The Revelation

The car sped past the flat countryside dotted with cultivated patchwork of land. Row upon row of coconut trees stretched into infinity, suffocating the docile villages on either side of the road to Guruvayur. Buildings with red tile roofs peeped out of lush-green enclaves to make their presence felt, amidst the picturesque splendour of the Western Coast.
The morning drive was exhilarating, Ramanujam thought. The cool breeze coming from the green countryside had a rejuvenating effect.
Suddenly, the driver stopped the vehicle. Something must have gone wrong with it and what could it be, Ramanujam was about to ask him. But, instead of tools, the driver was taking out some ‘agarbathies’ and a match-box.
He watched the driver with curiosity.
The man walked towards a nearby banyan tree. He paid his salutations to an idol installed below it on a raised platform. He lit the ‘agarbathies’ and placed them in front of the idol. Then he prostrated before the deity, took some ‘vibhuthi’ from there and smeared it on his forehead.
“I pray here regularly”, the driver said following the gaze of Ramanujam. “My job is such that only He can help me to avoid untoward incidents”.
Ramanujam smiled understandingly. Bitter experiences in the past had inculcated in him some faith in religious exercises.
There was a time when he used to consider religion as a curse to mankind, as a perennial spring from which only evils sprouted out. To him, then, religion was just a casual incident in life than being the rule of life. And god to him was nothing but a creation of the blundering humanity to suit its selfish interests.
The passage of time had softened his outlook towards religion. Trying circumstances had made him recognise the existence of powers which were beyond his comprehension till then. The furnace of experience had moulded him to realise that he was only a plaything in the hands of that Supreme Power, a speck of sand in the vast beach of humanity to be kicked about by that invisible being , if it desired so.
Still, he knew that deep within him, he nourished an agnostic who was not willing to accept miracles as the sole proof to vindicate the existence of a God. There were conflicts of thought within, he was certain. Unless he could win over the rebel in him, he could never remain at peace, he knew. But how to go about it?
He posed his problem to his intimate friends seeking their advice.
“Go to Guruvayur; seek the blessings of the Lord there,” Dr. Bhaskar, the Civil Surgeon, advised him. “I am sure that the ‘darsan’ of the Lord will set your doubts at rest. Till then, none can give you solace, no gospel can appeal to the rebel in you “.

2-
He was surprised to hear such a reply from a person whom he considered as the living incarnation of God. The doctor’s healing touch had saved many a life at the verge of collapse. And who would ever think that the doctor would make such a funny statement?
He stared at the surgeon in half belief.
“You are shocked to hear this?” the doctor asked him. “Well, it is a long story, a story of my life.”
“I never knew that”, Ramanujam said. “Mind telling me?’
“Certainly not,” the doctor said. “Stop me when you feel bored,” he added with a chuckle.
“Ever since I realised that religion was a bundle of superstitions, I was contemptuous of it and its related activities. In a family with a religious background, this attitude of mine was considered outrageous by my people. I don’t know why I behaved like that. Probably my company of friends and the environment in the school might have influenced my attitude then.”
The doctor paused for a while to collect the thoughts.
“Thinking of that period, I still cannot understand how I became an ardent believer of religion, a devotee of the Lord. Whether the change was on my own or whether the circumstances forced it on me , I cannot say. My firm belief is that environments alone did the trick of making me believe in that Supreme Power.
“The transformation occurred when I was an undergraduate”, the doctor continued. “Being the first to be a college student in our family for generations, I prided myself to be the very personification of knowledge. Added to this , the fact that I was to be a medical graduate in a couple of years, filled in me an erroneous sense of superiority over others. I was just waiting for that day, when, as a doctor, I could tell my people that a scientifically trained person could do much more than what the Lord could, to reduce the sufferings and ills of the people.
“I do not recollect the exact date, but it was sometime in January during the third year of my medical studies, that I got the first shock of my life. My uncle from the village came to the hostel to inform me that my father was admitted to the hospital.
