25 Dec 2007, Amritapuri
\nIt wakes you up at the crack of dawn.\u00a0 Speakers across the backwaters. Speakers near the Ashram.\u00a0 Full blast, and it continues on until dusk.\u00a0 Sometimes it starts earlier, sometimes ends later.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Festival Time again.\u00a0 Of course, in Amritapuri, everyday is a festival.\u00a0 But on some occasions during the year, there are festivals going on at temples all over the area.\u00a0 These days, there is one going on across the backwaters at a small temple.\u00a0 Someone has sponsored the chanting of the Srimad Bhaghavatam <\/em>(stories about the incarnations of Vishnu).\u00a0 There are at least three speakers\u00a0\u00a0 They are small, megaphone-shaped, and high up in the palm trees.\u00a0\u00a0 Strategically placed to maximize coverage.\u00a0 But they are not in synch, so there is a delay. And an echo.\u00a0 9 times I counted the other day.\u00a0 The sound bounces off the flats.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The chanting is in Malayalam or Sanskrit, but it sounds like mumbo-jumbo.\u00a0 Even if you know the languages, we can\u2019t figure out how anyone understands what is being said.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes, there are two or three festivals going on simultaneously.\u00a0 And then one can imagine what that sounds like….The whole scenario boggles the western mind.\u00a0 But is the fabric of India.\u00a0\u00a0 A part of the culture<\/p>\n A visitor once asked Amma what to do.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t meditate and wasn\u2019t getting enough sleep.\u00a0 Amma asked, \u2018What are they playing?\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018They are chanting the sacred names of Krishna.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Amma just sighed, smiled, closed Her eyes, and placed Hands on Her heart..\u00a0 End of story.\u00a0 For wasn\u2019t it the same chanting that caused Amma to stop in Her tracks so many years back and go into Krishna bhava for the first time?<\/p>\n Sri Pati<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 25 Dec 2007, Amritapuri It wakes you up at the crack of dawn.\u00a0 Speakers across the backwaters. Speakers near the Ashram.\u00a0 Full blast, and it continues on until dusk.\u00a0 Sometimes it starts earlier, sometimes ends later. It\u2019s Festival Time again.\u00a0 Of course, in Amritapuri, everyday is a festival.\u00a0 But on some occasions during the year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ashram-diary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}