu Temple WorshipInsights into Hindu Temple Worship Transcript of SatGuru Bodhinatha Veylanswami’s Talk In Honor of the 2008

Annual Nallur and Kathirgamam Kanthan Festival Murugan Temple of North America

August 9, 2008

Introduction Kumbhabhishekam

As publisher of our magazine Hinduism Today, I am invited to a number of kumbhabhishekams for temples all over the world. Over the last few years I have had the privilege of attending kumbhabhishekams for: Siva temples in Perth, Australia and Atlanta, Georgia; a Venkateshwara temple in Central Florida; BAPS Swaminarayan temples in Houston, Texas, Toronto, Canada and Delhi, India; a Bhairava temple in Karnataka, India; Lord Ganesha in Phoenix, Arizona; a Lord Murugan temple in Montreal, Canada and today the Sthapana Mahotsv for Lord Murugan here at the Greater Baltimore Temple. The special ceremonies conducted on these occasions by a large number of well-trained priests are always exceptionally uplifting times.

Youth

On most of these occasions there is some interaction with the youth of the temple as a formal seminar, a lecture or simply an informal question and answer session. During one of the breaks, at a kumbhabhishekam for a particularly large temple, I was chatting with some of the older youth who were children of the trustees and other key members. They were challenging me with the question, since God is omnipresent, what is the need to build large temples to worship Him. The cost of construction is quite large plus then you have the ongoing cost of monthly maintenance that has to be met. Couldn’t all that money be spent in a better way?

My answer went something like this. Since God is omnipresent, shouldn’t we be able to experience Him equally everywhere? For example, God permeates this room. By looking intently at the room shouldn’t I be able to experience God? In theory you should. I then asked those present how many could see God permeating the room? All the youth present had to admit that they couldn’t see God permeating the room. I then asked another question. God permeates each of us. Certainly the easiest place to see God would logically be inside ourselves. I then asked how many could see God permeating themselves. Again, all the youth had to admit that they couldn’t see God permeating themselves.

I then continued—practically speaking God ‘s omnipresence is a very subtle form of consciousness, too subtle for

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami speaking during MTNA’s Nallur Festival

The Murugan Temple of North America is a Traditional Saivite Hindu Temple. It has a floor area of 7000 square feet, with main Sannidhi for Murugan (Karttikeya) and four smaller Sannidhis for Vinayaka (Ganesha), Siva, Meenakshi and

Palani Aandavar. We also have an auditorium that is available for community use.

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most of us to experience unless we are quite skilled in meditation. Here’s an analogy with other objects that are difficult to see. If we want to see a distant galaxy, we can go to an observatory and use a powerful telescope. To see into the

nucleus of a cell, we can go to a laboratory and use an electron microscope. Similarly to see God, there is also a place we can go. It is, of course, the temple and there we can experience God through the sanctified murti. Temples—and especially the murtis within them—have this unique quality because they are an especially sacred place for three reasons: construction, consecration and continuous daily worship.

Hereditary temple architects, known as sthapatis, are commissioned to design and construct the temple according to certain rules laid down in scripture. The rules govern what shrines are included in the temple, the shrines location and the overall dimensions of the temple. Consecration occurs through the powerful ceremony of kumbhabhishekam which involves a large number of priests performing elaborate ceremonies for days on end. Then begins the schedule of daily pujas that are held thereafter conducted by professional priests. The pujas sustain and gradually increase the sanctity set in motion at the kumbhabhishekam. In these three ways, the temple and the murtis within them are sanctified.

Gurudeva Visions Murugan

In speaking at kumbhabhishekams and other temple gatherings, I always share many of Gurudeva’s insights into the inner functioning of the temple as a sacred environ where God and the Gods can bless devotees through the sanctified murthis. One point always peaks the interest of the audience, which is when we share some of Gurudeva's visions of Lord Subramanian and other Deities.

Gurudeva had many visions of Lord Subramanian, also known as Murugan. One story has to do with the founding of our Kadavul Hindu temple in Hawaii in 1973. A large Nataraja bronze had recently arrived from India and Gurudeva was wondering in which part of the building to install the Nataraja as the central Deity for a new monastery temple. That night in a vision, Lord Murugan came and struck His Vel three times on the front steps of the building indicating where the Nataraja Deity was to be placed as well as giving spiritual energy to that spot. We placed the Nataraja there the next day and worship began. The front entrance to the building became a Siva temple and ever since to enter the building we use the side entrances.

