I have a very close relative who does that. She’s one of the most intelligent person I have ever known in this life.
So, seeing her eyes tearing every time she went to a certain temples (especially Tirupati) got me thinking
So as usual, I got into introspection mode to recollect when had I cried in my life (I am one of the guys who of the “Mard ko dard nahi hota” types).
I have to give you some history, so please bear with me (if you want to skip it you can go to the paragraph that’s in BOLD).
Most of my formative years, I lived in Kanpur, UP. I used to be the odd one out in my school. The only TAMBRAM (TAMIL BRAHMIN) or probably the only south Indian in my entire school – I felt I was a pioneer of sorts in many ways introducing my class mates to tirupati balaji, idli, dosa, upma & pongal. Most of lunch breaks – my lunch box would get emptied by my class mates
But I was the odd one out and I was bullied. Also adding to that I used to flunk in Hindi regularly. Thing is I had studied GUJARATI in my 1st & 2nd standard (was in Baroda then). Then in the 3rd I was in Kanpur where I had to write essays in Hindi. There was this hindi teacher SARITHA MAAM (wife of an industrialist who was working as a teacher just for the heck of it), I was confused with the HINDI GUJARATI scripts initially. But I worked super hard to overcome the impediment. But no matter how hard I worked I would always flunk even in the unit tests. It was not just that, it was also humiliation in the class on a daily basis. It was as if this lady had something against me which I could not lay my fingers on. I felt cornered and as an outcast. (My parents never told me the social standing of TAMBRAMS). At one point in time the humiliation got so bad that t I started missing my school bus in order to avoid her. That’s when my dad got involved only to find out that she wanted me to come to her for tuition to her house after school. I was super LOW IN CONFIDENCE but I NEVER CRIED
I fractured my arm, because another trying-to-be-a-bully classmate of mine, I NEVER CRIED & I braved 2 hrs of a ride back home in the school bus. Its only when my mother told me that I might have broken my hand that I cried (cause I thought it would never get fixed again ;))
Then again I got bullied by another guy (a tall sardar – before you jump on me this is was an odd looser and I absolutely respect sikhism and GURU NANAK ji & RAJA RANJIT SINGH ji and the work they have done for the country). That’s when a KARATE CLASS started in the park in front of my house and I had my friends joining it. I was amused by it and would spend quite sometime looking at how they trained. That’s when my father suggested I should go join it.
I did. I would train for 3 hours every evening. I reached till BLUE BELT (then it was 10th boards and I had to let it go). But by that time I was a UP (UTTAR PRADESH) STATE GOLD MEDALIST and a NATIONAL LEVEL BRONZE MEDALIST. Here are some pics
The below pic is from my NATIONAL championship in Agra – the guy who I am fighting is a BROWN Belter from MADHYA PRADESH. The reason he’s has bent away from me is so that he can HIT ME WITH HIS RIGHT LEG. But I hit him on the head before that. WELCOME TO FULL CONTACT KARATE. No gloves, no chest pad, no guard. All we had was a GROINGUARD and thats it. I think it BANNED NOW.
This was the certificate for getting BRONZE MEDAL at NATIONAL LEVEL.
This was a UP STATE level championship where I got GOLD
Mind you these were real fights.
It was like a routine, that I would get one of my ankles / toes or fingers bruised while sparring during practice for these championships.
An auto also ran over my toes before one of these championships. But i NEVER CRIED
The world changed around me. Now I was this bullied mouse who had become the peaceful lion. I also had a fist fight with a bully in school, I did land him a few kicks and punches (at the expense of tearing my socks) but before we could finish the feud, teachers came and we had to stop the abruptly
I could break 2 bricks at a time.
I had developed a sense of calm confidence in me. I was ready for anything.
Life did throw a lot of spanners – 12th boards was a disaster. Father fell sick. So engineering followed but then I decided to pursue a PhD to redeem myself.
I got through 2 PhD admits – UT Dallas & Syracuse Univ. Back up plan was the MBA (cause it was 2003 and 9/11 was afresh and there were visa issues in the USA).
I got visas too.
But then decided to pursue MBA cause my father was unwell. I lost my father one month into my MBA (in 2003), I was 23 years old. The moment I saw him go inside the electric furnace – I CRIED. It was overwhelming. I think It was genuine
I lost my middle brother 5 years later (in 2008), that’s when I got into astrology. This was an absolute shocker, my cousin who was along with me went into depression and was on anti depressants for 3 months. BUT I NEVER CRIED.
My mother passed away in 2012 – NEVER CRIED (cause I was more prepared spiritually). NEVER CRIED then too.
