It is possible to do things through which you can have darshan of God. In the olden days this was called tapasya. Dhruva did this with all humility and vinamrata. When God did not yield to his request he continued to do penance and at the end forced God to give darshan.
A great and vidwan King like Ravana also did penance to obtain darshan of Lord Shiva. He was not successful. There was no humility or vinamrata in his tapasya. There was a kind of arrogance and ghamand. He angrily demanded from God why his tapasya was not successful.
Ultimately when Lord Shiva did not give darshan to Ravana he started cutting his heads off, one by one, offering them as sacrifices! This extreme penance forced even Lord Shiva to give darshan.
Near Mangalore and Manipal in Karnataka there is a small town called Udipi (where Adi Shankaracharya lived for sometime and where Dosa was originally invented). There is a very famous temle called Kanakdas. As the story goes, Kanakdas was a shudra who was not allowed to enter the Krishna temple. So he went behind the temple and from the grill got the glimpse of the back of Lord Krishna's head and with love and tears in his eyes prayed. This he did twice daily.
One day the statue of Lord Krishna turned around 180 degrees and faced his bhakta! Till today the statue is facing the back of the temple! Kanakdas's bhakti and devotion forced God to give darshan.
Then the question arises that in Kaliyug what act should be performed to receive God's grace? Is there a way by which we can guarentee God's darshan? There could be several responses to this but one very easy, effortless, low-cost and sure method (are these not the kind of methods fashionable in kaliyug?) is to respect your parents and look after them. Parents are living Gods and serving them is the easiest and surest method to receive darshan.
source: Stories from Here and There, Ekalavya Education Foundation - By: Sunil Handa - http://www.eklavya.org/storyhere.html
No comments:
Post a Comment