Visiting new places and revisiting old ones sometimes means a lot to every individual on account of both peace and pleasure. Peace may be a form of self-satisfaction and relax of mind where pleasure may be a form of inner happiness and fulfillment of long pending desire.
A good visit brings positive and cheerful changes in someone’s mind and soul. Some of the visits are pre-planned where some are “let’s go” type.
Pre-planned visits to new places give immense pleasure as a curiosity and explorative mood is built within the person before he starts the journey.
In case of re-visit to some places with interest as at the time of first visit that straightly means that you like the place a lot and can visit again and again.
We visit different aspects of nature being it oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, forests, wildlife sanctuaries, hills, mountains, water falls, hot springs and all and all other human architectural wonders.
Visiting all other places provides pleasure but a visit to temple always gives you inner peace and relax of mind. When it comes to Shree Jagannath Dham, puri, it provides all the variants of imotions attached to a human and leads one towards immense peace, pleasure and self-satisfaction.
People often go to a world tour grab experience of visiting places to all over the world but the one who visits either of the Dhams of India and makes a round over the temple experience the world around him as the joyous feelings he earns at Jagannath Dham is just out of the world.
HOLY PLACES OF INDIA
As we know we have 4 famous Dhams in India situated at four directions from the center of our country being north, south, east and west.
Dwarka or Dwarkanath Dham in the western part, situated in the state of Gujrat whereas Badrinath Dham in the northern part situated inthe state of Uttarakhand. Rameshwaram Dham in the southernmost part situated in the state of Tamil Nadu where as Lord Jagannath Dham situated in Puri.
All the 4 dhams are famous worship places of Lord Vishnu and his avatars (incarnations). At Rameshwaram Lord Vishnu is being worshipped as incarnated in his Ram Avatar along with lord Shiva.
In Dwarka Dham, Lord Krishna is worshipped by the name of Dwarkadhis who is also an avatar of Lord Vishnu. In Badrinath Dham lord Vishnu himself is being worshipped as Badrinath and in Jagannath dham lord krishna is being worshipped in lord Jagannath form.
Out of these four dhams Lord Jagannath dham seems to have been more live than other threes as in all other three dhams idols of the lord is worshiped there which has their own mythological and historical significant but when it comes to Jagannath dham, it is believed that Lord Jagganath is non other than Lord Krishna in the form of Daru Brahma.
All the 4 dhams are famous worship places of Lord Vishnu and his avatars (incarnations). At Rameshwaram Lord Vishnu is being worshipped as incarnated in his Ram Avatar along with lord Shiva.
In Dwarka Dham, Lord Krishna is worshipped by the name of Dwarkadhis who is also an avatar of Lord Vishnu. In Badrinath Dham lord vishnu himself is being worshipped as Badrinath and in Jagannath dham lord krishna is being worshipped in lord Jagannath form.
Out of these four dhams Lord Jagannath dham seems to have been more live than other threes as in all other three dhams idols of the lord is worshiped there which has their own mythological and historical significants but when it comes to Jagannath dham, it is believed that Lord Jagganath is non other than Lord Krishna in the form of Daru Brahma..
The great Daru Brahma was obtained after the end of Dwapar Yug after which Kalyug took place.That means lord krishna is still alive and lives within the Daru Form of lord Jagganath.
For this reason lord Jaganath is considered as the living god who sees everything with his eyelid less rounded eyes called ‘Chakadola‘, with his half built hands he extends helping hands to wipe out the tears of his devotees who prays him with utmost devotion, he has no legs but can be available at anywhere at anytime at anyplace when remembered and called soulfully.
A visit to Jagannath dham It is believed that one can never go to Lord Jagannath until the lord himself blesses him/her for it.
Millions of such experiences are there shared by devotees all around the world and being very honest, I myself believe it as true as I have gone through the same several times. From my experiences I can strongly say that, It does not matter who you are, what you are and where you are, when the thread of emotion connects strongly with the lord, he makes immediate arrangements for you to get ready and move suddenly to visit his dham as well as him.
I would like share herewith the magical experience of my last visit to the lord. I had just got married in the month of March. I and my wedded wife didn’t have a visit to puri and lord Jagannath since a long time. I personally had planned several times for it, but could not make it happened.
I dont know why but the reason may be that the consent of Lord Jagannath had not been granted at that. But this time where there were so may difficulties we still thought of for a visit to the lord and this time may be our prayer was connected to him and we got the golden chance for it.
The term ‘Golden’ I used that’s because as beautiful the journey was that day, the darshan of Mahaprabhu Jagannath and the feeling thereof was much more than anything else in this world, the best ever feeling I had ever have in my life and I think the same feeling must have been gained by all of us that day.
THE JOURNEY
It was april 22, 2021, I and my car started our journey to ‘Ramchandi’ a place near Tapang of Khordha district as per our plan set with my brother in law and his wife who is my cousin. We reached their house and made a night hault there with great hospitality from them.
Next morning on 23rd of April 2021 We all got ready early in the morning , had idly in our breakfast and started our journey to puri by car. It was covid restrictions prevailed all over the state at that time but fortunately visit to Jagannath dham and Jaga Darshan was open for public that day.
We reached there showed our ID proofs , got ourselves sanitized , and entered into the temple by Singhadwar.The temple that day was not as crowdie as it usually remains all over the year.
The arrangements made by Shree mandir administration for Jaga darshan was awesome, after being a part of a small queue when we reached at the entrance of the main temple we found hardly five to ten devotees inside the temple that was due to the restrictions by the administration keeping in view of surge in Covid-19 cases
The time when we presented ourselves in front of Mahabahu, Lord of the Lords, there were nobody in between the Lord and us to create an obstacles in our Jaga Darshan. When my eyes came in contact with Chakadola, the eyes of Lord Jagannath, I was felt like being hypnotized and lost myself completely within those eyes of infinity.
An unknown feeling got raised within me that made all my body parts feel like goosebumps and the tear of emotion came out of the eyes automatically and unknowingly as at that time the human at that time. We had never been such a Jaga Darshan before as throughout the year one suffers a lot and struggles hardly inside the temple to have a glimpse of Lord Jagannath and his eyes because of huge crowd.
After that we got revolved around the temple and visited all other deities and there temples built around the main temple. Then we entered into “Anand Bazar” and had Mahaprashad that erased all our tiredness of the long journey.
After that we went before the sagar raj Mahodadhi and took the joy of taking bath in his holy water. We did camel riding at the sea beach and had ice-cream. After all the marry making we returned back home with great pleasure.
We reached at Ramchandi, tapang at around 7 pm, spent another night at brother-in-law’s home. At that very night when we all were having our dinner together, news came in TV about closing of Jagannath temple for public from next day morning for a uncertain period that will be resumed vide another order in view of spread of covid cases.
After watching the news in TV we were in shock for a while and looking at each other talked within ourselves that how lucky we were and lord Jagannath had actually set such a visit for us that was the best ever feeling for all of us.
Jay Jagannath swami, Nayan path gami, Bhaba tume….
