Divine Peceptions

One day I went to Chilkur. It was a small village near Hyderabad in South India.There is a temple for Lord Balaji (Sri Venkateswara) at which the deity is worshipped (It is world famous in the sense that NRIs (Non resident Indians, as well as resident Indians seeking VISAs to western countries (including those in Middle East and Far east) pray in great numbers). During the visiting hours the Temple administrators announce in loud speakers that the devotees may not to keep their eyes closed in the sanctum sanctorum when seeing the deity. I understood this is after all to enable the devotees to have the maximum opportunity and view the Deity in full, and also for longer duration in the given time. However as I believe Hindu worshippers close their eyes while saying their prayers or offering pranams (obeisance) to the Lord. That is they close their eyes, mind and heart and as such focus all their full attention on the Paramatma and to submit to him in all their humility. Of course, it is my interpretation to the theory of closing of eyes in prayers. When Chilkur administrators suggest the worshippers should keep their eyes open they are only suggesting an alternative approach to the Darshan and nothing else. That is fine by me, because it is said in good faith for the sake of faith.Sometime ago, I also visited Tirupati where the Main Deity of Balaji (Sri Venkateswara) is worshipped by millions of people everyday right from the small hours of the day till well past midnight. There I had a ‘lightening moment’ of quick Darshan of the Lord. Then I had hardly enough time to open my eyes or even my ‘mano netras’, the inner eye, to see the image of god clearly and offer my prayers or obeisance. Also the temple administrators there had increased the distance from the Lord to the viewing place i.e. the first entrance to the sanctum sanctorum. Usually the devotees are allowed to the inner most entrance near the deity.. On that day it was just permitted to a longer distance, apparently with an idea to cut down on the waiting time for the rest of those in the queues, those million devotees waiting in large numbers behind me waiting for hours together (days on some days) to get access to the Lord's threshold.Once I came out of the temple after Darshan, I stopped by along the pavement shops displaying pictures of the Lord. I wanted to stare at the picture of the Lord in them closely in order to let me go through my mind and check for myself what exactly I had seen of the Lord in the Sanctum Sanctorum a little while ago in the temple. I wanted to relive the experience of eternal bliss and thrill.After alighting from the Lord’s Seven Hills, I reached my hotel room in the down hills, that is the Tirupati Town and checked into my Hotel. When I sat on my hotel bed the real world of 'deities’ started beaming from the TV and of course I could stare at them without any interruption or blinking of eyes. They are those actors, actresses, sports stars,(including cricketers, mentioned separately as they are a breed apart in the eyes of Governments) and Politicians.Unlike seeing the objects, we stare at visuals be they in TVs and Computer monitors, with lesser blinking of eyelids per minute. That is too bad for our eyes and mind. Also we tend to keep our eyes open for longer periods in times of crises.For that matter any image or visual of a thing travels to the brain and get registered there and a reaction from our mind ensue. That also after it is duly interpreted of what we saw. It takes only milliseconds, which are fractions of a second. If the interpretation goes wrong the reaction results into a wrong or opposite effect, when the picture is masked in our mind. Some people see objects and describe them differently, this happens with chronic alcoholics and drug addicts. Yet others, no doubt, see things and when they start show it to others as was happening to them at the time, the image disappears altogether when others try to see them. Some get images in broken streams i.e. in fits and starts. For example you can find them opening the taps in their bathrooms and do not close even after the bucket is full. In case they are asked why it was so, they say, they had just seen the water only 6 inches deep and never knew when it was full. These people get some cut images like we see them on You tube or VCDs on our systems, not getting the full stream continuously in one go. Our perception of time and images in series of consciousness, like a river. It is a continuous flow. We also find people tell some catastrophic accidents happened before their eyes. When asked to describe them they say they saw them in slow motion and they recount the story as if in slow motion. That was when you ask them right after their shock. I don’t know how it could that be they see the pictures like in slow motion movie.So I wish noting bad should happen to us to make us recall such moments of agony. Let our eyes and mind be filled only with the images of glory of the Lord and his Godly bliss, after seeing Him with our own eyes keeping them wide open and inner mind closed to focus on Him to thank.Let Almighty shower his blessing in pure and simple form, oozing kindness and sympathy on all of us.