Tirumala darshan

this is how we as pilgrims can see Lord Balaji as a natural appearance on rock formations. How wonderful is that?

Nitya Tirumala Unjal seva Utsava

every night at around 5 pm Lord Balaji comes out, takes his seat in the Deepaalankara mandapa, which is still intact (!! who know how long??), and get a swing there. Then after he goes around the temple complex. I think He wonders what happen with all the buidlings from antiquity which have been removed recently...

Tirumala pujas 1999

in the year 1999 when i stayed in Tirumala we did go to the silathoranam, the most ancient stone formation on earth. There we did find the Chakra tirtha, a pond with a old Lakshmi Narasimha Carving on the wall. In that time no pilgrims went there so we came early morning and did our slagrama sila puja in that pond.
Nowadays everything is with metal fences and plastered concrete roads, and lot of pilgrims... anyhow the memories are beautiful...

Night darshan of Varaha Pushkarini ... were we did take some bath. Clean water, so TTD makes good impression in that!

Tirupathi tirumala walk up

On the way some big changes and some places were as i remember 12 years ago. Lord Yoga Narasimha got a new temple on the hill, and some other new temples had come up. Fortunate NO christian church so far... Thanks GOD for that!
See Lord Yoga Narasimha in mystical glance. My walk was giving good assosiation with my friend Varaprasad and his vedic school of Sitanagaram, we did chant the last 1 hour some mantras, prayers, suktas and that was cool, man! We did start to do that on the spot were Sri Ramanuja had walked on knees up the hill. There the steps are smaller in size and many pilgrims did follow his example, even today.

Tirumala demolition

here you see the left overs of the 1000 pillar mandapa still lying around. the whole space in front of the temple has been cleaned*** and some freaky metal door has been installed. Either it is beautiful nor brings it some benefit in preventing terrorist attacks... I think if they wont change the vastu of that temple back to its original (what they never will do!), very soon we will see some very drastic and severe problems popping up!

Tirupathi Bhishma Ekadasi 2012

Big disputes had been bubbling up from the muddy ground of TTD corruption as they still had not come up with the rebuilding of the 1000 pillar mandapa which they demolished 2002, for socalled safety reason. Then finally all the other issues on rituals and management had disturbed the pilgrims and devotees of Lord Venkateshwara for years now. In the year 1999 i had darshan short after midnight with the bright fullmoon over the ananda Nilaya Vimanam. and i wondered when the Lord will rest. And i think the Lord on the 7 hills did not rest from that time onwards.
HH Chinna Jeeyar Swamy had critizied the administration for over 10 years about all that problems facing with those demolishing of ancient monuments, not follow the rules set up by acaryas and temples time table. But there was no response from their side.
Finally on Bhishma Ekadasi 2012 He celebrated a big pandal Programm with the chanting of Sri Vishnu Sahasranama with more then 15000 people, and i was the happy person to be allowed to participate in that program. It took around 5 hours (ohh my yoga asana trained legs still ache!) to complete the whole session and at the end all of us did offer a small oil lamp towards the Tirumala Hill temple. What a beautiful sight to see all 15000 people do the same with devotion and inner spirit to make a change up there. Finally we all went up to the stairs to claim for another 4 hour walk to Tirumala! As one day before i just arrived in India i was very excausted when i came up to Tirumala temple at around 9 pm night. But to see tirumala gave me a cool breeze on my soul! But what a different view on the temple, as the whole area is just removed and all the agarharam and tousand pillar mandapa is gone. Instead they have built a very uncool looking stage for music and dance with a flair of rubble and dust. Not very attractive. Still one can see the olden mandapas pillars lying around everywhere. How cruel one has to be to have no attraction for culture, art and history!

vastu puja and wellness fairs in and around germany

recently i have been in charge of doing Vastu pujas for fairs and meetings in wellness and yoga, before the programs start. And they have good results with the outcome of people and exihibitors in general. Just now im in Kiel were the fair of "Lebensfreude Messe" is held, in a old hall, were in the 1940 Submarines for the second world war were built. SO the place is quite contaminated with bad karma, as you can guess. After the puja we could feel the difference here and it was much more relaxed and calm for all of us. So Vastu Puja (clearance of space with fire and other elements) are a great science and can help the living entity to come close the the real purpose of life.

7. october 1949 - 2011

7. Oktober 2011

how ever thought about that the communist dictatorship would sink into history so fast? But nowadays people are bewildered and think that those days were better, people had no worries, enough of food and happy life. I hear that even more often in spiritual circles or from people who are spiritual connected to any sort of group, religion etc. and i wonder do they have been sleeping in that time, or to young to understand? But sorry please wake up, the evidence shows the real face of that time.

