It is with great reverence and earnest humility that I write this note to share some of the momentous experiences my wife and I had when we visited Kanchipuram to have darsan of Paramacharya.
My family members like many others in the country are traditional worshippers of Sri Sankaracharya Swamigal. Especially in the past few years, my wife Jaya has been an ardent and staunch devotee of Paramacharya and she has been going to Kanchi on a fortnightly routine to seek His darshan and blessings On every such occasion she used to take sandal wood garlands prepared with here own hands for the three Acharyas, the Paramacharya, the Nadu Periyaval and Bala Periyaval. Her daily ritual in the morning consists of loud singing verses in His praise that can be heard by neighbours. Not a day passes without her mentioning to some one or other, whoever it may be, the greatness of Paramacharya, His love and concern for the people, with anecdotes taken from the volumes of "Deivattin Kural."
Her first memorable exalted experience was on the 9th June 1989 when she had gone to Kanchi with a new pair of specially prepared wooden sandals which she wanted to worship after obtaining the blessings of the Paramacharya. She was standing in the usual crowd at the Sankara Math to get her turn to have a close darshan and His disciples were already introducing some of the people gathered there to the Paramacharya. But the Paramacharya noticed my wife in the gathering and without paying any attention to what the disciples were saying, He summoned one of them to get the pair of sandals from her. He wore them, paced a few steps up and down, blessed them and returned them to my wife. Her joy knew no bounds and people around took the opportunity to worship the sandals worn by him. In fact a couple of persons even accompanied my wife back to Madras to worship them again at our house.
This event turned out to be a new leaf in our lives and her life-style changed enormously for the between with more time devoted to changing His name, singing His praise and reading the books that contains His teachings.
A month later in July `89 we met with another amazing but pleasant incident. We were looking for a good alliance for our boy Chi. Laxminarayan but the was not showing any interest in getting married. In fact, on a couple occasions he was sore that we were not allowing to get established in his professional career. However, an alliance from Mannargudi was put forward to us and we were told that it had the blessings of the Paramacharya. The girl, Padma, was from a poor but good and religious family. We ourselves belonged to the middle class but the material expectations from our side were rather high and my wife, notwithstanding her being a staunch devotee of the Paramacharya, could not easily ignore the temptations of receiving as much gold jewelry and silverware from the bride's parents as possible.
The girl's parents were a little dejected but continued their efforts in securing the alliance as they had the blessings of the Paramacharya for the sam. Our boy who had all along been refusing to get married, suddenly showed interest in marriage after seeing the girl. Still my wife was a little uncompromising in her demands and the alliance was nearly called off.
On the 9th July, Sri Balu, the close disciple of Paramacharya, came to our place with fruits, flowers and dress for the couple brought from Sri Sankara Math of Kanchi with His blessings. This inspired me and I strictly told wife not to press the demands and to obey His orders. At once she totally abandoned her earlier position and never again asked for anything but His blessing. The betrothal ceremony was conducted on 14.7.'89 again under Anusha-lagnam with His divine blessings.
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