You can now contribute to our Temple and fill-out your donation forms on-line at www.murugantemple.org

Kavadi and Pal Kudam procession around the Murugan Temple pauses to view Kavadi dancers (not seen in this picture)

On many other occasions, Gurudeva would casually mention that he had a vision of Lord Murugan the previous night in which they were flying through akasa, or inner space, on their sides next to one another. Gurudeva named a book we hope to produce one day on Lord Murugan “Flying with Murugan” because of these frequent visions.

Of course, Gurudeva was not unique in having visions of Lord Murugan. In ancient times such great saints as Arunagirinathar had visions of Lord Murugan and wrote of his experiences in his devotional poems such as in Kandar Anubhuti. Swami Sivananada , Divine Life Society Founder, wrote an excellent description of this work. “The term Kandaranubhuti is derived from Kandar and Anubhuti. ‘Kandar’ in Tamil is ‘Skanda’ in Sanskrit. ‘Anubhuti’ means ‘becoming one with’, or ‘Experience.’ Hence Kandaranubhuti means to become one with Skanda and denotes God-Experience. This is a work sung by Saint Arunagirinathar as a result of his God-Experience or ‘Kandar Anubhuti’, which also directs others to that Experience. It is the experience of the Saint given expression to in such powerful words that when it is repeated by others, it is capable of bringing the same experience in them, in due course. Such is the glory of the work.” A sample verse reads:

“Lord Murugan, wielder of the vel, whose form shines like the crimson sky! On that day you revealed to me the unique divine experience. Having it and experiencing it is the only way to understand it. Is it something to talk about? How can it be told to someone else?”

Gurudeva also had many visions of Lord Ganesha and shared some of his mystical perspectives and experiences of Ganapati in his book Loving Ganesha: "There are a great many liberal Hindus and/or Western-influenced Hindus who don't think of Ganesha as a real being. To them He is a symbol, a superstition, a way of explaining philosophy to children and the uneducated. But this has not been my experience of our loving Lord. I have seen Him with my own eye. He has come to me in visions several times and convinced my lower mind of His reality."

Gurudeva also experienced a number of visions of God Siva but certainly the most powerful occurred in February 15, 1975, at our Hawaii monastery. Gurudeva described it: “One early morning, before dawn, a three-fold vision of Lord Siva came to me. First, I beheld Lord Siva walking in a valley, then I saw His face peering into mine, then He was seated on a large stone, His reddish golden hair flowing down His back.

After Gurudeva Visions

After telling about Gurudeva’s visions, I always mention two other stories, the first about pilgrims to India and the second about the milk miracle.

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami once again presided over Murugan Temple’s Annual Nallur Festival

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We have arranged group pilgrimages to India since 1969, and some pilgrims on various programs had life-changing visions of Lord Vinayaga, as well as other Deities. Such visions, born of the intensity of pilgrimage and inner striving, would often come in the form of the stone or bronze murti moving and smiling at them, or turning into an animated, human-like figure. Some devotees, with their eyes closed, inwardly saw the Deity's face, as real as any living being. I remember a particularly powerful vision of Lord Ganesha where the devotee saw Lord Ganesha walk out of the shrine and come up to him and bless him and then return to the shrine. The man’s faith in Lord Ganesha definitely strengthened after that experience!

Though few have had such visions, in the year 1995 hundreds of thousands of Hindus experienced first hand the widely publicized milk miracle in temples around the world, watching as devotees offered milk to murtis of Lord Ganapati, who actually drank the milk as world media and cameras recorded the remarkable happening. This surely increased many people's faith in the reality of Lord Ganesha and the other Gods as well.

Energy

Though occasionally a devotee may have a vision of Lord Murugan or other Deity, the more common way we experience the Gods is as an uplifting, peaceful, divine energy, or sakti, that radiates out from the image. These blessings of the Deity are called saannidhyam and refer to the radiance and blessed presence of shakti in and around a temple. In some of Gurudeva’s writing he also refers to these blessings as the darshan of the Deity. It is easiest to feel their blessings at the high point of the puja when the flame is held high and the bells ring the loudest. Let me share a story on this. I know of one grandmother who when she brings her grandson to the temple, who is about six years old, takes him outside to walk as the puja is so long. But she mentions they need to get back for the high point because that is when the Deity comes and blesses us.

