Friday, June 26, 2009

Gratitude

There are uploaded about five hundred videos of Swami Nithyananda on you tube, all for free. As has become my nightly habit, just before going to bed I treat myself to a video. A few days ago, it started becoming difficult to find a new video, and I started seeing second shows.

But tonight, suddenly this video sprouted out of nowhere and I was so very grateful. Guess what it is called? Gratitude.

Saying thank you to the Bus driver, the waiter, the shop keeper and of course the maid, I realized, are a part of western culture I was taught by mum. Here swamiji appreciates the the culture of gratitude expressed in the social structure in the west.

A master is used as an object to intensify the devotion in you, he says, later. And I remembered the nandi in Arunachala. How I loved him. I used to go to the Arunachaleshwar temple in Tiru, just to sit outside the innermost temple and look at the nandi. A nandi is always facing north, his body posture is slightly angular, he is always waiting for Shiva. I never realised then that there was something called the nandi puja, but I was doing it.


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