Tag: ayodhya

My incredible experience of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir pran-pratishtha ceremony! 🚩🛕🙏🏻

On By ChaitanyaIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Ever since I received the invitation for the प्राणप्रतिष्ठा सोहळा from the Shri Ramjanmabhoomi Ayodhya Teerthakshetra Nyas back in December, I always wondered what the experience of being at the event would be like. And honestly, while I was expecting something great, I was not at all prepared for the absolute euphoric wave (more like tsunami) of unadulterated joy & positivity that I experienced at the pranpratishtha event of Ram Lalla’s vigraha, in Ayodhya, on Sukla Paksha Dwadashi Vikram Samvat 2080 or January 22 2024 Gregorian Calendar.

I have been back home now for just over 2 days now, and it has finally sunk in what I have had the great pleasure and massive good fortune to have witnessed… And I have finally been able to look within to figure out what I felt that day and what I feel everytime I remember that day and those moments…

Why there was a spontaneous wetting of the eyes and why I realised it only when everything started to look blurred, I will never know. But the fact that it was so, is telling. There are moments which reach deep into you and touch your soul deep within, and this was definitely one such moment.

And I couldn’t get a smile off my face…

Anyway, let me start right from the beginning…

The invitation(s)…

So, sometime in December 2023, I got the call… and then the letter… letting me know that I had been invited to Ayodhya for the Pranpratishtha event… Was a thrilling day for me…

I was told that this electronic invite would be followed up by someone physically visiting my residence or office to personally invite me and deliver the physical invite. That happened in early January… Many thanks to Harsh Modi ji for doing this…

It is a good invite. It also had a booklet inside containing brief histories of many of the key karyakartas who have had a role to play in the 500+yr old struggle to have the temple rebuilt.

Unfortunately, I have lost the physical invite as I had carried it with me to the mandir on Jan 22nd and in the tight crowd during the darshan, It must’ve fallen from my hands… Anyway, thankfully I have taken photos of it…

Closer to date, other invitations started to come in – for the dinner scheduled for the night before, from the Raja of Ayodhya at the Rajsadan Palace in Ayodhya…

The next communique was for us to digitally register ourselves, using the invite code which we had to link to our respective Aadhar numbers… Once we did that, we received a digital confirmation pass, including a QR code which was to be scanned for entry access to the venue.

Travel to Ayodhya…

Was absolutely blessed & thanks to my boss, I managed to be included on one of the many charter flights which were ferrying VVIPs / celebs to & fro. It was a great flight, travelling with, among others, my boss – the legendary filmmaker Subhash Ghai, Sonu Nigam – one of my favourite singers, Om Raut (director of Tanaji, et al) & Bhushan Kumar (MD of TSeries) and 4 others (not putting their photos since I don’t know if they will be ok with it).

Was great to sit across from Sonuji actually chat with him about things, about how he does riyaaz, about his use (or lack thereof) of auto-tune… and of-course to be featured in a insta-reel he made… 😁 (I never thought that would ever happen that I would be in a Sonu Nigam insta-reel)

On landing at the airport, we were greeted by enthusiastic VHP workers with garlands & Jai Shri Ram shouts…

Ayodhya town was looking fabulous…

The dinner the night before, at Rajsadan…

With the Crown Prince of Ayodhya – Yatindra Mishra ji
(he also was our very gracious & generous host for the trip)

The morning of… the drive to the Mandir…

It was a fabulous 20 minutes. We left the hotel early, to try and beat the traffic and see some sights and see how well the town was decked up…

Getting into the Mandir…

And there was the RamMandir – looking magical & magnificent!

The temple complex was excellently decorated and done up… fit for the occasion…

Thanks to the category of invitee I was (thanks to my boss, where I work and what I have been doing in education for the past many years), I was sitting smack bang in front of the temple, just to the right of the main steps…

I turned around to see who was sitting beside me – it was Nobel prize winner Shri Kailash Satyarthi…

As we settled, down, they started to have some performances… Starting with Sonu Nigam… And he was brilliant!!!

After performances by Sonu Nigam, Malini Awasthi, Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan & Kailash Kher, the official ceremony began with the arrival of Champat Rai ji on the stage who gave a detailed overview of the mandir – its construction and what materials have come from which states for the same and which are the people / companies involved in its construction…

And then the ceremony began with the arrival of PM Modi…

The proceedings of the pranpratishtha ceremony were being streamed live on LED panels to the audience… and about 35-40 mins later, we saw the murti with Ram Lalla’s eyes open.