Communism had supressed and free will of different thought, what to speak to live your life in a different way as given by the autority. There was NO free lifestyle, you where not given any place to chant different names except the choosen ones (Stalin, breshnew, Honecker etc.). Dont ever think you could open a center for vedic studies in prenzlauer berg with a sign outside? If you would do so, they would come in a minute pack you up and you would end in Bautzen (one of the biggest and hardest jail in east germany). See the church bombed 1985 after a decision made as the church was to close inside the death zone of the berlin wall!

What to speak about offering any fruits, vegetables as there was NO easy shopping for those items. Life was much more hell as one can imagine today, but im always wonder if i hear people speak about those times in flowery words. History is twisted to fit into a ideal thinking which makes people go for hunting those ideals. But they all fail because it is based on a misconception and liar. Today we have the date of the GDR*s day of republic and im sure we will see some people run around in the streets protesting for their old communist time! What a lost of precious lifetime...

Navaratri Dasara Vijaya Dasami Puja

yesterday we had a special puja in home with the figgs we offered to Lord Narasimha as a garland.

That day marks the time when Lord Rama defeated the Damon Ravana in Lanka and the Pandavas recieved their hidden weapons under a pippal tree for the coming war of Kurukshetra. It is said that on that day what ever is started as new project it will surely happen and with success, as Dharma is on your side.

I did starting with editing the Narasimha Tapani Upanishad which is our newest and biggest project for the upcoming winter, as well editing the new book on sound travel trough north india (in german language). So far both projects got stuck in our daily work, but now it will be focussed to bring it out soon.

please send your blessings and best wishes for those two projects so that we can share our knowledge and experience with all of you. jaya jaya sri Nrsimha!

brrrrrrrr is cold again...

and i have not written anything for more then 6 month. It has been a tough time with all that things around us, and i excuse my self for that. But i hope now i can find some more time as our kid will go for kindergarden very soon!

Music Raghavendra today

Now you see him in today life, performing concerts in and around Chennai and Bangalore even he is not able to travel alone (what to speak going by train etc.). Despite of all this here you see him on stage with famous people like Janaki Amma, Balasubramania and Maestro Illayaraja.
Bless Him with a wonderful success in music and career and write to him! please write under: raghavendra.music@gmail.com
thanx!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend from bangalore

Through the mystery of life and the support of great people, especially trough the family of Sri Vidyabhushana i was able to meet many good friends in India, and one of them is Mr.Raghavendra. He is a very energetic and positive person dispite of his great illness. When he was a small boy one operation made his life change. Due to misinterpretation and mismanagement and several other operations by some wicked doctors, he didn't have any other health related problems. But after the surgery he was not able to recover from that misoperation. But dispite of all this he is working hard on his career to become a very good musician in vocal carnatic music and performed and recieved many awards in that field. His personal teacher Sri Vidyabhushana knows him from his childhood when he allready started to perform public music concerts and took always much care about him (above you see Raghavendra 1985 before the surgery and after the accident in surgery holded by his oncle next to Sri Vidyabhushana in that time still a Sannyasi of Kukke Subhramaniya Mutt 1991). Raghavendra is still recieving music lessions by Sri Vidyabhushana and gets good responses from the carnatic music world for that. Now it would be good that all of you write some good words to Raghavendra to support him with your good thoughts and wishes and that he may overcome this disease and can perform musical devotion all over the world. Please write to him with some personal words, because make others happy is the best way to become happy your self.

New Movie "Maybe Bangladesh" with Sri Vidyahushana

A new movie has come out on the cinema market withe focus on south indian music - with the main focus on Sri Vidyabhushana. It is a story on how a group of german musicians searching for a unknown tape, which they recieved as a gift from india. They went to india it self, in search of the owner of the voice of that unknown cassette, and were directed towards Bangladesh first. Only in india it self they got redirected towards south india and finally met Sri Vidyabhushana personally. The documentary film is very interesting made and got some publicity in south indian TV chanels which you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90sdPfDFt4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDacAIkYFuQ&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noAk8bRHO-k&feature=fvwrel

But also the webpage of this movie is packed with 3 clips which are nice to see:

http://www.maybe-bangladesh.de/

The DVD maybe soon available on the market!

Mystic - Astro Mandapa Part 7

As you see this mandapa is not very impressive from the outside and also the small shrine of Lord Ganapathy is so small that it doesnt really attract a big crown of pilgrims. But in the same time the Mandapa is so unique and special in all his details on astro events in the past and all those special carving (like this one of the Danish soldier or pirat, Lord Narasimha etc.) that also the small Ganesh is a very powerful Vigraha and i ask everyone who ever visit this side of the globe make a visit to this mystic place!

