Tour to Ayodhya for Padmanabha

We will bring his ashes back to the holy land of Bharat, and do puja for this istha Devata Lord Ramachandra in Ayodhya. If you have any information for accomodation in and around ayodhya, especially in citrakut, we would be very thankful.

Jaya sriman Narayana!!!

Padmanabhas demise March 2010 part two

But Padmanabhas departure not only has left a emotional and personal but also a material hole in the Family.
Apart from the inexpressible loss also a large embarrassment exists in material regard.
Without foresighted social security now continual new Commitments and financial problems are arising, since Padmanabhaji had no health insurance and the family depended entirely on his income now they have to pay many bills like funeral costs, search for employment, authority costs and infinitely much more.
On behalf of Madanalasa (the wife of him) we want to appeal directly to the helpfulness of all of you.
We ask you, as far as your conditions permit it, to help also financially or in any other way the family.
If you would like to send some Laxmi u could dispatch the Laxmi in a brown envelope and send it to Madanalasa directly:

Marlies Binder-Knott
Neuburger Strasse 50
94032 Passau

or you could transfer it on the accountof a friend of the family:
Heidi Griem
Berliner Bank Acct. - No. 4742915100
BLZ: 100,200 00

Please address the donation under “Madanalasa”

For Madanalasa this whole situation is very inconvenient but we could convince her that there is no other way since right now she has no more financial savings left.
Please be helpful and support this family.
Thank you very much!!!

Padmanabhas demise March 2010

Dear Friends and well wishers,
Our beloved friend and learned scholar Padmanabha has left us and leave behind a big scar on our souls. We will miss his cheerful and wonderous assosiation we had with him. He served for over 15 years as a pujari of Lord Narasimha in the german Narasimha farm, and for around 30 years in different temples around the world. He had done hundreds of yagyas, vedic marriages and pujas of different purposes for all kind of people.
His whole life dedicated to the service of mankind as he functioned as guide in vedic astrology. Beside of this he knew ayurveda, palmistry and was a great master in subtle sattvic tantric practises. Many people from different background came to him to get answered some difficult questions for their own life, and he never rejected any request for help. Beside of all of this he was a great Devotee of Lord Rama and Sri Hanuman and knew the Ramayana of different versions very well. He liked the Valmiki Ramayana as well Tulsi Dasas Hanuman carisa, and could recide sanskrit with meaning of all the stories by remembering only.
In November 2009 he himself fell sick while giving a seminar on Astrology with broncitis which went on his lungs and finally on his heart. His kidneys failed to function properly and finally he left the world on 5.3.2010 at 11 pm night.

Kumbakonam - the ancient city of all mystic arts

Kumbakonam, the city with one of the most striking temples in and around Tanjore district, has a very long and ancient tradition in mystic arts. Those mystic arts include abhichara (black magic), yogic and siddha traditions and finally Vaishnava tantra as well. One of the most famous praticioner was a saint by the name Sri Vijayendra Tirtha Swami, a pondiff of the Madhva Tradition. He was not just a ascetic and yogi, but also he possessed many secret arts in tantra procedure. His istha Devata was of course Lord Narasimha, who saved him in several incidents. One of those "lila" was a lethal attack by poison which was consumed by his puja vigraha Lakhsmi Narasimha, and he was surviving. As he was a strong preacher of Madhva Philosophy, he had many enemies, mostly from the nastikas. But due to his mantric power he all defeated those haters of Lord Vishnu, and even pacified both traditions of Shiva and Vishnu worship in this town. He worshipped Kumbeswara Swamy (Lord Shiva) as well Sarangapani Swamy, the main Deity of this town. Sarangapani (the bow holder..) is right after Lord Ranganatha the second most important Temple of all the 108 divya desams in bharatvarsa, as it was sung by 6 alwars, and Tirumangai Alwar (the thief* saint!) made a composition in a very special style, called Ratham... each verse holds one part of a cart, were Lord Vishnu is sitting inside and pulled by his devotees, like on Ratha Yatra.
Kumbakonam also has one very unique Maha Sudarshana Temple, Sri Chakrapani Perumal, worshipped by Ahirbudhnya Rishi, the kuluguru of our son Sri Prahlad, and the main teacher of Lord Narasimha Anustub maha Mantra. That Sudarshana Deity is a very impressive and powerful Lord, and here you can see him in his utsava Murthy in standing position with 8 hands, and in his Moola Vigraha you have him with 16 hands, almost in 2 meters size!
Kumbakonam has in and around some nice small Narasimha shrines, one is the old Ahobilam Matham, with a beautiful Malola Lakshmi Narasimha Vigraha, very similar to the Jeeyar Deity. There is another Narasimha in the flower market, with Kurattalwar next to it, who did special puja to Narasimha in Kumbakonam for the save of his Guru Sri Ramanuja from the onslaught of the chola king krimikantha!!! But this story we will tell in the next post...

