This is a story like thing that i wrote now to express everything i felt about the tirupati trip … the trip was beautiful .. dont know whether i used the right words here to express them but the feeling is still very strong inside me …

I had been to Tirupati yesterday for priyanka’s marriage and it was a kind of a perfect experience out there.. It is said that Tirupati is always full of surprises ! I realised that it will make you disbeleive about free will and will teach you life in really weird but obvious ways …

Me, Bals and Demi started off from here on tuesday and just made it for the bus. We didnt have any kind of food ( time constraints as usual hehe 🙂 ) except for a plate of Idli just before leaving .. ok ! a very peaceful bus ride and we landed there by about 3. We had plans to climb up to have the darshan and so we tried for tickets… i havent been to tirupati in a long time and on looking at one of the queue lost hope for getting any darshan .. A sign board near the queue read “Darshan : 12 AM Thursday”. I thought ok ! Venki has screwed us all !

Demi was in no mood to climb up and so he desperately prayed not to get the tickets while bals did otherwise. Very funny situation actually. Then demi noticed that the queue was for the free darshan and sudharshan darshan tickets are near the foothill. we went there and got the tickets aramse 🙂 Best part was that Demi who didnt want to go up, showed us the path to go up. i felt short of words on that !

We started our trek in the cold, biting and inviting atmosphere there. Hungry and wanting to reach the top before 6 in the morning, we started off right away. All you guys know about my leg right … Its freakin fragile right now or that’s what i thought until the minute i started climbing the steps to have the darshan. I was running through the stairs, running like crazy until i felt the toll of the smoker’s lung on my stamina. frantic for air, we stood there, just 200 steps from the ground. I counted 3500 more to go. hmm … You could have guessed how much hope i would have had then. Demi had dizziness then, bals felt like vomiting and i was totally exhausted. We sat there and there was this couple who passed by us, and noticing that all of us were done for, gave us a bottle of water and some fruits. Felt weird on that kind of an act from a total stranger to a totally lost bunch of random guys ..

We walked on, and on, tired and seeing more and more steps losing hope completely. My leg was hurting badly and my back too felt weak because of the stress. But there was something on everybody’s face around us that kept me going. The faith or whatever you want to call that was too very strong to let anyone down in that place. I felt miserable and then i quickly got the enthu to start off again and run against the pain. There was a stage where there were only three more steps to reach a flat area where i could rest or sit but my body and legs was so tired that i couldn’t move from the step i was standing in. I watched not knowing what to do, whether to sit right there or to jump in vain to touch the flat surface and accomplish something worthy. Images flashed, and i said f*** you to myself against all the pain that i felt and peacefully reached the flat place. best part was that i didnt want to rest once i reached there. The aspiration was not willing to quench itself for the measly 3 steps and it kept pushing me until i felt really tired, some 150 steps from where i had started. i felt i was acting foolishly, screwing up my body in the process but it struck me on what is this body worth if the pain, a product of the aspiration cannot be fought against.

We kept walking and we reached the 6th mountain. Its called “The Knee breaker” ! hmmm. well after seeing all that had happened before, this one, a continous monster of about 600 steps felt like a meadow. We just grazed through the way, and made it to the top in no time. Perseverance paid off !

At last we reached Tirumala at around 7 in the morning. Walked to the lodge where the guys were staying and wanted to sleep. the best part was that i couldnt sleep. the excitement, the hunger, the memory of this travel remained, and kept me alive ..

We attended priyanka’s marriage and then went to have darshan. We entered the queue at around 12. There was a sort of rugby match going on in there. People crowding and fighting to get in front of a 60 year old guy to have the darshan first, just before the turn to entrance of inner sanctum. I felt ugly and sick then. Everyone was fighting literally, not that it is something that i am seeing new but then, it suddenly didn’t make sense any more, on why would people want to have darshan first and not wait for an extra minute for having waited for 6 hours ? None of that made sense. Is that precious minute more critical than allowing a 60 year old guy, who endured the wait alongside us also, to pass by first ? Anyway, we finally had the chance to see venki at 5.40. I wanted to pray about so many things, wanted to tell him so many things but when the time came, when the darshan happened, the mind was blank… the eyes saw the image, the mind couldn’t imagine anything else, couldn’t think of anything else, just watched and i came out. and there ends the episode.

very blank now and relaxed than ever before. feeling very free. many of the questions i had have been answered. no guilt, no regret. desires do remain still. waiting to burn them away soon …

As usual when i was pondering about something abstract, one fine point about the nature of mortals struck me. Now what is the body and what is the mind ? A simple yet very complex question to answer, it had been eating away my brains for a long time. What i arrived at was that the body encapsulates or in other words it is the container for the crux that it contains i.e., the mind. Well that explains why the mind cannot exist on its own without the body and why the body nature is dependent on the mind.

