 The 20th of April, was a day that all our mission members will never forget, a day that was a stepping stone to success in our challenging path towards further glorifying our Pujya Gurudev’s vision in the “Australasian” continent. It was a day that was a milestone in making our “Chinmaya Mission” well known in New Zealand!!
For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about; on the auspicious occasion of Sri Hanuman Jayanti (20th April), the members and well wishers of Chinmaya Mission Auckland came together at “63 Mckenzie Road, Mangere”, to perform a “Bhoomi Puja” for our ashram centre.
Having Pujya Guruji amongst us for the wonderful “Sundarkand” talks was good enough but to have Guruji to bless us with His ever inspiring presence at the Bhoomi Puja along with the blessings and love of Pujya Gurudev and Mother Nature, was certainly the icing on the cake.
If there were one proverb that has been extensively tested and proved right…it would be “All’s well that ends well”. On that beautiful Sunday, CMNZ proved it right…. yet again!! |
Maybe waking up at 4.30am (after a late night – being the first day of the Yagna), with not exactly the most appropriate clothing for a freezing autumn morning (pretty Indian clothing at less than 8ºC), driving (half asleep) to our Ashram site, using our muscles (yes… even the girls) to move around various equipment, chairs and gazebos, using our slow-functioning brains to put up the tents and trying extremely hard to keep ourselves warm (not allowing our fingers and toes to fall off…) was not exactly the best start…. to what was proposed to be an extraordinary morning.
But watching and experiencing the amazing puja performed by Shri Chandru, an enthusiastic priest of the local Ganesh Temple and his crew, with Prabha Aunty and Hari Uncle, sitting on behalf of the mission, was definitely worth all that hard work. Even though a lot of us did not understand what was actually being said or done, the vibes of the puja spread amongst us and the special bond all the CHYKS and the mission sevaks shared by being present there together made us forget the extensive planning and work we had been doing over the last few months to make that day happen!!
When Pujya Guruji arrived he brought the sunshine with him, in more ways than one. It increased the aura of positivity and divinity amongst us. Guruji’s adorable self, sitting wrapped up in a shawl was definitely a highlight and delight to all. After witnessing the beautiful puja and wholly being a part of it, we all made our humble offerings to Mother Earth before handing them to Pujya Guruji. Then, Guruji led us to the area dug in the earth accompanied by the chanting of some Upanishad mantras.
At the designated place Pujya Guruji stood along with Brni. Bhaktiji, Br. Adarshji, Br. Gautamji, the yajmans and the priest and placed our offerings to Mother Earth which now remains in her very bosom representing the heart of our ashram.
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Then at that very poignant moment, Pujya Guruji blessed and named our centre as “Chinmaya Nikunj” – where Lord Radha-Krishna will be present as the deities of the centre.
This announcement pleased the hearts of all and the emotions (including tears) that each one of us felt was breath-taking and life-giving at the same time. I could definitely feel the presence of Pujya Gurudev amongst us all urging and encouraging us to work harder to fulfil our goal of making the Ashram happen.
At that moment, I know that we all felt (atleast I did) like the amount of work we had done that morning, or over the past years was nothing compared to what was ahead of us. You could see this change when we all packed up after, cleaning up the site in a cheerful mood even that we all were extremely tired. It isn’t hard to predict that the quantity of work or Seva and as a result, the rewards that we were going to undoubtedly reap would definitely increase in the future, but the best thing that we can do is go along with it and strive as hard as possible. We don’t have to look any further than our own Pujya Gurudev for inspiration and strength.
As always all I have are words…I ve said this before and I’ll say it again, no such victorious event can ever occur without all of your support, love and Seva. So on behalf of the Mission, I wholeheartedly thank you, I can only hope and pray that this support will be ongoing!! Apart from our fabulous mission sevaks, we also had the love and support of Br. Gautamji from Melbourne, Brni. Bhaktiji from Nelson and numerous devotees of Pujya Gurudev from Australia, Nelson and even America. A big thankyou and Hari OM to all of them too. We thoroughly enjoyed your presence in Auckland and hope you felt the same!
Let’s all therefore continue to strive together with unedifying strength and unconditional love to give “Maximum happiness to the maximum number of people for the maximum amount of time”, Don’t get turned off by any obstacles because we’ve proven again that “All’s well that ends well” and we all know that “Chinmaya Nikunj” cannot be anything but perfect with His Grace!…. |
