sahiti

I love to travel, but the past one and half to two yrs have been quite sedentary bcos of my son. Now that he is almost two, we ventured out on a long drive in Jan during the extended weekend of sankranti. We went to sringeri-udupi-murudeswar-gokarna, driving through the wonderful Western Ghats and by the beach roads. (round trip around 1100kms)

First destination was Sringeri Sarada peetham. It is the first of the four original maţhas traditionally said to have been established by Adi Shankaracharya.

A small legend about the origins of the place

According to legends, Śankara and his four disciples, accompanied by Bharati, an incarnation of Goddess Sarasvati reached Sringeri on an exceptionally hot noon, and as they proceeded to the river Tunga for their ablutions, they saw a frog struggling in the blazing sun to be delivered of its spawn. A cobra, a natural enemy of frogs, had raised its hood to provide the frog with shelter and protection from the ravages of the tropical sun. Śankara was greatly moved by the sight. If there was paradise on earth, here it was, where the lion and the lamb, the tiger and the cow, the cobra and the frog lived in mutual amity and peace. He turned round when, as she had already stipulated, Bharati, known also as Sharada, decided to stay for good at Sringeri on the banks of the sacred river Tunga.

Vishwarupa, assuming the name of Suresvaracharya, was installed here as the successor of Śankarācārya before the latter resumed his tour to found his three pithas at Puri, Dwaraka and Badrinath.

For the more enthused: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sringeri_Sharada_Peetham

The highest point in the Ghats is in Agumbe Ghat, which has a sun set point. We happened to be at one such Sun Set point by chance and had the wonderful view of the sun going down the horizon in the valley. From wiki I gather that it was not the famous sunset spot of Agumbe. Itseems from the famous sunset spot of Agumbe, one can see the Sun set over the arabian sea which is miles away!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agumbe

We have missed the Malgudi house too. Hope I had done the homework before. But that doesn't matter. In hindsight even if we had known before I don't think we would have had the time to cover all these enroute.

There were so many imporant places enroute, Kollur Mukambika temple, Jog falls etc, that we told ourlselves "Next time!" and just drove on! J

We actually took a detour to Udupi so as to pass through the ghats for a scenic drive. But at one point we doubted the choice, esp after the scenic sun set at Agumbe Ghat and when it was getting darker, the wonder ful valleys and green ghats looked deserted and scary! The thought "What if we lose our way" was luking in each of our minds, but none of us let it out. The small villages enroute where we were romanticizing to buy a small house and spend a few months, looked scary after dusk. The village roads were deserted and there was no power!!! We could make out that we were passing a village only with some effort! Some of the villages looked abandoned and almost haunted! And to add to the movie effect there was a guy smoking at each sign post who dutifully showed us the way when asked. Only when we reached Manipal/Udupi and saw signs of civilization could we heave a sigh of relief and have a hearty laugh at the whole experience. It was only then we confessed our fears, till then each of us acted brave! J

The temple of Udupi is one of the most spiritually charged temples that I have ever visited! There was a bhajan of Gopala at one corner and recital of the Vedas at the other. Few young girls were singing carnatic on a small dias and few elderly persons reciting the names of the lord. The surprising fact was that all these did not look like cacophony as it would at certain temples. Standing at any one place you would listen to more than stream of songs/recitals. But the added vibrations were so great that it gave me goosebumps! It is a well maintained ' clean temple. The only let down was the darshan of the Lord ' Krishna is to be done through small windows on the main door!!! Only on very few spl occasions in the year full darshan is possible.

From the temple we went to the beach at Udupi ' Malpe. It's a decent beach. With a 1 n half yr old toddler in the tow, I had to stay behind. My son likes water, but he has never seen soo much of it and was puzzled/scared. He got scared and climbed up his dad everytime there was a wave J So his dad carried him and slowly taught him how he should kick the wave and the wave would go back!!! The thrill on his face at the discovery was worth watching. He was really convinced the wave was going back bcos he kicked it!! :o)))) Kids are so innocent that I envy them at times!

The days target was to watch sun-set at Murudeswar. So we wound up quickly, had lunch and left for Murudeswar arnd 2. Enroute to Murudeswar is another famous beach Maravanthe. But the gradient there is steep, so we were advised by locals to give it a slip. The drive from Udupi to Murudeswar was the best stretch of the trip. The road is wedged between the Ghats and the Sea, intercepted by various rivers occasionally. The high point was when we passed through a stretch with a river on one side and ocean on the other! The location called for photos and there were many profile snaps taken ;o)

To be continued.

One needs years of very attentive, very careful, very reasonable,very coherent work, organisation, selection, construction, in order to succeed simply in forming, oh, simply this little thing, “one’s own way of thinking!”

One believes he has his own way of thinking. Not at all.

It depends totally upon the people one speaks with or the books he has read or on the mood he is in. It depends also on whether you have a good or bad digestion, it depends on whether you are shut up in a room without proper ventilation or whether you are in the open air; it depends whether there is sunshine or rain! You are not aware of it, but you think all kinds of things, completely
different according to a heap of things which have nothing to do with you!

And for this to become coordinated, coherent, logical thought, a long thorough work is necessary.

The Mother : The Sunlit Path p.118