Badrinath temple with you The tribulations that we experienced

Let’s worship the holy feet of the Almighty and venture into Kalyanamalai's special prayer site The place where the Gods, Sages and Rishis loved to reside The place where Vysar is believed to have written the Mahabharata, which was close to his heart The kingdom ruled by Perumal and Thayar In this episode we are about to worship the holy temple of Badrinath

which is considered as the Vaikuntam (abode of Vishnu) on earth Join me in worshipping The Badrinathar, who resides on the peaks of the Himalayas, among the snowclad mountains When did we travel to the Badrinath temple? 

I spoke extensively on Kedarnath temple which has been viewed by many After completing the worship at Kedarnath, we moved on with a feeling of great ecstasy, to worship the Triyugi Narayana temple the next day This is the place where the fire lit during the wedding of Parvati and Parameswaran still burns for the last 3 eons And I have shared my experiences with you We started the next day towards Badrinath All our travel used to start at dawn When we travel through the Himalayas during sunrise The euphoria of the travel cannot be explained in words We, living in Chennai, 

feel that Chennai is most beautiful during sunrise Think about how beautiful the travel at 4.30 in the morning, through the icy Himalayas, would be like We undertook one such journey We travelled from a place called Rampur to Rudraprayag This travel is downhill in the first leg and upwards in the next As we were slowly travelling downhill, the rays of the sun brightened the mountains beautifully and transformed the mountains to a lustrous golden hue The mountains immersed in pitch darkness on one side and on the other shining brightly with the rays of the sun, the mountains make us wonder if we are still on this earth or if we have travelled to another world We woke up early with the resolution of continuing our sleep during the travel The sun rises early in these regions We are aware that the first rays of the sun fall on Arunachal Pradesh And hence there is early sunrise in North India There are multiple time zones in some countries but India has a single time zone throughout But the north faces an earlier sunrise than the rest of India No words to describe the travel when one witnesses the beauty of the golden mountains at 5 ‘0 clock in the morning We undertook such a wonderful journey We travelled along and reached Rudraprayag The word ‘Prayag’ means confluence and a place where there is a confluence of rivers is called as Prayag The word Prayag is the Sanskrit equivalent of the word Koodal in Tamil The rivers, Mandakini and Alaknanda, converge in Rudraprayag At this juncture, Mandakini bid us farewell and Alaknanda welcomed us as we continued our journey We reached a place called Kauchar where we had our breakfast before resuming our journey We will not face any hardships for food during these travels, if we are accompanied by our own cooks However, 

we will get wonderful Roti and Potato curry and also wonderful tea in any of the small outlets on the way Despite the beautiful mountains, rivulets and rivers on the way, we will have challenges in attending our nature’s call The government of Uttranchal has put up boards claiming the places as the abode of God But we are forced to face these small inconveniences in the land of the Gods The travel is however blissful, if on can overcome these minor problems We have all heard of Haridas Giri Swami in Alaknanda He said that Bhagawatsmaranai (commemoration of God) is not just doing penance or performing pujas but in this Kaliyuga it is possible only through chanting the Lord’s name which will lead us to God The tradition of singing Bhajans (devotional songs) was nurtured by Haridas Giri Swami after Gnanananda Giri Hare Krishna Hare Ram Radhae Govinda Hare Krishna Hare Ram Radhae Govinda Hare Krishna Hare Ram Radhae Govinda It is believed that Haridas Giri Swami attained Jala Samadhi (self-immersion in water) in Alakananda They showed us a particular spot where he had attained Jala Samadhi We desired that our travel will be filled with listening to the bhajans of Haridas Giri Swami We continued our travel towards Badrinath I wish to share few information regarding such travel Travelling through the mountains of the temples in the Himalayas, specifically, the Chardham, namely, Gangotri, Yamunotr.

Badrinath and Kedarnath These temples are opened on ‘Akshaya Tritiya’ day and is closed once the Diwali pujas are completed Reason being that the temple is inaccessible during winters Badrinath is carried in winter to a place called Joshi Mutt I will talk about this further in the episode As the ‘Akshaya Tritiya’ day is approaching, it is most appropriate to worship this temple With this in mind, I am sharing the experiences of the Badrinath temple with you The tribulations that we experienced before we reached the Badrinath temple which is eleven thousand feet above sea level, the physical discomforts after reaching the place, the earthquake we experienced while in the temple of Badrinathar, and the ultimate joy of worshipping Badrinath in India.