Mystic Astro Mandapa part 6

Kashyapa Muni

Then we find some other very interesting carvings on this mandapa, Narasimha ridding on Garuda, a great Rishi (kashyapa?), Turumburu (the son of Kashyapa, and a great musician) and a very extra ordinary dance with a Veena holding (Male and female together). Lord Narasimha ridding on Garuda is not shown often in carving nor in iconography. Anyhow all of those carvings are unusal as all those Graha occasions (eclipses) show!

Mystic Astro Mandapa part 5

Here we see clearly the Ganda Bherunda Symbol with the scorpion sign of vedic astrology (vrishchika). Above you see the 8 petal lotus which represents the Sun. In the sign of Scorpion and under the rule of The Hoyshala dynasty also a very powerful Sun eclipse took place, and as we can see from history just in the beginning of the 14. century more then 12 powerful eclipses accured, of those 4 were total darkness, that it forcast the soon future of grim occasions with a total change of lifestyle and feeling in everyones life. One of the most powerful eclipse that place in the year 1300 AD on the same day as Shivaratri (Amavasya) to show that soon the land will be swamped with calmities and horror. Only few years later a huge Muslim invation in south india took place, and changed the country in such a way that nothing was as before!
This mandapa can tell us so much of history and it can give much relevance to our daily life too. If we hear and start to read the signs of nature, we can live in harmony with God and his land (Bhumi) so much better. It can help us to understand and even forcast future events and give strength and shelter. Is it not what we all search for?

shows how important and influencial those eclipses were on the mind of the people, and was even future telling if we see those time back.

Mystic Astro Mandapa part 4 - Ganda Bherunda

The mysticial Bird Ganda Bherunda is also shown next to the astrological sign of Vrishchika (scorpion) in which another eclipse 1234 AD. accured. The mystical Bird which by great Narasimha Upasakas is worshipped as a Form of Lord Narasimha, in the same time it is a symbol of the Hoyshalas and Wodayar dynasties of south India. Most likely the Mandapa was built by their support or have been in that time of reign.

Mystic Astro Mandapa part 3

Let us see the other carvings from the roof of this Mystic Astrology Mandapa:
1) Kannapa, the great shiva saint (on of the 63 holy saint of shaivism, called Nayanars) who dedicated his eyes to Lord Shiva - next to it you see the Sun globe shown as a Lotusflower
That storydirects us toward Lord Shiva's Night - Shiva Ratri which faces a very strong Eclipse in the year 1300!

2) Mrgashringa, the female Lion with human head, famous mystic story from the Mahabharata sitting next to the Sun globe in form of a flower design with a bell in her hand - she is the indian sphinx which is mystified as a great Devotee of Lord Shiva

3) a big Beast like tiger is hunting a deer

4) Cobra attacking the moon and beneath two fishes meet face to face
according to our calcuation this total eclipse of moon as shown here attacked by a big mystical Snake (Rahu) had happen in pisces at 28th feb 1300 with 4 planets in conjuction (Moon, sun, Mercury and Venus). A very severe and heavy position.

5) two monkeys searching for food on the floor
which are the animal signs for two powerful stars (Nakshatras) - purvaashadha men monkey (saggitarius/capricon) and sravana female monkey (capricon/aquarius)

and below a big predator fish eats small one

Mystic - Astro Mandapa Part 2

Next to this Mandapa is a very small but beautiful Ganapathi Shrine, which mostly stands here from the same time period. It became never famous as other temples did, so no much further buildings (like agraharams, kitchen etc.) were built.
Anyhow I did enter the Mandapa and also saw those carvings of those eclipses, nagas attacking the Sun and Moon, different beast eating each other and also the very strange carving of this supposed Danish soldier. Actually i did find 2 carvings of foreign sailors which is indeed from the 13th century (as they fit the other drawings), but how they come on those pillars no idea. The Danish colony landed only in the year 1620 AD on the indian coast, and the Mandapa maybe was rebuilt and those carvings placed on in that time. Sadras, a commerical port for the danish crown for business was not far from mahabalipuram, as well madras was occupied by danish power in that time.
Then i have found those funny drawing what is for sure a later replacement of carving on those pillars. A funny face not very artistically drawn...!
But all in all the Danish soldiers in this mandapa is unique, as i have never seen any foreigner carvings either in Mandapas or other religious places in south india.