Divine Awakening in Modinagar
A little over half an hour from Delhi was a small town named Modinagar. Early one cold February morning in 1963 several friends of Srimati Rani Bhan, a cousin of Nehru, whose family I was visiting, jammed into an Ambassador car along with me and began the brief journey to witness the consecration/opening of the newly-completed Lakshmi-Narayan temple there. A very famous sadhu, Swami Krishnashram from Gangotri, the Himalayan source of the Ganges, along with two other renowned saints was to perform the ceremony of
pranapratishta, the “installation of life” ritual in which the images of stone would become awakened, alive in a subtle–but no less real–sense.
When we got there we first went for the darshan of Swami Krishnashram. He was sitting out in a freezing cold field on a small heap of straw. As we stood there in the miserable, damp cold, a man nearby told us that the Swami was suffering from the heat so far south, that usually he sat on the ice in Gangotri in perfect comfort. I should tell you here that the saint never wore clothes but at all times was completely naked. Despite his discomfort, the Swami sat, smiling affably and radiating contentment and calm. We saluted him and left, going to sit in the auto.
There one of our company began telling us the saint’s history. Part of his sadhana (spiritual practice) was to consider that all things were the will of God and that no resistance should be made to anything that occurred. So when he slipped and fell into a ditch by the road he just lay there waiting for God’s will and plan to unfold. After some hours a man found him there. Since the saint habitually observed silence, any inquiry about his situation and condition resulted in nothing. But the man felt this was a true sadhu established in the profound peace of the Self. Finding some men to help him, they lifted the Swami from the ditch and he began walking with them. His rescuer took him to his home where eventually the saint communicated why he had lain in the ditch in surrender to the divine will. In time he became very famous and respected around Gangotri, and had never left there until now. And he was reported to be yearning for the snow and ice he dwelt on so happily.
In an hour or so the consecration was slated to begin, so we went to the temple plaza where the sun was beginning to warm things a bit. At one side of the plaza a large band was banging out a raucous din, and directly opposite another band was doing the same, though with a different musical piece. After a while a procession of women accompanied with drums and cymbals came and sat in the middle, singing devotional music. It was a Battle of the Bands and Devotion.
Finally, the temple doors were opened. Rani and her son Induji had wisely worked themselves and me right next to them, so we were among the first to enter. The singing group came in and somehow the blast of the bands was markedly lessened.
We were facing the gigantic, solid silver doors of the central shrine of Lakshmi-Narayan. Suddenly the doors swung open and we saw the very tall figure of Swami Krishnashram half touching and half embracing the large image of Vishnu (Narayana). The image was sparkling and moving with visible life force (prana) like heat waves. We were seeing the deity himself, newly-awakened in the stone. “Vishnu” means “the all-pervading,” so he had always been there but deep in the atomic heart of stone. Now the infinite life that is God had been released from within and was filling the inner shrine and flowing out through the doors, moving through us, awakening our spirit awareness, giving us a touch of our oneness with the Divine.
Just as suddenly the doors closed, and spontaneously everyone began singing: “Narayan, Narayan, Narayan, Om,” over and over again in a reflective melody that I would never forget. The joy of it was inexpressible.
After a while the door opened and the saints summoned to do the awakening managed to make their way over to the shrine on the left. I do not know how we did it, but Rani and Induji and I eventually were right in front of the doors of that shrine, which were not closed. Swami Krishnashram approached the image of the ten-armed Durga seated upon a tiger and began passing his hands over the surface of the image. As he did so, the arms of the goddess began to move slightly and her eyes began to spark just like the eyes of Kali in Ranchi. In moments she was living before us, both within the image and as the image. It was thrilling and awesome.
Later when it was all over (we could not get over to the shrine on the right to witness the awakening of Shiva) we went to salute Swami Krishnashram and returned to Delhi, ourselves more inwardly awakened than before.