Here are the moments at the time of / just after the pranpratishtha – everyone ringing a घंटी that the organisers had handed over to us, and rose petals were being showered over the audience…

A short while after the pranpratishtha, we had PM Narendra Modi along with CM Yogi Adityanath, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat & others come out to the platform/stage and each of them spoke.

Some early moments of PM Modi’s address…

PM Modi’s address was one of the best ones he’s done so far. I know most of you would have watched it already, but am putting it out here all the same…

After the speeches and the departure of PM Modi, they started to make announcements on the procedure for the audience to enter the mandir for darshan. They allowed us in groups, block by block. It was rather chaotic, especially because the sadhus were really rushing forward. with lots of hustling and people (as expected) abandoned all sanity and ignored all the crowd movement / crowd management rules that the organisers had laid down…

The entrance of the RamMandir…

And me entering the mandir…

The RamMandir is fantastically constructed and looks fabulous. WOW!!!

The first mandap of the RamMandir…

The 2nd mandap of the RamMandir and a video of the walk towards the gabhara / garbha-griha…

The last mandap of the RamMandir, just before the golden doors to the final mandap & the gabhara / garbh-griha…

And finally, after nearly half an hour (or maybe more), I was able to be within a few feet of the murti of Ram Lalla…

This was, without doubt, one of the most influential experiences of my life…

Epilogue…

I was also thrilled to meet some people who I really respect…

Anil Agarwal of Vedanta…

J Sai Deepak, Nupur J Sharma and Ami Ganatra – the scholarship of J Sai & Ami ji & Nupur’s unrelenting reportage & guts are greatly inspitational… Each of em have played a stellar role in their respective fields of scholarship for Bharat…

Sunil Ambekar ji – Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh – RSS and one of my favourite people to talk to… When I asked him for a selfie, his response was “Chal lavkar kadh, mee duty war ahe re!” (quickly take it, I’m on duty). This is what is special & unique about the RSS – no matter the event or occasion, duty comes first…

The journey back to Mumbai…

The journey back was eventful. Our charter flight was cancelled on the 22nd on account of bad weather, limited take-off/landing slots and pilot operating hours, so after waiting in the Ayodhya airport lounge for a few hours, we stayed back in a hotel in Ayodhya, arranged for us by the organisers… and travelled back to Mumbai on the 23rd afternoon (am not putting photos of flight back coz I’m not sure if everyone would be ok with me posting it in public)…

Let me end with some fantastic views of Maharashtra from the flight back (we were flying somewhere around Nashik I think).

And finally, some key observations, primarily about the organisation & planning of the event...

  • Brilliantly planned. 3 invite stages, linking the final invite to our aadhar & the entry check by scanning the QRCode, to ensure no people can enter with fake / fraudulent invitations.
  • Good planning at Ayodhya – the local transport allocations… Sending us printouts (see below) of the car passes in advance so we can write the local car numbers once we got them and stuck it on the car to avoid access issues.
  • Great organisation and management within the mandir premises by the RSS. People were given a separate breakfast box. The empty box was collected after people had finished eating. Any trash thrown on the floor was cleaned up. Then people were given a lunch box after the pranpratishtha, which was also a kind of prasad (see below). That same box was collected too once everyone had eaten and all trash was cleaned up. Brilliant!
  • The entry process into the mandir for darshan and the crowd management inside the mandir was the only thing that could have been better. Actually, it wasn’t weak as such, its just that everyone was excited (especially the sadhus) and flouted the crowd control / crowd management rules, so that ended up with a little bit of pushing-shoving in a tightly packed crowd.
  • They had thought of everything – for people who don’t eat grain, they had a different prasad – without grain. Bhagwan Ram clearly supports a gluten-free diet. 😉
  • I, like many others, had carried money / envelopes for hundi donation. Since the hundi boxes, etc were yet to be set up, the people inside the mandir refused to take the envelopes / cash but instead recommended that we donate online. This was BRILLIANT!!! Bhagwan Ram is now a part of Digtial India! 😁

All-in-all, this was an unbelievable, unexplainable experience. One which I will permanently remember. We 7-8 thousand people there experienced a collective wave of joy, euphoria and emotion that I have never experienced ever!!!

Post event communication and a unique gift…

Jsut today, I received this letter & an unbelievably unique gift.

The pack contained some more prasad, a silver coin with the Ram Darbar and a piece of the शिला (rock) from which the Ram Lalla vigraha has been shaped out of. These have refreshed all the same memories I had on the 22nd and the day before & after. And has filled me with the same pleasure all over again. 😌

All I want to say now is

Jai Shri Ram 🚩🙏🏻

Why January 22, 2024 is an inflection point in the civilisational-cultural history of the world…

On By ChaitanyaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Just some thoughts as I think back to the emotions & thoughts I experienced before, during and after the pran-pratishtha ceremony of Ram Lalla. From the time I received the invitation to the journey there to the ceremony itself to the journey back.

