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Gurudeva Padapuja

Recently we celebrated our monthly chitra puja in honor of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, his monks and local members all gathered in Kadavul temple for an early morning padapuja to Gurudeva's granite paduka. Natyam Rajanatha and Natyam Jayanatha performed the abhishekam as other monks chanted Sri Rudram.

Read About Gurudeva in The Guru Chronicles. Download it here
Here's an excerpt:

Marching Through Sri Lanka and South India
The 1982 Indian Odyssey and the all-island tour of Sri Lanka that followed
had no precedent in history. No one, not even S. Shanmugasundaram,
the liason officer for the Church in Sri Lanka who had done the
groundwork for the journey, had an inkling of the overall magnitude of
the receptions that awaited Guru deva there.
It was unprecedented precisely because religious followings in Asia
remain exclusive, and the followers of one teacher or guru do not attend
the lectures of another. When a Rama krishna swami travels, for example,
his audience is, for the most part, Ramakrishna Mission members, plus a
few uncommitted seekers. But here was a rare soul, a guru, not from India,
but from the Wild West, from America, who had no local following and
posed no threat to any movement. After all, he would soon return to his
land and not draw devotees away from the local ashrams. Everyone was,
therefore, free to attend his talks, and they did in numbers that had not
been seen since the legendary saints of yore walked these same lanes to
speak similar thoughts to devotees centuries before.
In this remote part of the world, the village was still the center of life;
and when Guru deva rode through a village, by car or carriage, it came
alive. Thousands of Saivites lined the lanes of Alaveddy, Kopay, Karainagar,
Batticaloa, Hatton, Kokuvil and elsewhere to honor and revere the satguru
and affectionately greet the Saiva pilgrims from the West. A holiday
was declared in Kilinochchi so all the school children of the district could
join in the parade, which wound a full sixteen miles through the region
and took an entire day.
From 9am to 5pm Guru deva was seated on a tall chariot made for the
occasion, drawn through the crowded streets by hundreds of men pulling
two long, stout ropes. At the gate to each family compound, typically
just off the road, nearly every household had set up an elaborately decorated
greeting altar, with brass oil lamps called kuttuvilakku and a kumbha.
Standing around the altar, the entire family (often three generations)
would greet the tall, white-haired, orange-robed, rudraksha-bedecked
satguru with flowers, rosewater, holy ash and arati.
For most, he simply passed by and they rushed forward to throw their
garland into his hands. Now and again, the procession halted, and Gurudeva
got down, approached the family's altar and allowed them to pass
the lighted lamp before him, to pour water on his dusty feet, place the
red pottu on his forehead and garland him. He looked like Siva Himself,
they whispered to one another, so divine, so full of light and love. For
these families, stories would echo for generations.


2 Responses to “Gurudeva Padapuja”

  1. Rajendra Giri says:

    Jai Gurudeva!

  2. Kumaran Thangarajah 28 Dec 2016 says:

    When Gurudeva visited Melbourne, Australia in the early nineties, some of us were fortunate to personally receive Pada Diksha from Gurudeva at Pundit Navaratnam’s place. Gurudeva was taken in procession in Melbourne as well.
    It was an unforgettable experience.
    Satguru Bodhinata Veylanswami visited Melbourne a few months back as well.Paramaguru Siva Yogar Swamigal’sportrait, now stands right opposite the Clock Tower in Jaffna Sri Lanka Ceylon in the precinct of the restored Yarl Thanga Chakra Yoga Mahalakshmi Kovil
    AUM Namashivaya
    Anbe Shivam

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