Chidambaram Nataraja Akasha Lingam and Sri Govindaswamy Temple

From Pondycherry i left in direction to one of the 5 Element (Pancabhuta) lingam, in the town of Chidambaram. This linga (symbol of Lord Shiva) is the first of the 5 element lingams found in tamil nadu, and stands for akasha (either). The temple once was only a temple of Lord Vishnu, by the name Govindaraja Swamy, sung by the alwars, especially Tirumangai Alwar had sung 32 songs about Him, in Chidambaram. But due to the rivaly between the shiva kings Kulotunga I. (Rajaraja) of chola dynasty and the sri vaishnava community, Sri Govindaraja Swamy was removed and only later restored in the temple. Now the temple housing two seperate shrines inside, one for Shiva and one for Vishnu. I was there when it got very crowed and many people came to Nataraj Shiva to get the blessings, so the Shiva shrine was overpopulated like a indian train. I had a peaceful darshan of Sri Govindaraja Swamy and next to him is a nice small Ugra Narasimha shrine too. The whole temple looks very confusing as the Shiva temple is built around the Vishnu deity, and there are two prakaras interwaving each other. The priests here look very unusal with those sikhas on top of their head instead in the back. Just recently the atheistic goverment of tamil nadu has taken the rights of those priests to be independent, and made it a goverment run institution, to make it more bankrupt and misuse the money for anti religious propaganda. anyhow a very unfortunate chapter of indian history with those temples ...

Tri Narasimha Ksetras in and around Pudducherry area

One of the most impressive Narasimhas are found in and around of Pudducherry /Pondicherry area. Those are Singakovil, around 15 km from Pondicherry in a very unknown village. The place is only possible to find if you ask for Singakovil, then may some villagers can direct you there. The Temple is of impressive structure and built in typicial south indian style with Gopuram (entrance tower), prakaras (walls around) vimana (tower structure in aeroplane style) etc... The Deity is one of my favoured Vigraha in south india, a Big 16 handed Ugra Narasimha around 2 Meter in size. A very impressive Deity indeed!!! Even in the middle of ricefields and nothing else the temple is properly taken care by some priests around, and you can get darshan in early morning time nicely.
The next temple is around 30 km from Singakovil away by the name Puvasamkootam, also a total village area. The Deity is a Lakshmi Narasimha with very nice alankarams, and most of the time he flanks on either side two lions... (see pic) This temple also goes under renovation right now, and will get a better temple complex.
The next of the three Pudducherry Narasimhas is the Parikkal Lakshmi Narasimha, a very protective Narasimha in nature. Many people come here for relief from distress, black magic and other problems. It is around another 30 km from Puvasamkootam, so to have all 3 darshans at a day, you best hire a car from Pondicherry early morning and do the tour from here! Im promise it will make you wonder after having darshan of all those special Narasimha Murthies!

