Trip to Mantralayam

We started off to Mantralayam on the Friday night - 26th June. Although the train started from Chennai on time, the train reached slightly late to Mantralayam Road station at around 11:30AM. We were slightly worried that we might miss out on the morning darshan. We immediately hired the auto in the railway station and went directly to mutt office.

For the last many years in which I have been travelling to Mantralayam almost twice an year, I have not been successful in getting a room in the mutt choultries. But this time fortunately, owing to Rayar's grace, we were successful in getting the choultry from the mutt itself as one of the rooms were vacant. We felt happy that our contributions are going back in some way to Rayar itself.

After checking into the room and having a quick nap, we rushed to the temple to have the darshan. Fortunately, it was not late and neither was there so much crowd in front of the Brindavanam. This meant that we had more time at our disposal to have darshan in front of the Brindavanam. We did have an excellent darshan for a satisfactory period of time and then went to have the thirtha prasadam.

After resting for an hour, we hired an auto at around 5:00PM for a total of Rs.250 to go Pikshalaya and Panchamukhi to have darshans there. The road to Pikshalaya was very bad but we just tolerated this just thinking about the bliss in Rayar's brindavanam in Pikshalaya on the banks of Tungabadra river. On this side, you can see the river in much force as compared to the side of Mantralayam. The sound that the river was creating on this river side through its flow was very nice to hear through our ears and we just forgot ourselves in that surroundings thinking about how fortunate the soul of Appanacharya should have been in spending such a long time with Rayar on this place and also hosting Rayar in his own house in Pikshalaya. After spending close to half an hour in this place, the driver reminded that it was time to go to Panchamukhi to have our darshan there as the power gets cut in those places when it gets dark outside.

We had a quick darshan in Panchmukhi where for the first time, we saw the lights installed in the cave where Panchamukhi anjaneya had given darshan to Rayar. Previously it used to be pretty dark inside with only the deepa light by the purohit illuminating the place. We came back to Mantralayam just in time at around 7:45PM in the night for the rathotsam ready to be started. After having a good darshan of Prahlad utsavar taken around the prakara in different chariots, we went inside near to the brindavanam again just at the right time for the aacharyar to do the final mangalarthi in the day. We were very thankful to Rayar obviously for making sure that we go to right strategic places to have his holy darshan through the day today.

The next day, Sunday 27-Jun, I woke up early to go to Tungabadra river for having my bath at around 3:30AM. After finding a good spot in which the river was flowing through in correct speed, I had a good bath and started doing my nithya anushtanams... It felt so peaceful out there for a long time that I obviously didn't have the mind to get out of that place and come back to the room. But, as it is to be expected, as the sun slowly started making its presence, more people started coming thereby disrupting the peacefulness of that place.

We went to the Brindavanam at around 7:00AM for the nirmalya darshan and subsequently the panchamrutha abhisheka to Hanuman and to the Brindavanam. Again, by HIS grace, we were standing in a strategic position to have a good darshan. After this, we went off in pradakshina a couple of times and also had darshan a couple of times. We also kept the property papers (back dated documents) in front of the brindavanam after mentioning to the aachar what these documents are for and sought HIS blessings. When the entire alankara was done to the Brindavanam, again, it was time for the mangal arthi to be performed and we had a good darshan of the same. After this, we had thirtha prasadam and then proceeded towards the room to check out and leave for the station to board the train at 3:30PM.

At the end of the trip, there was a calmness in the mind, having had such a close darshan of him , which was not there at the time that we started the trip. This again proved the power of rayar's brindavanam and what its darshan can bring to a mind in distress... We are more confident that things will get sorted now sooner than later....