So I was in Ayodhya – a city so revered by Bharatiyas that many actually call it Ayodhyaji. Adding the reverential ‘ji’ to a geographical location, much like you would do for a learned, wise person who acts as a guiding light for you, is symbolic of the reverence, love, respect & devotion Bharatiyas have for Bhagwan Ram and by transference, for the town of both his birth and rule – Ayodhya.

It is in this town, at what is believed to be the birthplace of the God who adorns that page of the Indian Constitution which enumerates the Fundamental Rights of the republic, and which was the capital of his kingdom, stood a grand temple built in his name as a symbol for worship of not just that individual, but also what he represented as a king – Ram Rajya – which was governance that was fair & just, of a society that was culturally enriched and economically prosperous.

For that symbol to have been specifically targeted by a foreign invader, on theocratic grounds, with specific intent at destroying a key symbol of Bharatiya Sanatani culture (aka Hinduism), and installing another monument at that specific place in order to continually demonstrate that one religion is ‘above’ the other, is despicable, to say the least. That said, you may even be able to forgive or discount that act, given that those were medieval times where all conquerers were brutal and tried all means to destroy those they conquered both in body & spirit. Remember what the Buddhist king Ashoka did to Kalingans?

Who cannot be forgiven however, are the handful of individuals, who tried to negate this barbaric theocratic transgression. It is these people who prevented an amicable settlement between the communities. Anyway, I don’t want to delve into this negativity as this is a period of awakening.

This Bharatiya civilisational culture is pagan. It is plural. We worship nature, often-times symbolising aspects of it as Gods & Goddesses. We worship both wealth & knowledge. We build temples for Ram, but we have temples for Raavan too. There are staunchly vegetarian Hindus and there are staunchly non-vegetarian Hindus. We have a Goddess of Wealth, Goddess of Knowledge, Goddess of Music, a God of Death among 33-types of Gods & Goddesses. We also embrace those who do not believe in Gods & Goddesses. We believe in the divinity of the human. Believe that human cognition and what we refer to as the soul, include a sense of divinity and an ability to rise above our more base instincts. Hence the phrase ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ (I am the Brahma – the God of Creation). This civilisational culture has, hence, no problem accepting, welcoming, even assimilating additional Gods – those revered by Christianity, Islam and Judaism – Yahweh, Allah, Prophet Mohammad, the Christian God and Jesus Christ. It even accepts the Buddha as the 9th Avatar of Bhagwan Vishnu. (see end of the article for more details on this).

We have, for decades, had an intrinsic / innate / plural Islam which melted into our culture. Only an Indian Muslim could have said “Ya to Masjid mein sharaab peene de saaki ya aisi jagah bata jahaan khuda na ho.” (Mirza Ghalib). Only an Indian Muslim, when asked if he was a ‘bachelor’, answered – “No. I’m not a bachelor, I’m a Brahmachari.” (APJ Kalam). Only an Indian Muslim could become the performer whose tunes are heard in so many auspicious occasions, including Hindu weddings (Shehnai by Bismillah Khan). The Manganiar Muslims of Rajasthan make music, most of which is music in devotion to Bhagwan Ram.

It was this plural, universal, eternal culture which assimilates everything, that was sought to be snuffed out and replaced by the ‘our God is the one true god and all others are false Gods’ believers multiple times. While many symbols of the Bharatiya Civilisational Sanatani Culture have been damaged and disfugred, some beyond repair or recognition (like our educational system, many of our historical languages & the jaati-varna system), there are other cases where we have risen up, to reclaim some symbols of this civilisational faith that is both ours & unique in the world today. The Somnath temple is one such symbol. And another one is the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, in which was done the pran-pratishtha of the murti of Bhagwan Ram as a child, on Pausha Shuklapaksha Dwadashi of the Vikram Samvat 2080, which is January 22, 2024 of the Gregorian Calendar.

This is possibly the only time in recent history that a pagan civilisation is reclaiming a symbol of their civilisation. It is not a small event in a small town in India. This is an inflection point of global civilisational-cultural history.

I don’t know if any of the original pagan cultural-civilisations still exist (list at the bottom of the article) or nearly all vestiges of them have disappeared, snuffed out by invasions and religio-cultural conversions. However what we do know is that possibly the only Bronze-Age (or older) civilisation still in existence globally today, is the Bharatiya Sanatani civilisation. Hinduism is what we call it currently.