Puducherry or better known as Pondicherry

Organized for trade with europe and controlled by the french for more then 250 years, this city is a very surprise to see, as it is not much of indian culture left. Even the police carries french helmets, street names are in big letter french and french bakerys all over the place (with french schools, education done in french etc.). Also the whole street settlement are done quite in europian style. And at last funny to see indians speak fluenty french!!!!
Beside it is very much influenced by the ashram culture of Sri Aurobindo who established 1926 his "integral Yoga" theory here in Pondy. Some of his followers started in the 1960`s a village idea outside of Pondycherry by name "auroville" planning of 50000 inhabitans living all around the utopia meditation hall looking like a Vimana/aeroplane. But until now only 2000 people have come and built some house around this area. Anyhow the park and the whole area around is nicely mantained, with many small teastalls, restaurants, french bakerys and kashmiri antique stores... The area of the meditation hall is pure clean and hardcore checked that you dont get stranded on some of the grassfields forbidden for outsiders. On of the most important incense production is here established by the name "Maroma products" who sell those incense all over the world. Those sticks are mainly pure oil dipped incense with freshy blends, beside of their soap, bathing powder production in aromatheraphy style.
All that is a very good point to relax and settle a bit from stress, and i guess one can get a fairly hotel room price the village area, if one doesnt want to stay inside the city.

Mahabalipuram Sayana Perumal and Bhu Varaha Temple

Mahabalipuram is a very old port from the ancient trading time of india with outside countries like Thailand, Cambodia or vietnam. Some part of old city was flooded 400 years ago, and the village town was shifted more inside the landscape area. Testimony are the nowadays shore temple of Maheswari and the lioncave who are just on the beach.
Unfortunate some of the nowadays inhabitants of mahabalipuram are fishermen who dont have either education nor appreciation to their ancient traditions due to conversion to abrahams religions like christanity or islam. They do their daily morning toilet just right on the beach or in those cave temples who doesnt get daily pujas. The goverment of Tamil Nadu is doing less for a change, but instead charging big entrance fees for foreign tourists to visit cave temples of more important values like those of the Pandava rathams. But i have not seen a change from those days until now with this garbage and waste problem. No wonder that big diseases spread in rainy seasons like thyphoid, malaria and brain fever.
This year i did a nice Puja inside the Varaha Swamy Cave temple with my priest friends Gopal Krsna bhattar and Satana Bhattar. It is a very powerful Deity which is painted with natural colours and have a very fantastic artcraft inside the cave of pallava and chola style.
In antiquity the king Narasimha Pallava got blessed by Varaha Swamy here, and he granted big land, daily foodstuff trough the villagers around, gold and silver decorations and one Ekanta deepa (a eternal burning lamp for puja all day and night).
The worship from days has declined, but it is one of the last cave in Mahabalipuram who recieves still puja daily...
See the beauty... ah ah Om sri varahaaya namah

puja tour trough Tamil Nadu

I came for the purpose of studying more on Agni pratistha and some special upasana on Lord Narasimha, and i was landing in chennai just to come in the right time of a legendary abhisheka of Lord Partha Sarathi Swamy. Here you can see some of the clicks... This Deity has special holes all over his holy body to memorize us that the Lord is always there for our protection if we surrender fully at his lotusfeet, as he did in the middle of the battlefield in Kurukshetra for his Devotee Arjuna.

back from holy land bharat varsha (india)

Dear readers, so i will share some of my new expierence from the last trip to holy land of india with a lot of new pictures and unknown holy sites to be visited by all of us. please share and join and come along...

Snow Lingam in Berlin Nagare 2010

IN the cold freezing time of the new year eve of the great year of Ganapathi 2010, we collected all our strength to built for all living entities this nice snow shiva lingam to bless this weird city of Berlin...
Of course it is not permanent staying here in berlin nagare, but there is a nice Murugan Temple in urbanstr.60 with also host a nice Shiva Lingam. But otherwise this city doesnt have much to show on Hinduism so far. maybe in the future it will have one of the biggest Kumara Temple as they start to built right now... lets see!

