Every year on a suitable weekend of December the members of our Bhajan Group numbering about 70 to 80 people who consider Shanthamma as their spiritual guide, organise a big mass feeding of people. Every year these celebrations are organised in a spacious marriage hall and Rudrabhisheka with the chanting of the Rudra and various homas (Gana Homa, Navagraha Homa, Mritynjaya Homa, Vishnu Sahasra Homa and Sai Sahasra Homa) are performed with quite intense devotion and subsequently after the Noon Sai Baba Aarathi, a delectable lunch is served. This year too, a gathering of almost two thousand devotees had assembled at Aadi Chunchunagiri Marriage Hall in Vijayanagar, Bangalore on December 18th 2011. The day's celebrations commenced at around 5:00 am with the morning aarathi, followed by welcoming of the Padukas with full devotion and a Nagara-Sankirtana (a procession on the streets adjoining the marriage hall) accompanied with women dancing and singing with the tapping of coloured wooden sticks (called Kolu Aata in Kannada).
The Sankalpa (Intention) for the entire celebrations were done the previous (December 17th , Saturday) evening and all the necessary arrangements and decorations of the hall were done the previous day itself. This time Bhagya (my wife) and I were the couple chosen to perform the Sankalpa and the homas.
These celebrations are being done every year for the past five or six years ever since Shanthamma exuded a greyish-green egg shaped stony Aathma Linga from her mouth some years ago. This happened at Shirdi. One day, while in the room of a hotel at Shirdi, my wife put in great effort to comfort Shanthamma as she developed a violent fit of cough. As she was coughing violently, an oval egg shaped object as I have described above came out of her mouth. She was given the inspiration that it was an Aathma Linga and was instructed that a mass-feeding and homa and abhisheka must be done each year. A committe of volunteers donate a considerable sum of money each month and ensure that the celebrations are held each year.
It has also happened that since the past few years Swami (Shirdi Sai Baba) himself makes a contribution to the Poorna-Aahuthi (the main offering at the end of the homa) and this is in the form of a cocoanut and other things suddenly materialsing. It is always true that no one else has seen the precise instant of time when the bundle appears, but in a matter of one or two unobserved seconds a fairly large bundle is seen in Shanthamma's arms and she is seen to converse quite meaningfully with someone or something and is reduced to intense tears of devotion.
This year I was too keen to see the appearance of the bundle at the precise instant of its appearance, but both my wife and I and one or two other ladies just noticed Shanthamma pleading for one of us to give her support as she suddenly turned around shouting "Sai Shiva, Sai Shiva" with a fairly voluminous bundle in her arms. As my wife and other women held her they heard her pleading in Telugu "... but the building will crumble. Please desist as it will cause so much of suffering..."
To be continued...
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