It is really sad that there are no Persians left to claim Persia, no Buddhists left in Afghanistan to rebuild the Bamiyan and no Pagans left to reclaim the Hagia Sofia. That said, I am elated that Bharatiya Civilisational Sanatanis (Hindus) still exist, have claimed Ayodhya and continue to demand Kashi and Mathura.

The Egyptian (Misr) civilisation was rich, Persian richer, Pagan Rome even more so. The Aztecs & Mayans had unimaginable riches. Today none of those cultures exist. But Bharat does. Ask yourself why. Your economy won’t protect your culture. Your culture will protect your economy. Enrich your culture. Strengthen it. Build scholarship in it. Understand Swayambodh & Shatrubodh. We have to realise that we Hindus are the last standing major pagan culture in the world.

It is important that we continue to be steadfastly resistant to all attempts at narrowing or monotheising our faith and our way of life. We should continue to be steadfastly plural, steadfastly balanced between being conservative & progressive, and continue to engage in deep study to gain understanding of this great civilisation & great culture that we have thankfully been born into. We owe it to ourselves, our ancestors and to this great Bharatiya Sanatani Civilisation!

Jai Shri Ram! 🏹🚩🙏🏻

In the Dharmic way followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, there are 11 schools of philosophy:
6 schools of Astika philosophy – Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā & Vedanta
5 schools of Nastika (heterodox) philosophy in Hinduism – Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Charvaka

Let’s also understand the difference:
An Astik believes there is a creator God.
An Atheist doesn’t believe or disbelieve there is a God because they don’t know for sure.

List of Bronze-age Pagan cultural civilisations:

  • Misr (Egyptian)
  • Persian (Zoroastrian)
  • Unnamed Pagan civilisation (pre-Christian Roman)
  • Mayan & Aztec (Mexico, parts of the US & Latin-America)
  • Apache, Sioux, Cherokee, Cheyenne (Native American)
  • Mycenaean (Greece)
  • Hittite (Turkey)
  • Mesopotamian (Syria-Turkey)
  • Babyloanian (Iraq-Iran-Syria)
  • Yunnan (Southern/Buddhist China)
  • I’m sure there are more…

Why January 22, 2024 is an inflection point in the civilisational-cultural history of the world…

On By ChaitanyaIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Just some thoughts as I embark on my journey to Ayodhya today for tomorrow’s pranpratishtha, counting my blessings and overwhelmed at the reality of having received an invitation from the mandir nyas. Am off to Ayodhya – a city so revered by Bharatiyas that many actually call it Ayodhyaji. Adding the reverential ‘ji’ to a geographical location, much like you would do for a learned, wise person who acts as a guiding light for you, is symbolic of the reverence, love, respect & devotion Bharatiyas have for Bhagwan Ram and by transference, for the town of both his birth and rule – Ayodhya.

It is in this town, at what is believed to be the birthplace of the God who adorns that page of the Indian Constitution which enumerates the Fundamental Rights of the republic, stood a grand temple built in his name as a symbol for worship of not just that individual, but also what he represented as a king – Ram Rajya – which was governance that was fair & just, of a society that was culturally enriched and economically prosperous.

For that symbol to have been specifically targeted by a foreign invader, on theocratic grounds, with specific intent at destroying a key symbol of Bharatiya Sanatani culture (commonly referred to as the Hindu religion), and installing another monument at that specific place in order to continually demonstrate that one religion is ‘above’ the other, is despicable, to say the least. That said, you may even be able to forgive or discount that act, given that those were medieval times where all conquerers were brutal and tried all means to destroy – both in body & spirit – the conquered (remember what the Buddhist king Ashoka did to Kalingans?). Who cannot be forgiven however, are some individuals, mostly from among those whose forefathers were religiously converted through force or bribery, trying to negate this barbarism and justify the continued existence of a symbol erected in the place of the original Ram Mandir, as an insult to the civilisational culture of Bharat. It is these people who prevented an amicable settlement for the setting up of the Ram Mandir in its original location for so long. Anyway, I don’t want to delve into this negativity as tomorrow is a day of awakening.

This Bharatiya civilisational culture is pagan. It is plural. We worship nature, often-times symbolising aspects of it as Gods & Goddesses. We worship both wealth & knowledge. We build temples for Ram, but we have temples for Raavan too. There are staunchly vegetarian Hindus and there are staunchly non-vegetarian Hindus. We have a Goddess of Wealth, Goddess of Knowledge, Goddess of Music, a God of Death among 33-types of Gods & Goddesses. We also embrace those who do not believe in Gods & Goddesses. We believe in the divinity of the human. Believe that human cognition and what we refer to as the soul, include a sense of divinity and an ability to rise above our more base instincts. Hence the phrase ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ (I am the Brahma – the God of Creation). This civilisational culture has, hence, no problem accepting, welcoming, even assimilating additional Gods – those revered by Christianity, Islam and Judaism – Yahweh, Allah, Prophet Mohammad, the Christian God and Jesus Christ. It even accepts the Buddha as the 9th Avatar of Bhagwan Vishnu. (see end of the article for more details on this).