Profile Playlist by Malola Music

Profile Playlist by Malola Music

dasavatharam Tamil Movie and the history of india

recently i came across trough a friend in the indian grossary store from who i buy always puja samagri to hand me over a new Tamil movie by the name "dasavatharam" on VCD. At home i started to watch the movie, and i liked the movie - even with all this interchanging of facts, mythology and fiction. The story goes like this:"in the ancient time before the mleccha muslim invasion started in india, around the 12th century AD, great rivalry between shaivas and Vaishnavas reached his peak in replacing Govindaraj Swamy from Chidambaram Temple into the indian ocean near by. A great hero "Nambi Narayana" (played by the actor Kamal Hassan) trying to prevent this sacrilege, but is tied on the big Govindaraj Mula Vigraha and trown inside the ocean and killed ordered by the Kulotunga chola king. Later the movie turns to the modern day where CIA, Karunanidhi (the president of tamil nadu Goverment and a strong atheist, who gave his son the name "Stalin"!!!) and some mafia gang is trying to fight over lost biochemical weapon material... The actor slips into 10 different roles therefore the movie is called "Dasavatara".
He becomes:
a Spy- Matsya
Scientist- Kurma
An Outcast- Varaha
Karate Fighter- Narasimha
Dwarf- Vamana
Brahmin- Parasu Rama
Dark Man- Rama
Robber- Krishna
Philosopher- Buddha
Unknown- Kalki

and finally he plays even the ex president of USA, Bush in such a strange mask, that one is laughing his tits off.
But lets come to the point why im writing all this: Of course historians and in the Vaishnava literature we find traces of enmity and rivalry between those two sections of vedic dharma - shaivas and Vaishnavas - and it is also a fact that in the time of the cholas one very cruel King by the name Kulothunga chola harassed the vaishnava community, trying to kill the great acarya Sri Ramanujacarya, to establish that Lord Shiva is the only Deity what is Supreme. Nowadays scholars of different schools have not really traced which of the Kings of the Chola empire by the name "Kulothunga" could be the fanatic marauder. There are at least 3 kings with the same name, and Kulothunga the first and second fall into the time of Sri Ramanuja. But both contributed with large amount of wealth to built temples of Lord Vishnu or support their seva ongoing. So who was this Kulothunga Chola, which some historians decribe as "Krimikantha chola", who died from a curse with a troat full of worms ? May we will never know the full story. But one facts stands, in the controversy over the Govindaraj Swamy temple inside the Nataraja Chidambaram Temple, that both shrines are coexisting for more then 700 years under the same roof now. Coming back to the movie, showing this part of history of ancient india in such strange light of fiction, bollywood glamour and mixing it with mythology is a bold act. Also showing demons like Bush and Karunanidhi as the saviours of mankind and godlovers - is really stange. But the most thing what hit me when i saw the movie, was why they did not make the story around the looting the destroying of temples in the muslim invasion times? That of course could be proofed by historical facts, but it would ignite the wraths of the muslim community in india... and an actor of atheist political supporter of dravida kalakam would not play such act. But out of fear history has to be re written ? - just to please one community in the world? There are several books covering this subject but has been very much neglected over the mainstream of history tellers. I got few very interesting stories which i will share with you in the next few blogs and i hope you stay tuned...

what this has to do with spirituality?

well that question might be raised here, but remember Vaishnavas and other faiths were persecuted and killed under the communist regime in Ussr, Hungary, GDR. From the year 1980 - 1987 more then 150 Hare Krishna members were put in labor camps, and few were even killed there. To stand up against cruelty is not just the duty of the fighting class of men. Every person has a brain to think and a mouth to speak. As i have lived under this regime in my child and teenager time, it is my duty to share my feelings with you. Every fanatism of the modern lifestyle can effect your mental constitution and bring fatal decisions to drag you away from the truth. Where ever there is injustice and you keep silence, will bring disaster in ones own life. I have seen this in my personal life, and not just in the old GDR people used to be lazy, scarred or indifferent. It can be in any place, any time and even in our heart.. to let in the dark side of life!