“ ‘I would not have disturbed you but for the seriousness of the situation,’ my uncle said. ‘Your father is unconscious and he is fighting death. Your mother and others do not know so much about it’.
“I did not wait to hear further. I rushed to the ward.
“’It is a case of blood cancer,’ the superintendent of the hospital confided in me. ‘I do not have much hope. It is a chance if he survived, a chance in a million’.
“For some time, my mind went blank,” Bhaskar said in an affected manner as if he still shuddered from the very thought of it. “Slowly the graveness of the situation dawned on me that I have to stop my studies, that I have to look for a job to shoulder the responsibility of feeding half a dozen mouths.
3-
“It shattered the vision I held of a bright future for my people. It shattered my own ambitions of becoming a doctor.
“I stood there dazed not knowing whether to cry or to laugh at the way circumstances treated me!
“’I can understand your predicament, my son,’ the doctor said consoling me. ‘You need not look so lost in life. Pray to that Supreme Power for granting long life to your father. After all, quite a lot of inexplicable things do happen, inexplicable to sound logic and reasoning even in this age.’
“I stared at the doctor, ”Bhaskar said. “The guy must be a nut to talk like that, I thought. Otherwise, how could such an eminent physician talk of philosophy?
“’You are surprised to hear me preaching like this?’, he asked. ‘I am talking this out of experience. I have witnessed many cases where the patients, pronounced to be a case of certain death medically, walked out of their beds to the wonder of famous doctors.
“’Any way we are doing our best to save him,’ the doctor concluded. ‘What I wanted you to know is that anything is possible for that Supreme Being.’
“ I had never prayed all those years,” Bhaskar continued.” For I had never believed in the efficacy of prayer nor did I feel any need for it. With such a background, it was difficult for me to convince myself that some miracle could happen by prayer. But there was no alternative left for me as science had recommended the recourse to religion. I was puzzled.
“The picture of my mother, my brothers and sisters looking towards me for help and protection flashed across my mind. Their beseeching eyes implored me to provide them assistance to come up in life. I found that there was no option left to me except to seek the blessings of the Lord Guruvayurappan, our family deity.
“What else could you have done in such a case?”,the doctor asked Ramanujam .
He had no solution to such a problem, for he had not faced any such situation, Ramanujam thought. He felt it better to keep quiet and permit the doctor to continue.
“I do not know, even now, how I could pray so long.” Bhaskar said. “It could be due to the responsibility I felt for my people, it could be due to my selfishness to become a doctor. Anyway, it yielded results and I am happy of the outcome.”
The doctor breathed a sigh of relief thinking of those days.
“Now coming back to the topic, my advice to you is to go and seek the blessings of the Lord, the Lord of Guruvayur,” the doctor hastened to add.
A sudden brake on the car woke up Ramanujam from his reverie. The driver had permitted a herd of buffaloes to cross the road. A small village hemmed by solid barriers of trees came into view.

4-
It was a charming village, a charm made radiant by yellow paddy stubbles and the sombre foliage of trees. There was nothing sensational about the place, but it looked as though the landscape stood poised there in its hour of peace.
The only paradox was the black serpentine tarmac that slithered over the countryside to disappear abruptly.
As the car accelerated, Ramanujam drifted into his thoughts once again.
Yes, he was thinking of God and His miracles. He had no doubt about what Bhaskar narrated to him, of the miraculous survival of the doctor’s father. But doubts assailed him.
If the existence of God could be proved by the miracles He performed, a magician or a hypnotist who performed many such miracles could claim to be God incarnate. Why then should those people be deprived of their legitimate rights by the society?
A volley of questions burst forth within him.
Was it going to be something different, something new at Guruvayur? Was there anything extraordinary about that temple where, according to the doctor, he could achieve mental solace?
He still nourished doubts.
“We have neared the temple,” the driver said. “I am parking the car here.”
A few yards away stood the ‘Gopuram’, the main gateway to the temple. Its gabled roof towering into the clear blue sky presented an imposing sight against the backdrop provided by the rising sun.