We have, for decades, had an intrinsic / innate / plural Islam which assimilated into our culture. Only an Indian Muslim could have said “Ya to Masjid mein sharaab peena de saaki ya aisi jagah bata jahaan khuda na ho.” (Mirza Ghalib). Only an Indian Muslim, when asked if he was a ‘bachelor’, answered – “No. I’m not a bachelor, I’m a Brahmachari.” (APJ Kalam). Only an Indian Muslim could become the performer whose tunes are heard in so many auspicious occasions, including Hindu weddings (Shehnai by Bismillah Khan). The Manganiar Muslims of Rajasthan make music, most of which is music in devotion to Bhagwan Ram.

It was this plural, universal, eternal culture which assimilates everything, that was sought to be snuffed out and replaced by the ‘our God is the one true god and all others are false Gods’ believers multiple times. While many symbols of the Bharatiya Civilisational Sanatani Culture have been damaged and disfugred, some beyond repair or recognition (like our educational system, our historical languages & the jaati-varna system), there are other cases where we have risen up, to reclaim some symbols of this civilisational faith that is both ours & unique in the world today. The Somnath temple is one such symbol. And another one is the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, in which will be done the pran-pratishtha of the murti of Bhagwan Ram as a child, on Pausha Shuklapaksha Dwadashi of the Vikram Samvat 2080, which is January 22, 2024 of the Gregorian Calendar.

This is possibly the only time in history that a pagan civilisation is reclaiming a symbol of their civilisation. It is not a small event in a small town in India. This is an inflection point of global civilisational-cultural history.

I don’t know if any of the original pagan cultural-civilisations still exist (list at the bottom of the article) or nearly all vestiges of nearly all of the above have disappeared, snuffed out by invasions and religio-cultural conversions. However what we do know is that possibly the only Bronze-Age (or older) civilisation still in existence globally today, is the Bharatiya Sanatani civilisation. Hinduism is what we call it currently.

It is really sad that there are no Persians left to claim Persia, no Buddhists left in Afghanistan to rebuild the Bamiyan and no Pagans left to reclaim the Hagia Sofia. That said, I am elated that Bharatiya Civilisational Sanatanis (Hindus) still exist, have claimed Ayodhya and continue to demand Kashi and Mathura.

The Egyptian (Misr) civilisation was rich, Persian richer, Pagan Rome even more so. The Aztecs & Mayans had unimaginable riches. Today none of those cultures exist. But Bharat does. Ask yourself why. Your economy won’t protect your culture. Your culture will protect your economy. Enrich your culture. Strengthen it. Build scholarship in it. Understand Swayambodh & Shatrubodh. We have to realise that we Hindus are the last standing major pagan culture in the world.

It is important that we continue to be steadfastly resistant to all attempts at narrowing or monotheising our faith and our way of life. We should continue to be steadfastly plural, steadfastly balanced between being conservative & progressive, and continue to engage in deep study to gain understanding of this great civilisation & great culture that we have thankfully been born into. We owe it to ourselves, our ancestors and to this great Bharatiya Sanatani Civilisation!

Jai Shri Ram! 🏹🚩🙏🏻

In the Dharmic way followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, there are 11 schools of philosophy, many of them athiest:
6 schools of Astika philosophy – Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā & Vedanta
3 schools of Nastika (Atheist) philosophy in Hinduism – Ajivika, Ajñana and Charvaka
2 other schools of Nastika (Agnostic) philosophy – Jain, Buddhist

Let’s also understand the difference between Astik, Atheist, Agnostic:
An Astik believes there is a creator God.
An Atheist believes there is no creator God.
An Agnostic doesn’t believe or disbelieve there is a God because they don’t know for sure.

List of Bronze-age Pagan cultural civilisations:

  • Misr (Egyptian)
  • Persian (Zoroastrian)
  • Unnamed Pagan civilisation (pre-Christian Roman)
  • Mayan & Aztec (Mexico, parts of the US & Latin-America)
  • Apache, Sioux, Cherokee, Cheyenne (Native American)
  • Mycenaean (Greece)
  • Hittite (Turkey)
  • Mesopotamian (Syria-Turkey)
  • Babyloanian (Iraq-Iran-Syria)
  • Yunnan (Southern/Buddhist China)