The next time I cried was in 2013 when I had talking to my would be wife after our families had exchanged horoscopes which matched and our engagement dates got fixed.
I was telling her about my father and suddenly out of the blue I felt this strong presence of him around me and out of the blue it was over. and I CRIED. I was pretty confused about the entire incident for a very long time. I was partly embarrassed and partly confused. I did feel the presence and no one can deny that.
Its only when I read IVY LEAGUE HYPNOTHERAPISTS like Dr Brian Weiss & Michael Newton and Paranormal Filmmaker & Author Richard Martini and his PAGE Hacking The Afterlife I realized what was happening. In his page he consistently talks about how to connect with your deceased loved ones and that it happens. There’s empirical proof of it.
So, essentially when people cry its because they are feeling an EMOTIONAL CONNECT with the deity in the temple.
Your next question will be, how can there be an emotional connect with a deity of stone and that’s where the concept of PRANAPRATISHTHA comes.
PRANA-PRATHISHTHA is the process of AVAHANAM (welcoming) of the deity into the IDOL.
We are all high on western science and western medicine. SO we might not understand it. So here’s some background.
The foundation of western medicine was based on a persian version of SUSHRUTHA SAMHITA. It grew by researching on cadavers (dead bodies). You see any medical college teaching allopathy / western medicine will need cadavers.
Whereas in India, it was a taboo to even go near them let alone cutting them into layers.
Western medicine considered the HUMAN BODY as a single entity. But Indian scriptures consider them to be made up of multiple layers
- Sthoola (voluminous) sharira (physical body) – this encapsulated the SOOKSHMA sharira
- Sookshma (miroscopic) Sharira (subtle body) – this encapsulated the KARANA SHARIRA an was the seat of emotions from all past life’s. SO if someone is perennially angry, it was because of past life emotions this entity was carrying. In hypnotherapy they refer to this as the sub-conscious mind
- KARANA SHARIRA (Causal body) – this encapsulated the ATMA and was the seat of all past life memories. In hypnotherapy they refer to this as the SUPER CONSCIOUS mind.
When a person dies, only the physical body dies, the SOOKSHMA SHARIRA, KARANA SHARIRA & the ATMA go back to PITHRULOKA. That’s the reason we perform funeral rites for 13 days and that’s the reason we observe SHRADDHA PAKSHA.
So If you read Dr Brian Weiss & Michael Newton, you will find there’s empirical proof of life after death. So this does happen.
So how do you explain sooskhma sharira – think of an electromagnet.
What can you see ?
- There’s a battery
- There’s a copper wire and
- There’s a nail
Think about human beings now
- We have a brain that produces electric pulses (its scientifically proven). You can absolutely consider it to be a battery – The Electric Signals That Make the Human Brain Unique
- We have nerves that carry the electric impulses across our body – consider that to be a copper wire
- We are 70% water which is a great conductor of electricity.
So essentially we are living BIO-ELECTROMAGNETS.
The MAGNETIC FIELD that’s produces is whats called the AURA.
The ELECTRICITY that runs through our nerves is the SOOKSHMA SHARIRA.
Like you can’t see ELECTRICITY, you can ONLY EXPERIENCE it. Similarly, you can’t see the SOOKSHMA SHARIRA. You can only EXPERIENCE it.
Think about times when you have heard certain kind of music that give you goosebumps, shivers, jitters, spasms emanating from your spine. that’s your SOOKSHMA SHARIRA. At a very basic level its the tingling /ticklish feeling when your limbs go numb. People would normally say its because of the blood flow. But if you actually notice, the area that’s tingling and has gone numb will be reddish and maybe warm also which means blood is flowing there. Numbness is to do with the nerves, its doesn’t have anything to do with blood flow. Also if the limb is numb,you will not have control over it. Its again a neural issue and not a blood flow issue.
Now that you know that life in the form of SOOKSHMA SHARIRA exists, so when an idol is placed in a temple its consecrated and PRANA-PRATHISHTHA is done. LIFE IS INFUSED into it by the way of AVAHANAM. There’s an AMSA (small portion) of the deity in SOOKSHMA form inside the idol. We know this is possible from stories of PARASHU-RAMA in RAMAYANA, where RAMA was a complete AVATAR of MAHA VISHNU & PARASHU-RAMA was an amsa avatar and they both existed in the same time and age. There’s also stories from MAHABHARATA about KRISHNA LILA Krishna story: Brahma visit to Lord Krishna in Dvaraka!!!
So, the GOD can exist in multiple places at the same time.
So, there are a few lucky people who can CONNECT WITH THE SOOKSHMA FORM of the deity of the temple when they visit one.
Believe me, They are the lucky ones.