The layout of the temple was similar to what he had read about such places of worship in Kerala. Its courtyard had a paved path for circumambulation enclosing within it the cloister and the central shrine- the ‘Srikoil’- where the idol of Lord Krishna was seated.
Years had elapsed since he visited any religious place. For he could not control the critic within him which was contemptuous of religious practices and of religious places. He was a slave to his own emotions.
His was the only rebellious voice in an otherwise religious house whose members were devout worshippers of Krishna, the Lord of Guruvayur. All except him, believed in the omnipotence of Guruvayurappan and accepted blindly His guiding presence in their day to day life. They seemed to be happy to live in the aura of Krishna, under the protective grace of that Supreme Power.
For years, his comments about the institution of God were sarcastic even to the extent of being termed as nasty.
“Never make fun of Him”, his mother used to reprimand him. “I do not want His wrath to befall our family just due to your arrogance.”

5-
He considered it as downright stupidity. If the God of their imagination was a reservoir of all ideal things in life, how could He entertain silly feelings of wrath and vengeance like those of human beings? Did it not suffice to prove that the God of their concept was the conjured up ideas of some deceased brain?
Most of his relatives did not care to answer all his criticism. Those who ventured could not exactly tell him in understandable terms the meaning of God.
Was he going to be anyway wiser by visiting the Guruvayur temple, as advised by Bhaskar? Or was he to return from there disillusioned and disappointed?
He was not sure.
The central shrine- the ‘Srikoil’- was closed for Puja by the time Ramanujam reached the temple. They had to wait for another 15 minutes, someone told him.
In the temple courtyard he saw a group of devotees squatting, listening to a spiritual discourse. He went nearer, just out of curiosity, to know what it was all about.
“Religion cannot be understood by doctrines. Nor can it be comprehended by intellectual argumentation”, he heard the speaker quoting some ‘slokas’ and explaining to the audience.
A waste of time to listen to such idle talks, he thought. He moved towards the cloister.
All sorts of people had assembled there, he observed. All of them were eagerly waiting for the ‘darsan’ of the Lord.
Ramanujam could not understand their sense of values. What did they get by wasting their time there? What did they expect to gain by looking at a stone idol decorated with silk and gold? Would anyone care to explain to him?
As if in response to his provocative thoughts, the doors of the Srikoil opened revealing Balakrishna, the presiding deity of Guruvayur. The devotees chanted prayers in glorification of the Lord, and songs of praise invoking His blessings rent the air.
The sudden opening of the doors amidst the prayers of the congregation looked as if the flood gates of knowledge were thrown open before him challenging his thought processes. The rebel in him faltered as it could not survive the onslaught of enlightenment that gushed through the inner recesses of his mind.
An unusual feeling stirred within him at the very sight of the idol- a mixed feeling of awe and surprise, of wonder and bewilderment. He felt within him a glorious sense of inner freedom and detachment, a sense of elation reaching beyond the iron shackles of self consciousness.
Realisation came to him that all along he was leading a life enveloped in the dark veil of ego. All along he was under the delusion that he was facing the life intelligently, while he was actually chasing the false values of life, living in the suffocating sphere of endless limitations.
6-
He understood the ‘Truth’, he experienced the’ Absolute’ as he watched the idol of Guruvayurappan glittering amidst oil lamps. He perceived the Lord, the oracle of divinity, reflected within him. The understanding of ‘His Being ‘ gave him comfort, solace and joy of a kind he had never undergone before.
Ramanujam came out of the temple in an exalted feeling.
“The subject of God cannot be appreciated by holding seminars or conferences”, he heard the speaker explaining his contention to the audience.”He can be comprehended only by ‘Realisation’, only by removing that veiled ego which envelopes the ‘True Self’”
Ramanujam accepted the statement without even a murmur. He had experienced the revelation in those fleeting moments when he was face to face with that sublime inspiration, the Lord of Guruvayur.
(Bhavan’s Journal- August 15, 1976 )