Something else very obvious became a fact right then ! Wondering about why i was not able to push my body as much i could with my mind, the truth, the obvious one that had eluded the grasps of this mortal mind became clear. Containers are never flexible ! Well isn’t it true that the container is always the same but it is how much the container carries which makes the difference in every persona ?

Containers aren’t flexible like the mind and only if the body were the independent entity could someone achieve whatever is aspired physically ! Unfortunately both the body and the mind’s strength don’t coexist ! or so it seems … I respect thee who has complete control over both these worlds, on the body and the spirit, on the self and the container. It is all about persona, the unification of all facades, the realisation of the truth by the body on what it is expected to do, the complete harmony and co-existence of the soul and its bag.

Am i referring to the yogi again ? I frankly don’t know what to infer. Why are such abstract concepts so abstract ? Why are such incomprehensible questions not obvious to the versatile mind ? What is missing here ? I am in search for this truth, trying relentlessly with hope and aspiration undying, given fuel by my purifier.

Oh thee supreme purifier, Take me, and burn these facades, Weld them together and gift me with a boon, What penance do i need to take to call upon thee ? Answer me master or this shall never ever be answered.

Personality, the very common word gets me scared because of its varied interpretation according to different perceptions. What is it ? I ask myself sometimes and each time arrive at a different conclusion totally disconnected to the previous paths. Well it seems more like an illusion of the true self to the ambience acting like a facade, covering the good, bad and the worst faces of oneself. It appeals to be the interaction medium to the outside world with the inner self controlling, liberating, exciting and giving many bodily perceivable emotions to the carrier of the self.

‘Know Thyself’ ; I’ve realised how tough that can be ! Trying to understand about oneself, unknowingly we get caught in one of the facades of the true persona which might depict filtered version of the core mental makeup. Well this is most often never realised and we mortals keep beleiving that probing on the facade has led them to the ultimate bliss. Then what is thy true self, you may ask ! I am searching for that answer too and i guess that the only way to do it is to combine your different layers of facades into one single facade which is absolutely transparent to reflect one’s true self. hmm. Well seems possible very theoretically but thinking about it havent the great Yogis achieved this and maintained their impact on the ambience consistent ? There is one beautiful axiom in physics that states that “All that is theoretical may not be practical, but if something is theoretical then it is definitely possible”. How true!

I sense that every entity’s core is made up of heat and the ways of liberating them are either anger or lust. It can be observed that the Yogis expel their heat in either one of these ways but are very stable with respect to all the other emotions. Cab everyone focus on attaining this ? Can the mind be trained to express every emotion as a combination of these two basic emotions ? Well that is what Yoga is all about isn’t ? Focussing and concentrating thy energy into the form desired by the heart.

Call me mad for saying all this and i dont care because you are cursing just another facade in my billion trillion facades. ( I am not a Yogi, Yet! )

There is a madness in your heart, always trying to break free, influencing the weak mind’s thought process ever so steadily and gaining in to obstruct common sense, morality or any other social instincts imbibed into you. It shall corrupt, pollute and shall degrade your very existence if not controlled within the limits. Left freely it grows like a virus in a helpless host, gradually taking over the sanity left in the soul.

It dwells on the weakness of the human nature, the nature to satisfy hunger and to gain pleasure, the basic impulse that drives you crazy, on seeing the outward manifest of a variant, not very different from thyself. Lives have been spoilt, minds have been corrupted, outlook changed for the mere feel of flesh for a fraction of your existence. The wraith inside everyone sleeps but wakes up by even the slightest rush of adrenaline for want of flesh, grows into an undying monster, you feeding it with hopes now and then and it reciprocates by giving you misery, sheer misery. The frustration shall mount, torment you and will become the sole bane of your existence soon.

Does this all revolve around the single momentary joy of pleasure due to the release of ugliness from the soul bag ? It takes just a moment of sane thought to comprehend that the guilt of it shall linger in thy heart for aeons ! Such a thought in a weak mind could have made it stronger, not making it fall for a parasitic feeling, an ingrained human emotion aimed to destroy the peace of mind. A billionth of a second for the inner eye would have made it blatant that this is not necessary and will not compatible with the existing brahman in us.

Kill thy Lust and Live Free,
Dwell on thy Inner eye and Let Intuition take over.
Dont forget that you are just another leaf in the undying tree.

O thee silent stranger. I know that you shall hold every word I write. No matter how sublime or perverse it might seem. You do not read it, but still remember it. This passion brewing inside me, has triumphed finally and the molten words erupting out, shall find its place in this spot, my haven in a new universe.

Time, the great healer,
Anneals, molds thoughts,
Out of the chaotic arrangement of words.
Here flow my first impressions.