Maha Shivaratri

Yesterday was mahashivaratri, the night of shiva, and being a hardcore shiva I too decided to spend the night at the temple. Although in my family it has never been an event of importance I decided I'd take up the fast, which i did manage to succeed in, thanks to the grace of the 3 eyed lord. It was 9pm when I reached the marundeeswar temple in thiruvanmyur and met my friend who was already in the darshan queue, (there was enormous queue that extended way beyond the main temple wall) being a crowd-hater I decided to wait till the line was shorter before going for the darshan (After all you will be able to see him only when he wills it). I went and seated my self at the 'entertainment section' of the temple rea group of children were getting ready to sing, they sang mostly carnatic songs and bhajans, after which there was a performance by the art of living people, which was very dissappointing for they had these hi fi instruments but sang only 3 songs which were only repetions of the same one line and left. Following this there was this guy who gave us a discourse on the 5 letter mantra (namah shivaya) and by then people had made the entire area a picnic spot, there was everything from cofee, tea, snacks, bedsheets, thick rugs, and people filling every available space to sleep. My friend got a call on his mobile and when he walked away from the noise to speak, he noticed that the paid darshan line was very short, so we decided to have our darshan. We had a peaceful darshan inspite of the minor chaos that reigned inside the temple due to people scuffling to get a better view. On our way out we realized that there was another discourse happening on the other side, so found a place to seat ourselves there. This one was really good and there was this guy speaking about the shivalingam, it was truly enlightening. He spoke about what the parts of the lingam represents, the story of lingothbavar, the types of lingams and lots of other saivite philosophy. If you do happen to visit the temple do attend the discourses that are given at 7pm daily on thiruvasagam and other shaivaite teachings.At about 12:30 i realized i was really hungry and my stomach was making noises, so decided to stick around till1:00 (thats when the thithi was supposed to end), and went home after that. I performed poojas to the shivalingam at home had a nice midnight meal and watched thiruvilayadal that was playing on tv and finally fell asleep at 2:30. This shivratri was truly a different experience, although i did not stay awake the whole night since I had to be in office at 9 am the next day, it did make me feel spiritually charged (i guess thats the whole point anyways).

Om namahshivaya!!!