Analogy with Sun’s Rays

Let me share an analogy with experiencing the sun. If we go outside on a sunny day and close our eyes we can feel the sun’s rays on our skin without seeing the sun in the sky and in that way experience the sun.

This is similar to what happens in the temple. Our inner or spiritual eye, the third eye, is not open so we don’t see the Deity. However, we can feel in our nervous system the spiritual energy that radiates out from the murti and in that way experience the Deity.

From Loving Ganesha

Gurudeva shares an insightful description of this process in his book “Loving Ganesha.” “There are five great shaktis of Lord Ganesha, as He Himself explained. Their positive vibratory rates can be felt through your astral and physical body and should always be with you. "What is this shakti?" you may be wondering. It is being in the presence of Divinity. All holy men and women emanate all of these shaktis, and you can, too, some stronger than others. Shakti is divine radiation from the Third World, causal plane, through the Second World, astral plane, into the First, physical plane. The astral body is in the Second World and lives inside the physical body. It is through the astral body that shakti is felt. The shakti comes from the Third World and permeates the astral body in the Second World. This is why the physical body sometimes seems to feel "filled up" with shakti from deep within, permeating out to the inside of our skin. Deeply awakened souls become so filled with the shakti of the Divine that it permeates as cosmic rays out through the skin to the perimeter of the aura, the colorful film of light that surrounds the body. It is felt by other people and attributed as a personal darshana.”

Kadavul Kumbhabhishekam Experience

We had an interesting experience regarding the shakti of the Deity I’d like to share. At our Hawaii monastery we have a temple to Lord Nataraja that was founded in 1973. Following tradition, twelve years later in 1985 we had a kumbhabhishekam, or reconsecration ceremony. The priest took the power of the murtis into the kumbhas and placed them in a tent under a nearby tree. The change was dramatic. The temple that had felt like a holy place a few hours before now felt like an empty warehouse. There was no sense of sanctity at all left in the building. The priest had removed it and placed it I the kumbhas which were now under the tent. This experience impressed me deeply as to what the special blessing, energy, shakti, saannidhyam, darshan of the Deity, that is usually present in the Hindu temple feels like and how blessed we are to be in its presence.

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Benefits

One of the unique aspects of Gurudeva’s descriptions of the Hindu temple are his insights into the mysticism of the temple, specifically how the three worlds work together in the temple, the ray of the temple, and its force field, all of which were quite visible to his inner sight. In this section of our talk on the temple we will first look in more depth at the temple’s inner ray and then at how the power of the inner worlds channeled through this ray can benefit the devotees.

If you could view the temple from the inner worlds, you would see a brilliant ray coming from the Third World, or world of the Gods, right into the temple on the physical plane. This ray allows communication similar to a live video conference. The priest opens the connection by performing puja. When the puja is performed with loving devotion, the ray becomes strong and inner doors open from God’s world to ours; the angelic helpers, called devas, hover around and through the temple, and blessings pour out to the devotees. The desire of the devotees present to be blessed also strengthens this

Ten Practical Suggestions for Obtaining Blessings from Visiting a Temple From Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami’s Talk

Sometimes I am asked by devotees, “What should I do to obtain the maximum blessings from my visits to the temple, to best feel and be benefited by the shakti of the Deity?” As a comprehensive answer to this question, I developed a list of ten practical sugges-tions.

1. Attend a puja at the temple at least once a week. This allows us to experience the blessings of God and the Gods on a regular basis and helps keep us pure, as well as strong, in our religious commitments.

2. Have special traditional Hindu clothing that you only wear to the temple. Simply wearing this elegant attire helps put you in a religious mood. Of course, the children should also have their own traditional outfits for the temple.

3. Make your travel to the temple a religious time. Don’t allow yourself to focus on problems at home, work or school. Don’t think or talk about politics or business. Instead, play religious music, bhajans or Sanskrit chanting on the car’s audio system. Tell the children uplifting stories. This centers the family and helps them arrive at the temple in a religious frame of mind, making every-one more attentive to the sacred ceremonies.

4. Bring an offering. Ideally, bring a garland or even a single flower or fresh fruit for each shrine at which you are going to worship. Each act of giving opens you to the blessings of the Deity. When we give first, we increase our receptivity. Therefore, never visit the temple empty-handed.