camp and GDR secret police

The remains of the GDR secret police "Stasi" buildings, the only one left over watch tower from the terrain. I went inside this tower, but the steps were broken. So i lifted my self up with old energy cables hanging down from the platform. From there you have a good view over the area, but i guess this tower will not stay longer then few years. Then there will be even less memory on the history of communism in germany... and we all can vote again idiots for our rulership to kill, torture and suppress our personality.

the deep dark side of life

Recently i have found a newly build cemetery to remember the innocent people killed by the NKWD (KGB) right after the world war 2, near berlin city. That was called cleansing the members of nazis, but in fact mostly youngsters where caught and forced inside this labor camp. Starved to death was the first thing, everyone who lived more then 2 month were killed by shooting. Later on the same spot the GDR secret police "Stasi" occupied the area with buildings for their spy and military activities. Only when the GDR came down in the year 1990 this area where researched and one discovered bones of more then 1500 people from that old concentration camp area. The buildings were destroyed and only few things remember one on the dark age of this place. I went around and made some shoots for your to drench on this...!

no song from the bright side of life..

as i have mentioned in the last vote for the german government, the left party "die linke" recieved more the 30% of all votes from all germany voters...! People who were persecuted under the rulership of communism in old GDR are shocked, but common people dont ask for history. So not to forget that communism is general against religion, free mind people and other beliefs than their own i paint a picture for you to see to remember before you go voting communism again. It is a very vicious belief, which had rules like stalin, pol pot, causescu and other blood suckers. Those 3 only killed more then a billion people in their time of rule. In east germany we had 40 years of communist rule, but had more then 2000 dead on the wall, more then 200 death sentences, more then 250000 people in jails for political reasons and more then 3 million people escaped from this regime of terror. What more is to proof that this concept of communism failed, and is similar to the fascism a totalitarian concept of brutality and inhuman believe of mankind.

Germany go vote and some thought..

This is a picture i have found just before the votes were given to our government. In germany right now we have few parties which one would consider to be antidemocratic or even fascistic. The party of old communistic dictatorship of GDR turned in to be a leading opposition in whole (!!!) germany, with more of 32% of all the votes!! Then we have the other side of the extremistic thoughts, the brownish parties of the right wing, which got only 3,2 % of the votes.
The funny thing you see here is that a indian born member of the social party is a candidate for mostly extreme left or right wing ruled area in eastern part of germany. The satire goes as so far, that on the same lamp pole hangs another poster of the right wing party saying "vote first German"... sarcasim pure!
But then you hear voices in india, that india is the only country in the world were a foreign is voted in... so dear brothers, that is not true. And by the way, if a foreign wants to become a indian by passport, that is what is impossible in your country!!! Here in germany we have around 6 millionen foreigners living here, and they all can apply to be citizens of germany. But they dont want...! Maybe the culture is to odd ?

Wall paintings in Sri Rangam

As in ancient times the Temples of south india were painted with natural colours, telling the stories of Puranas or mahatmiyas of the local place. Especially in the area of Srirangam a lot of input of rural painting were given. But somehow this tradtion stopped out of sudden in the last century. Most probably the ingredients of the natural colours or the recipes of the mixture got lost. Or maybe the painters didnt get much payed for, so they looked for some other opportunity to get their household together. But anyhow it is very sad to see the conditions of those temples with the paintings fading away. Especially if you visit the temple of Ranganayaki in Sri Rangam sanctum sanctorum. In the outer prakara there was wallpaintings all over the place. One could find the story of all Vishnu Avatars, the Alwarstories and the appearance of Lord Ranganatha in this world - in very detail. From the floor up to the roof ceiling!!! Here you see only few pics from the roof i made with a high resolution camera. Imagine it is all in dark halls, lot of bats flying around, and poorly maintained... so anybody has a good idea to reestablish those paintings?

annaprasana samskara on Narasimha Farm Germany

Our Prahlad has now turned the 6. month of birth and it was time for him to get his first grains as well. Our family priest Padmanabha did the ceremony and our Prahlad liked the sweet rice very much!