Vacation Lessons

Everybody needs a vacation once in a year. Vacation is like a rejuvenating spree, provided we do things we like and go to places we like. What if a vacation involves things you must do and the whole schedule for it is decided by somebody else!!!

     Every year my family makes sure that we visit a new place for our vacation. And this would either start with visiting temples or end with visiting one. Sometimes it’s just about temples. With such a kind of vacation rule in  my family, my mother once had planned to visit goa by road ( at least this is what I was  told  initially  ) I was all excited and jumping with joy that this time there are no temple visits and it  was going to pure fun. Nothing to do with  getting up at the oddest of odd hours in the morning, taking shower in ice cold water, dressing up to be in the temple before sunrise and standing  in those long  never ending queues. As I was painting pictures of a temple free vacation in my mind   where it was about being lazy, good food and tourist places, my mother killed my excitement by saying "we would be going to gokarna, sringeri, and other pilgrimage places nearby to goa and then if we had time left we might go to goa. These words drained my enthusiasm and I was no longer interested in the trip, but as a part of the family I had no other option but to go.

  So we started the road trip and our first destination was Gokarna. A beach town which was famous for lord shiva’s temple. As most of us know lord shiva is worshipped in the form of a cylindrical structure called “lingam “. Here too he was worshipped in the lingam form. But the interesting part here was the lingam is inside a small man made stone groove, which means you cannot see the lingam but just touch and feel it. And the public there believes that this is god. They perform rituals  so religiously  and  with such energy that if you attend an offering you will be taken to a whole new state of mind, with all the singing and lights around. The whole place is filled with happiness all chanting the name of god. When I attended such an offering I was mesmerized by the unity the crowd portrayed. And thats when I concluded that visiting temples was not as bad as I thought.

            Several times I had travelled with family to godly places situated at various corners in India  sometimes hardiwar/rishikesh which was tricked as mussoorie to me or Palakkad, Kerala being clubbed with the famous Guruvayoor temple and many more. But as I grew up  I started to look at these visits differently instead of sulking about a vacation like that I paid  attention and got  involved in what I was doing and where I travelled. Getting to know about so many gods and their temples and visiting them made me curious about mythology. Hence I started exploring by either asking my mother or reading about them.

          Over a period of time I looked forward to travel with mom to such places because she used to tell me all about the it before hand. It was like I had a guide to every place I travelled. Having visited so many holy places there were numerous things I had noticed by then, the architecture of the temples which was 1000s of years old interested me for its pure grandeur. The history about the origin of every famous temple contributed to my knowledge and instilled amazement within me. The lights with which the temples would be lit up during night was far better than any man made light shows in the world. The peace these holy places have, displayed the power to wipe out all the disturbances in the mind of a person. The discipline and punctuality followed by the holy men and caretakers at these places made me make good habits a part of my life with ease. The hundreds of people who come to visit such places far away from their home just to feel the inner peace which I felt made me believe in this invisible power even more.

          The whole concept of god and some power made absolute sense to me. I deciphered this whole experience as a way to charge myself for the life ahead just as how our cell phones needs to be  charged every night so as to be useful to us the  next day. Because a person who is creative and looks forward to achieve goals either long or short needs to be charged up and going. Even if we are positive all the time and try to be the same every day, there are times when we fall in those empty spaces. Once in such a place one needs something or somebody to put your hopes on and come back on track. For me it’s the belief in the power that a holy place has. I just visit a great holy place and the ambience charges me up and I feel I am ready the next moment. Today I believe these vacations that I had when I was young have actually made my life a vacation. Every person to be extremely happy needs a passion or hobby or any other kind of belief apart from what they do regularly like for most of us being here today and being associated with toastmasters. These passions and beliefs are the trump cards in one’s life and reflect the happier side of us, the go getter side of us. And we should nurture these passions and beliefs and help it grow. Because sometimes the solutions to the problems we have, show up while we do something we love.

An unwanted holiday has helped me form my connection with this world through spirituality.  So maybe all of us should welcome any unwanted happenings in life and see how it turns out for oneself . If lucky you might learn the lesson about how to live life !