5. Put as much time and prana into the offering as possible. Prana is the energy that exudes from your hands. Buying a garland at the store is good, but making it with your own hands is even better. When the garland, charged with your prana, is placed on the Deity, it is as if you had touched the Deity. This creates a closeness. It is as if you had walked into the sanctum and given the Deity a hug, which, of course, no one is allowed to do!

6. During the puja, keep focused on the murti and the priest’s chanting. Pay attention; don’t let the mind wander. When singing bhajans, keep focused on the meaning of the words. Even if you don’t know the meaning of every word, it is good to have a gen-eral idea of what the priest is chanting and what the bhajan means. The importance of concentration is illustrated in this analogy. Most everyone has a favorite music which if they listen to uplifts them. However, if the music is playing and the person is thinking about something else, the music will not uplift the person. Clearly one needs to pay attention to it for the upliftment to occur. Attending puja works the same way. If we pay attention, we receive the Deity’s blessings and feel uplifted and experience an inner happiness. If we do not pay attention, then this does not occur.

7. After the puja, don’t rush away. Rather, stay, sit. Meditate awhile and bask in the shakti, the blessings radiating out through the murti to the devotees. If one of your spiritual disciplines is to perform japa, this is also an ideal time for your mantra chanting.

8. You can bring some of the religious atmosphere of the temple home with you by simply lighting an oil lamp in your shrine room when you return from the temple. This sacred act brings devas who were at the temple right into the home shrine room, where, from the inner world, they can bless all family members and strengthen the religious force field of the home. This is one of my guru’s special insights into the mysticism of temple worship.

9. The shakti of the Deity is stronger on some days than others. Attending the temple on the strong days is helpful in attuning one-self to the shakti. For example, there is a stronger shakti on yearly festival days such as Ganesha Chaturthi for Lord Ganesha. These days are determined by the ancient science of astrology, maximized for their spiritual energies.

10. Taking a vrata, vow, for a festival is helpful in intensifying your worship. A typical vrata is to fast during the day, attend the tem-ple festival ceremonies in the evening and only afterwards have a meal.

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process. The working together of the three worlds is clearly a central element in Hinduism. Gurudeva described it as follows: “Religion is the harmonious working together of the three worlds, and this harmony can be created through temple worship, wherein the beings of all three worlds can communicate.”

A Hindu temple’s devonic rays have the power to benefit us in three ways:

1. transform the course of karma,

2. open inner doors to new opportunities,

3. assuage long-held hurts

The first benefit mentioned of temple worship is to transform the course of karma. Here is a quote from Gurudeva describing this process: "Darshan coming from the great temples of our Gods can change the patterns of karma dating back many past lives clearing and clarifying conditions that were created hundreds of years ago and are but seeds now, waiting to manifest in the future. Through the grace of the Gods, those seeds can be removed if the manifestation in the future would not enhance the evolution of the soul."

When we talk about our karma quite often the idea that we can’t change our karma is presented, “What can I do, it’s my karma.” However, the idea that Gurudeva is sharing here is that intense blessings of the Deity received at the temple can both lessen or mitigate a negative karma as well as remove it altogether.

An example that impressed me a number of years ago was that individuals who went on some of our pilgrimages to India and Sri Lanka came back a somewhat different person. They fit into life in an upgraded way. Why? It was because some of their karma had been removed by the blessings received at the ancient and powerful temples at which they had worshiped during their pilgrimage.

Temple worship’s second benefit is to open inner doors to new opportunities. This process takes place because through

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami witness Ganapati Homam

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attending the puja our energies are lifted up and our higher chakras are temporarily more active. This can give us insights into new possibilities that we would not have otherwise have had.

Let me share with you a story from a young woman in Canada illustrating this benefit. She states: “While I was going to University it was a general practice of mine to vow to Lord Ganesha to complete a certain religious task for a specific duration of time and ask for blessings and help with exams and school work. For example, I would often vow to attend puja at the Temple every day for a week straight and pray for Ganesha’s help to do well on my exams.

During the last year of my degree, I was facing a very important interview for entrance into an internship program. Without acceptance into an internship program, I could not receive the professional designation of "Registered Dietitian," and would not have achieved the goal of four years of university studying. The process was highly competitive, and as it turned out only 1 in 8 students in my class were admitted into the internship program.

