My first virtual darshan of Acharya (June-August 2004)

This is almost 3 months before the unfortunate arrest incident of our Acharya. Until this time period, I was not a devotee of Kanchi Mutt at all, although I had all the respect for those sages. Until this point, I never got any dream about our acharyas - not even once. I never read any religious articles, never been a regular visitor to temples etc. The only thing I started around this time period is joining a veda class in Chicagoland. It was few months since I got this dream.

On this night, I am dining with our veda teacher along with Pudhu Periyavaa (Pujyashri HH Jayendra Saraswathy Swamigal). I introduce my teacher to Periyavaa. After the food is over, Periyavaa takes me to a Sivan Kovil and he takes me inside the Karpagraha - is this the right word? It is a huge place and the Sivalingam is really huge. I sit on the floor inside but right by the entrance step. Periyavaa sits closer to the Sivalingam and he does puja. At the end, he does karpura deeparathanai. Once it is done, a light stream comes out of Shivalingam and comes to me - like an arch. Once that hits my body, my body gets a feel of 10,000 volts shock, most pleasurable feeling - words can't explain this...... At one point the whole thing stops and I woke up.

Follow-up & interpretation of the dream

I was intially very confused with this dream. Like anyone, I applied my "science mind" to analyze why I got this dream. I read no article about Lord Shiva or Periyavaa or any religious. I was like any other mediocore desi in US - watching SunTV, CNN etc. I couldn't possibly explain why - I felt happy to get some good dreams.

Then I explained this to my friend, Sridhar, who is one of the best Sivanadiyaars I've seen. He intrepeted this as a very great blessing. He shared this with his colleagues and pretty much all said that this is a very good blessing from our Acharya. Then I approached one person in India, who is the editor for 'NityaKalyan' magazine. I knew him via some other discussion forum - not personally though. He doesnt know me either. When I wrote to him, he explained this in one line

"All this means is your only guru in this birth is our Acharya".

That made lot of sense and sounded like the most appropriate. From that day onwards, I had the urge to meet him. In November, when the world was shocked with the arrest episode, like so many other devotees, I was equally shocked and upset. My urge to meet him grew. That is when my planned India trip came on our way.