Archive for May, 2011

Call for Upadesha

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

When God’s grace descends on us, we are made to take the right action and thereby our lives are transformed. I am one of those who experienced such a transformation when I received the opportunity of taking updesha from Mother Tara Devi on April 14th 1979. Let me narrate this incident.

My father late Gopal Bhatkal had the good fortune of being drawn to Divine Mother Rama Devi in 1975.  After a serious illness, he longed for upadesha  but the time came to him only in April 1979, when the call came from Divine Mother  Sree Tara Devi to devotees from Karnataka desirous of taking Upadesha from Her to gather at Shaktinagar for two weeks. Accordingly my father made plans to undertake the journey.  He suddenly asked me to receive the upadesha along with him.

I was in a dilemma. Though I had never been to Shaktinagar, nor had I met Mother Sree Rama Devi  or Sree Tara Devi  there was a feeling of regret of not having seen Mother Rama Devi. She had attained mahasamadhi  by then. I was not sure if I would be accepted by Mother  Sree Tara Devi.  Hence I decided not to go with father. My father must have been disheartened by my response and even said that I might not get such an opportunity again, but I was firm in my decision.

One night I had a sweet dream. Both me and my father were in our ancestral house in Davangere. The house had a large courtyard with fruit trees. There was a tap outside the house  a little away from the steps leading to the house, for watering  the plants. It was on the steps that I saw Divine Mother  Rama Devi standing. She was wearing a white sari with the orange border. One hand was raised in blessing. She addressed both of us and asked us to wash our feet before coming for upadesha, we washed our feet and then went inside the house after which the dream ended.

I woke up; the dream had made a deep impact on me. I realized that this was a message from Divine Mother She had accepted me as her disciple.  A phone call was made to Mother Sree Tara Devi, would She be willing to accept one more disciple, someone who was brand new to the fold.

Mother approved – after all the call was from Her. I made my first trip to Shaktinagar. After the upadesha ceremony Mother Sree Tara Devi held classes for us on meditation and other aspects of spiritual life.

I have since made several trips to Shaktinagar which I have started realising as my real Home.

It is indeed an honor and a privilege to be Her disciple and to participate in Her mission.

Jai  Mata.

– Amar Bhatkal

LIFTING OF CURTAIN

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

The AVATAR best suited to the present time became a fait-accompli in the advent of the Mother.  When the mind and the body of the human fraternity are not as strong in kaliyuga as they were in previous yugas and as they cannot successfully endure the ordeal of severe austerities and intense penance, the divine power in its infinite mercy has manifested itself in the form of the Mother to protect dharma, to inculcate the sense of duty, to instill the power of truth, to spread the glory of ahimsa and viswa prema in order to make easy the passage to eternal bliss, through grahasthashrama.

No austere penance, no painful ordeals are required of us by the Mother.  She treats the entire humanity as children and has a message for everyone.  The message is universal and comprehensive and is based on eternal principles.  The message is suited to any avocation, religion or school of thought.  It is beneficial and is acceptable in all climes and in all civilization.  A very brief of her precepts is given below:

Devotion to duty (dharma) and its discharge as an offering to God without seeking any reward.

Pathivrathya

Absolute faith in the Guru and complete surrender

Saranagathi

Realization of the illusoriness of the ego and divesting oneself of it.

Keeping away from one’s mind and action from all that is opposed to truth.

Meditation or dhyana for control of mind.

The realization of the atman which the Mother profoundly and repeatedly expounds to the world, is possible only to those, who tread the path of truth, who follow the precepts of duty, who through self-discipline give up pride, whose faith in her is permanent and whose surrender is absolute and whose meditations are pure and steadfast.

To such of us as have been blessed at least with the glimpse of the divine an occasional lifting of the curtain of maya, revealing the truth is possible; but the cloud of maya again might envelope the reality and only ceaseless efforts will lead us on to the ultimate goal.

Let us concentrate on the parabrahman that is Mother.  Let her in samadhi and divine bhavas be ever present in us, and let us seek saranagathi at her lotus feet who will lead us on, in the realization of the atman which all along abides in us and thus let us obtain the atma santhi in this life and the final merger with the paramathman thereafter.

Sri R Ranganathan