As the interview drew near, I went to the Temple and sat and prayed to Lord Ganesha. I told Him that I would make coming to see Him daily a priority in my life for a minimum two weeks and as long as I could after that, and prayed for Him to remove any obstacles blocking my path from having a successful interview and being accepted into the internship program.

The next day the routine began, I woke up early in the morning and went to the Temple for the early morning puja. Only after my attendance at the puja would the rest of my day begin. This routine continued, and the day of the interview drew near.

On the day of the interview, I was getting ready and reviewing some possible interview questions my family and I had prepared. I remember that I was brushing my teeth when 3 different interview questions just entered my mind. It wasn't like the questions had popped into my mind, or that they came up suddenly like a bolt of lighting. It was more like they were there, just like I knew what my name was.

The interview questions were somewhat unusual and a little complicated to answer, so I mentally prepared answers to them as I drove to the interview.

As it turned out, I was asked all three questions during the interview. They were asked in exactly the same way they came to me. Thanks to Lord Ganesha, I had already prepared my answers and was easily able to handle three tough interview questions and finish the interview successfully. That night I

went to the Temple and thanked Lord Ganesha and the devas for helping me. A few months later I was accepted into the internship program.” End of story.

A third and easily understood benefit of temple worship is to assuage long-held hurts. You can take problems to the temple and lay them at the feet of the Deity and later leave feeling uplifted, hardly remembering what was bothering you. The blessings of the Deity have taken the problem out of our mind entirely, like washing a stain out of clothing. In a recent Publisher’s Desk opinion piece in Hinduism Today, I shared how any emotional problem such as depression might be alleviated through temple worship. The article said: “We can go to the temple and place our problems at the feet of the Deity. We bring offerings, talk to the Deity about our unhappiness and go through a deep, inner process, just as if we were talking to a person in this physical world. But we receive blessings from the Deity, if we open ourselves in the right way. A force is awakened which you don’t get from a person—a blast of divine energy that helps remove the problem. Sometimes, if it works out well, you may go away not even remembering what the problem was. That’s sign of success.”

When it comes to emotional disturbances, certainly a common event is for married couples to freely dump their emotional problems on one another. It’s as if their marriage license is taken as a license to burden one another with the emotional issues they had during the day. For example, husband and wife meet at home at the end of the day and immediately burden one another with what is upsetting them hoping this will somehow make them feel better. There is an option which is the one we just mentioned of taking your emotional problems to the Deity. Go to the temple or the home shrine and talk these emotional issues through with the Deity, pray, and perhaps the emotional disturbances can be resolved without your spouse even needing to know about them.

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Murugan Temple Announcements Please contact the Temple Manager as far in advance as possible for all bookings including outside services, special

abeshekam, and for scheduling the Temple Auditorium.

If you have a suggestion or an idea for a fundraising, cultural, or religious event on behalf of MTNA, please contact: For Fundraising events: FundraisingCte@murugantemple.org For Religious events: ReligiousCte@murugantemple.org For Cultural events: CulturalCte@murugantemple.org

Tamil and Religious Classes For Children The Murugan Temple offers Tamil, Bajan, and Religious classes for children. Classes on Sundays from 10:30AM -

12:00 noon. Classes include a short lesson on Hatha Yoga. Please call Jana Kesavan at 410-747-0019 for more information.

Summary

In Hinduism there are a number of ways to experience the Deity, to see God. This talk has focused on the theistic or devotional way. We can come to the temple and open ourselves to the blessings of the Deity and be benefited in a

number of ways. Success at this practice is not automatic but rather requires feeling some devotion for the Deity and concentrating or paying attention to the ceremony.

In concluding this topic, it is good to state that knowing that the Deities are real beings and that the purpose of going to the temple is to experience their blessings is what transforms the temple from a cultural hall to a truly sacred place.

Thank you for your attention. For those interested in learning more about this topic, many portions of our talk today were drawn from our book “What is Hinduism?” Chapter Twenty-Five: “Visiting a Hindu Temple: A Guide to the Inner and Outer Workings of Hindu Places of Worship.”

Published with permission of Himalayan Academy Press. This talk was summarized in the October—December edition of Murugan Temple of North America’s SEVAL Newsletter. You can read the newsletter at www.murugantemple.org.