3.26.2020

A Sweet Smile of Sublime Beauty

It was the first glimpse I caught of her, she appeared settled on the sacred seat within the sanctum of the Kanchi temple. Kamakshi Amman smiled back at me in quiet demeanor. My thoughts flew off my mind as my eyes rolled over every aspect of the sanctum, taking her form in. Her face smeared with sandal wood housed the most beautiful smile and her eyes gazed straight back at me.

My heart welled up with emotions, my mind rested blankly in a void, and I just gazed back at her. We have known each other for a while now, our relationship has evolved in quiet silence. She is everything to me and she had called me back to Kanchipuram again unexpectedly, as I drove down the geriatric folks of my family to her doorstep. I wasn’t going to miss this for anything. The corporate world could wait a day for me, for when she called, every body would wait. It was a crazy day, with a customer visit lined up in the afternoon, I had taken the chance. She had called and I found myself hitting the highway to Kanchipuram with an eye on the time to reach my workplace by lunch. It was a crazy schedule but the heart clearly ruled the mind as I sped up the road to reach her world.

I stared back at those divine eyes, they spoke to me in their silence. I observed her chamber, she was warm even in the distance that separated her from me. I was simply speechless feeling every moment of the void in my head. With emotions welling up in my heart I just took every bit of her into myself. I had been blessed to witness her “vishwaroopa darshanam”, a glorious view of her I had never seen before, a form she blesses us with once every year. She oozed with charm, beauty flowed through every part of her being as she stared back at me, I recollected the sweet verses of the Soundarya Lahari. Oh yes, she was every bit an ocean of beauty, of compassion, and of warmth and unconditional love.

The emotions I feel towards her, are those I would never be able to feel towards anybody else. There is so much love for her that wells up when I see her. I know she is there, welcoming in the warmth of the lamp light that brightens her face. She had called me, and I had dashed to her door step, quite literally to learn what it is to love her again, to feel the divine grace envelop me as I stood there mesmerized by her beauty. The chamber was different today for a cow stood at the ardha mandapa with her calf cozy at her feet. The cow stared back at me quite comfortable with strangers around her. There was no one in the chamber, just the divine mother and me, and we connected in silence, in emotions, in strange love that left me detached from the rest of the world. Nothing mattered, expect her. Nothing was important except her. Nothing existed except her. Nothing drove me to such a level of intense love except her. Nothing was more powerful than the void that hung inside my head. Was this what I felt, unconditional love, sweet surrender, a crazy sense of freedom from every aspect of my life. I felt freedom for those few minutes, when no one mattered, because no one existed, I was and she was and nothing else was.

I looked at her feeling a deep sense of bliss. The state of overpowering intense love and a blank mind was hard to come by, I was there at this moment, a tremendous sense of peace draped my being. This is what I called freedom, I belonged no where, I belonged to no one, and yet I was hers to own. I knew no time for she was all that stood. I felt no desire or attachment for she was all the truth I knew. Such depth of freedom and detachment from the bonded world around me made me realize just how much no one owned me. I was alone here, without rules, without any sense of connection to what I thought was the universe around me. I knew then that I am a potent drop of intense love in her ocean of beauty reflected in that divine smile on her sacred face, in pure sublime union with the Goddess.

I am her, she is me and that is the only truth I behold.

3 comments:

Hindu said...

very well written.

Birdi said...

So insightful

Kiranlal said...

beautifully written about the Mother and her love...Pranam