A breath of life!

After an adventurous journey from Dombivli to Shirali and from shirali to Bangalore, I finally found the breath of life... An Internet connection. I must admit that I have become an Internet addict. But seriously, Internet provides such sophistication in life, that I find I absolutely indispensable! Another breath of life was the visit to shirali math. An ashram for chitrapur saraswat bhramins (CSB). Its the community I belong to! It is a very tiny community with just 22,000 CSB's spread all over the world. Yes! Only 22,000 people left in my community. Just like Parsi community, ours too is a very small and conservative community. Most of the chitrapurs, also addressed as "bhanaps" are well placed in the various fields, living in complete abundance of wealth. Around 2000 years back a clan of people used to live by the banks of river saraswati. Thats how our ancestors were named "saraswats". As the river started drying up the group started shifting towards south of india and settled mainly in the present day karwar and uttar kanara areas. The main language of saraswat bhramins is konkani. It is beautiful scriptless language. It initially had very close semblence to sanskrit. Even today the konkani vocablary uses some sanskrit words. Wisdom and scholarly trait runs in our blood. Our ancestors occupied highly coveted posts of treasurer and custodians, administrative ministries of the famous kings and queens. Even today, although there are very few CSBs left, most of the CSBs are holding high profile posts in various fields of study. SBs are also well know for their peaceful nature and Diplomatic & Political shrewdness. The diplomatic nature of the community has warded off many battles with mighty empires. I feel so proud to belong to the community that has always preserved the culture and tradition of the bhagwat dharma. Our community also has a lineage of swami or guruparampara. It is said that the parampara runs directly from the disciples of H.H. adi shankaracharya. And shirali is the place where the samadhi of all the gurus is kept. It is really beautiful place which reminds me of the Art of Living Ashram. When I saw it I felt it like a miniature AoL Ashram! It has got a lake, a yagnashala, goshala, a dining hall, meditation hall and the most important guruji's kutir. This math was built during the british days. Legend says that the East India Company had planned to build a huge camp in the surrounding area as it was a strategic location, hence had no intention to let our ancestors build the ashram. But one glance of our guru made the Queen take back her order! That's the might of divinity !!! The homa my family performed at the math was superb. Some of the pics are uploaded in the slide show! The most fortunate event was to see the "protector of our family" the Snake god, in shirali! It was said that Divine knowledge and wisdom was offered to our clan by the serpent of shiva called Ananta. Over the period their worship was neglected. And their stone statues were soon forgotten relics. But, this neglected attitude only invited the wrath of the snake lord. Soon the families started experiencing great difficulties. Then the swamiji asked us to start worshiping the snake idols again. This entailed some archeologial digging of the burried snake idols. But with the grace of the master it took only few weeks to find out snake dieties. And miraculously, the health, wealth and prosperity started welling up in our lives! The main temple of the serpent is found at Ananteshwara, Vitthal. This place is near Mangalore. We also had time to visit Honnavar Creek, Murudeshwar Shoreline & its famed Shiva temple & Idugunji Ganapati. Here is the slideshow of all the pics!Enjoy! Jai Gurudev! O.A.K.