The Pilgrimage

The Pilgrimage


“Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa! Swami Saranam!” The pilgrim chanted while descending the Neelimala. He was glad that he was nearing the destination, the Sabarimala, the abode of Lord Ayyappa.
The journey to Sabarimala was too strenuous, but the pilgrim, Mohan, did not need any sympathy from others. He had undertaken the rigorous ‘vratha’, knowing fully well the inconveniences involved. Once he had made up his mind, nothing could stop him from achieving his goal. He was of that sort- a business man.
This was not his first visit to Sabarimala. He had been there once earlier, but under different circumstances, under entirely different conditions. Then he was a wealthy, prosperous businessman blinded by success.
He had gone there as if on a picnic. He had not bothered about any ‘vratha’. His ‘irumudi’ had only his egotism and pride.
He had gone there to question the very existence of the ‘Infinite’, to ridicule the wisdom of the hoary past. He had gone there just to prove that Lata, his wife, was wrong in believing in all that nonsense about the pilgrimage to Sabarimala and that a businessman with his money power could purchase even the ‘darshan’ of the deity without worrying about the rituals.
Events that followed proved him wrong. He could reach the ‘sannidhanam’ safe, but could not have the ‘darshan’. He tried a number of times, but for one reason or the other, could not even catch a glimpse of the deity. Sometimes the deity was covered under a cloud of camphor fumes and at other times He shut Himself up behind a human wall of pilgrims.
Mohan did not narrate this peculiar incident to any one, for he knew he would be criticized. His people would have blamed him for his lack of faith. They would have expounded theories as to why the Lord did not give ‘darshan’ to non-believers.
His wife, Lata, was a villager brought up in the steep traditions of a religious family. When success had blinded him, she used to remind him that he was nothing but an instrument of the Lord to do what He wanted and it was His wish that made him successful.
“Whatever Ayyappa be, He is not good in business”, he used to chide her. “Let Him be there in Sabarimala amidst the pilgrims, leaving this business part to us, businessmen.”
After reaching the top rung of the ladder of success, when his fall started, he became panicky. He realized that he was plummeting to ruin, to oblivion. Even then, his wife assured him that the very Ayyappa would help him to recover.
True, even at the pinnacle of success, when life looked bright and beautiful, he did get some glimpses of how Ayyappa helped them, Mohan remembered. Only he was blind to all that experience. When the dark days of failure stared at him, he could recall one incident – how he was saved from a tragedy.
He was to go to Madras by the evening flight on that day to strike a big deal. The parties had been contacted by his representative who phoned him that if he failed to reach by night, the deal would slip out of his hands.
“Look, once this contract is signed, I shall be one of the leading industrialists”, he told his wife during lunch that day.
“May He make you successful in the venture”, she said prayerfully.
“In this I do not need His help. Nobody else need take any credit for it,” was his reaction.
When he reached home in the evening to collect his baggage, he found Lata sickly and pale.
“What happened to you?”, he asked.
“The child is not well”, she replied hesitantly. “He is running high temperature.”
“Doctor says that the boy might not survive the night”, she added. “It would be better if you could postpone the journey”.
He felt a hundred bombs exploding within him. Anger and frustration welled up within him. He was looking forward to signing that contract and what a time the child got to fall unwell? Whatever he had planned for the future would fail if he did not reach Madras that night. But the night was critical for the child, his only son.
“I am sure that Ayyappa would help us”, Lata said meekly. “By His grace, the child is sure to recover”.
He had had enough of it, her eulogizing Ayyappa. He could not stand it any further.
“You keep on telling every time that Ayyappa would help us”, he burst out. “Now look what He has done to us. My prospects are all gone if I do not sign the contract to-night. And I do not know what to do. Your Ayyappa had been a party to this conspiracy”.
He went inside to see how the boy was. It was a pathetic sight.
“After all, whatever I plan is for the sake of this child”, he thought. “Let me be with him till his last moment”, he decided.
He cancelled the ticket and gone was the big deal.
He kept a night long vigil by the side of his child. Around 3 AM. ,the boy appeared to be better and before dawn, he was almost normal!
Mohan felt let down. He expressed his anger in every word and deed.
“Only just to prevent my going, the boy was ill”, he told Lata. “This is how your Ayyappa takes care of us!”
She kept silent.
The morning news he heard shocked him. The night plane to Madras had crashed while landing, the report said. None, not even the crew, had survived!
Mohan did not have the time to analyze the significance of that incident. He was a successful businessman and had no time for philosophical flights.
When he soared high in the business world, he gave the credit to himself, for his business acumen and tact. When his downfall started and the yawning abyss of financial ruin gaped at him, he cried out of confusion and despair blaming that his friends had let him down.
It was at that moment of despair that Lata advised him to undertake the spiritual adventure to Sabarimala, to seek His blessings for happiness and guidance in life.
Mohan wondered whether it was too late to seek the blessings of Ayyappa to attain that peace for which he was pining. Yes. He would undertake the pilgrimage. The alternative was disastrous.- to sink into despair and disillusionment.
When the doors of the ‘Srikoil’ opened, Mohan could see Ayyappa, the lord of Sabarimala, shining amidst the soft, sootless flames of lamps, their wicks soaked in ghee. Camphor cubes were everywhere as though each was eager to get a chance to bow in front of the deity. They were too glad to sacrifice themselves before Him, to be one with Him, he felt.
It gave him a new insight into the philosophy of life. Those camphor cubes glorified the life of action, at the same time symbolizing the life of contemplation by dissolving into Him. It gave him the feeling that the Universe was not chaos but Cosmos.
For some time he watched the deity, concentrating on every one of the features exploring the possibility of identifying something unique which attracted the pilgrims to assemble there in thousands, ignoring the inconveniences in that long trek to Sabarimala.
There was something extraordinary about the place, something unusual about the form of the deity.
The form of the deity cast a spell on him. True, it was not made of the glittering yellow metal which could blind one by reflections. It had some extraordinary charm which he could not comprehend.
Slowly, the feeling of oneness with the Lord engulfed him, uplifting him higher and higher to the subtler planes till he glided into the experience of the transcendental Absolute.
Somewhere from within he heard something crash and he identified it as the wall he had built since ages around his ego centre to exclude the divine spark of life.
Through the chink in the wall he saw the ray of divinity peeping into his life and as the wall gave way, unable to withstand the flood light of divinity, his life stood illuminated before him; he experienced the Absolute in him; as the Cause of all creation, as the Might of all substances as originated from that deity, the Lord of Sabarimala.
Mohan understood the gains of that pilgrimage, the pilgrimage to Sabarimala, the pilgrimage to reach the Absolute.


(Bhavans Journal, January,16, 1983)