Tanubhrt.This.Side

There are some places that you visit right, some places that just change something in you, some things that in some ways redefine your entire perspective or sometimes just begin that change for you. I think there is an Aura that Shiva temples bring with themselves, they just change the way things are for me.

It was a usual day for me, working from home, when I started to have lot of thoughts, lots of them, and while I was tossing here and there around in my head, I felt the urge to just move out. I don’t know why but this has become a common urge with me, the urge to just move out, well, probably as my therapist tells, the impulses. Either ways !

I went to the Nandhi temple in Bangalore and honestly my mind became numb. I was at peace at this temple, some part of me went crying and some part of me at peace. On reaching the temple, we have two choices, we can go either to the Ganesha temple first or to the Nandhi temple. I chose the later one. To reach the temple, there are few staircases, but I was mesmerised by the huge thorns at the beginning of the stairs, seemed like we are entering the house of the bull. When I reached the temple, the architecture is same as other temples, rather other Hindu temples. Passage where common people stay, and then a huge room for Nandhi! When I say huge, it is not just human size huge, hall size huge! Huge!

When I saw the Nandhi in a room I went numb! Probably because of Shiva energy or my mind just being in awe of Nandhi, but I felt a shift in my body, as if I am in a different dimension. When I entered the temple, usually although I never get the urge to touch the feet of the pandit, but this time for some reasons, I did that. And you know if you are from North India, most times when we touch feet of pandits, it does not even feel as if they are giving any “ashirwad”, but the pandit in this temple was different. For a second, I felt he himself was in a state of shock, do people still touch the feet of people, in a state of shock, is it still possible that people are not just coming here for taking a photo with Nandhi, so when I did touched his feet, he gave me a beautiful ashirwad. Probably that is where began my experience in the room, the fact that I did not go there, to just blog about it, but to visit Nandhi. I have come to a belief that this is what travelling is about, I mean surely we are living in content economy, but when you are going to see a place, or when you are going to visit a temple, it should be more like visiting that place, like how we visit a person.

To not just record everything with that person/place, but to just talk and meet that person. It is the things that you see around that place, the writings on the wall, that makes the place more familiar to you, rather that is what makes the place a part of you and that is what we really are for, right?

When I visited the Nandhi temple, I spent a lot of time in the room. The pandit told me that when you go round a temple or a murti, it is either 3 or 5 or 7 or 11 times. It was a numbing experience to be honest! My mind had no other thought than the fact that I was circling around Nandhi! After some time I came out and hugged a tree. Just after coming out of the main temple, I thought of looking around in the premise when I saw a tree! Something about that tree, that just pulled me towards it. When I hugged it, I knew in that moment that, that I have let go of all my negative energies, all the negative thoughts, all of this and that! I know everyone has a different relation with a tree, for me, tree signifies my grand mother. Hugging a tree, going to meet a tree or even having simple conversations with tree, feel like as if I am talking to my grand mother. Like before even telling it already knew!

Coming out of the main entrance of the Nandhi temple you will find a huge tree, around which are lot of Murtis of Snakes, probably signifying Shiva. Just sit near the tree for some time, and try to meditate on the name of Shiva, pure bliss it is! As you come downwards, towards the exit, there are some more temples, one of Hanuman, I think one for Shiv and then there is one for a Devi. There is also a temple where they say that the rock is in the form Ganesha and no one has cut it in that form, it was and was present in that place, because of which people come over and pray. There is also a beautiful temple dedicated to Valmiki, the writer of Ramayana!

In the vicinity of the same temple, there is a big temple of Ganesha as well. But as they say, it is a game of energy! I feel that for sure! The temple has a huge Ganesha temple, but I don’t know, I mean there were lot of transactions happening in that temple, the pandit was asking for money in exchange of abhishekam, and when there is transaction in a temple, I feel people visit the temple out of fear, and not to just meet the God or be in the energy or Aura of the God. So, although I think the temple is beautiful, for me what stood out was the time I spent at the Nandhi temple.

Amore,

Avantika