Follow your heart...May be you are being invited.

Don't know to where to begin! from thoughts of grace, worry, shortcomings, blessings, magic, intimidation, reflections of feelings that are screaming loud to everything that crushed my confidence and the leftover belief in self. 

And my analysis states - beginning where you are is the best step forward. 

A few hours back, I was thinking of about last evening. Our visit to a tea shop (Karnataka Tea stall), which we walked-up to, just for our most cherished Ginger tea <3. It was a beautiful weather for chai and we walked around an area that has a triangular park which has tall trees all around it's periphery. I fondly call that lane as Ooty road because of the tall trees and canopies along the road. And on rainy or winter evenings there is a beautiful mist all along and the yellow street lights add a touch of heaven to it.

At the tea stall, Mom and I placed our order and took half portion of a chakli (salted spiral fried snack made with rice flour) each, to munch and settled at a side of the staircase of that tea stall. 

In a truly classic way it was our nukkad tea moment. There were many passer's by who would look at us with wonder - two ladies sitting at a smoke joint and having tea :P. Anyways....we enjoyed that throat soothing chai and soon there were many other customers...primarily the smokers and we decided to leave.

we both were wondering what next?...and we had to book an auto accordingly as mom wasn't comfortable with walking anymore (or mentally she has considered herself so weak & no amount of boosting her confidence helps rather it would fire back on me and I would stay away from it consciously and tell myself, may be that is not my place :(). 

Mom suggested we skip mall visit and go to a nearby temple and with the minimal knowledge of the directions or name of temple or deity she conveyed to me from her experience of one of her past visits. for example, What about that Sai temple we had been once which has rose flower vendors outside (Sai baba mandir), or The Hare-rama, Hare Kishna temple that I visited alone and you were waiting for me outside (ISKON Vaikuntha hill) or the temple that you visited a week back on last Saturday?, isn't it the same you had once taken me and we had lit Deepa in a coconut shell? (Ayyapan swamy temple).

Seeing my confused state of mind, she said, let's do Sai Temple. And I was having the last sip of my tea and in my heart I knew something is nudging me and I blurted to mom with a face of a 5 year that my heart isn't at Sai temple at the moment and since it's sunday, I do not feel like visiting Ayyapan temple either. My heart calls for ISKON and she said...so ok, lets go there. I was relieved because I wasn't sure how mom would react to this and I went thru a lot of mental calculations in that fraction of a second. 

I opened Uber app and added destination as Vaikuntha hill...My heart was excited and already was at that hill, feeling the chill breeze, clear twilight skys, the panoramic view of the city from that hill which would look like a million stars blinking on earth. Then a doubt creeped-in, what if the destination I added in the app would let the auto driver stop at the entrance of the temple campus and then mom would have to do a mini hiking and that would result in going against her comfort and ultimately she will hate me for that and get mad at me. 

I immediately changed it to ISKON, knowing fully well that there are only two ISKON temples in BLR.

The auto arrived at the tea stall, in few mins and we boarded. Few minutes into the ride, the driver took a turn into a lane which, to me was not the lane towards ISKON, for a moment I thought may be a new lane connecting to the temple and then I checked the app, map showed we are 2 mins away whereas the surroundings were nowhere like a hill, rather we were in middle of a busy road. I panicked and wondered at the same time and asked driver if this is the Vaikuntha hill (which is also south part of BLR), he said this is ISKON south and in the next moment we were stopped in-front of an elevated big hall with a corridor around it and steps leading to a beautiful wooden door with intricate carvings and into the main hall which was well lit. There were some people from the Temple commitee standing out and they saw the confusion on our face and a bit of hesitation and called us and said, "Hare Krishna! pls come" and they gestured us to proceed towards the main hall.

We have had washed our feet and hands before entering the hall. The hall has big mats spread on floor for both Men and women devotees separately on each side along the length of the hall. On right of the entrance door was Beautiful marble deities of Lord Krishna, Radha and Krishna's twins (as I could understand) and on the extreme left center was the idol of "Founder Acharya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada".

(the only picture I could pull from Google search)

Mom took the chair at the end of the hall and sat, where as I sat on the mat on floor, near her. Soon it was 7:03 pm and also the time for evening Aarti. Everyone stood-up at their respective places, there were three priests standing in-front of each of the idols and one of the priest commenced the aarti with blowing the conch!. I was loving every bit of it and especially the conch sound....every cell of my being was so tuned to it's sound!

Thereafter, we were all informed that this is an auspicious week known as the "Holy name week" and that we should all do the chanting - "Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare, hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare" and for almost 20mins the whole premise was in sync and changing in unison. I was sitting there chanting with my eyes closed....trying every word I utter to be with consciousness and reverence. While chanting I went in and out of thoughts, feelings, wonderment, the session on DNA etc and at one point, my heart melted and tears surfaced with the burst of feelings of awe and extreme love in the knowledge that how my heart was tuned to something and I just blindly followed, I was handholded, I was led to this whole experience. I felt I was personally invited to that Aarti, just when it was time. I was speechless, I was overwhelmed and deeply touched. 

In that hour of celebrations, devotion, love and coming together, I let loose myself and was just being there, still in the magic of that moment.