My trip to Jagannatha Puri

The lesson i learned

Lord Jagannath, the Lord of the world. He recides in Puri where thousands of devotees visit to get just a glance of his beautiful, fascinating, big round eyes, to feel peace. However, everyone dosent get the chance to visit puri until he feels you are worthy of it. Only the lucky ones get the chance. He comes out of the temple every year during ratha yatra to meet his devotees who have come to visit him from all over the world. The occasion lasts for 9 days when he goes to his aunts house and stays there. I felt so luck to be able to visit puri during the last 2 days of the festival when he will se off towards his temple (Purna Yatra). That morning after getting ready and attending the mangal aarti in the iskcon temple we were staying at me along with my mom, cousin and aunts set off towards the jagannatha temple to see and pull the chariots of Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra devi. It was crowded, groups of people walking towards the temple. Reaching there we secured a less crowded spot win the bada danda (the great avenue) to wait for the chariots to arrive from gundicha temple. After a lot of waiting we could see the chariot of subhadra devi coming. Thousands of people pulling the rope, a music band playing mridangas, police for security and a carrier spraying water on the people to get them relief from the intense heat of both sun and crowd. I could not believe that I was standing there watching the chariots coming infront of my eyes. I could only dream about it. I never thought I could actually see them through my eyes in real. And the most unbelievable thing is that I did not only see the three chariots but got to pull the rope even if it was for 10 seconds. We would stand at a side and when we see the chariots coming close to us and halting for a moment we would try to get through the crowd just to touch the rope. After Baladev's chariot at last the chariot of Jagannath arrived and he stood there right I'm front of where we were waiting. Only his eyes were visible. Those beautiful eyes which can make you get lost in them in a second. It felt overwhelming. I took out my phone to click photos to show my father. By the moment I realised my eyes were already filled with tears. I could not help myself. I wanted to cry my heart out to him. He stood there for 4 hrs as if he was taking a look at everyone and telling us to say everything we wanted to him. So we did. We stood there looking at him, chanting his name singing the Jagannath astakam praying in our heart hoping he will listen.

The next day we got ready to see the Sonar Besh (Golden appearance) of Jagannath.  On this day all three of them are claded in pure gold from their crown to their dress. This happens only once a year. It was of a very good luck and blessing of him that we were given the opportunity to see this form of his. We walked towards the templebut the road we used the day before was closed with barriers and they made a fixed root for reaching the bada danda which opened a little before the gundicha mandir.

We walked for 2 hours through the streets almost giving up on seeing the special form. But we kept going. We finally reached the bada danda but now we had to walk several kms through the crowd to read him. Pushing and pulling through the crows we walked for 3 hrs. It felt suffocating. We weren't able to breath and the others kept pushing. We had an old aunt with knee pain with us. We decided to enter the side street where ghe police were guarding for her wellbeing. The police man was kind enough to let us in and we saw many more devotees were sitting and resting by the hotel stairs there. We joined them. I was feeling completely hopeless. The clock struck 10 and we were still sitting there waiting for the right time to go join the crowd. We got a call fro, the senior prabhuji who came with us. After listening to our condition he said 'dont give up no matter what happens dont return until you see him even if it takes your life'. My mind was being filled with negative thoughts as time went by, i believed we won't be able to see him today I was sad, frustrated, angry, anxious atthesame time. I was angry complaining to him why he brought us here when he didn't want us to be able to see him. I was angry at him. Mom tried to put some positive words in me which I refused in temper. But then as time went by I thought she was right. We have already come so close to him we could see the building near which we stood yesterday and the flag of the temple was also visible along with the chariots. Finally at 11:30 we brought up the courage and joined the crowd each holding on to each others shoulder forming a train form. And surprisingly it didn't feel suffocating now. We reached near the chariots in 20 minutes and I was again having the urge to cry to my hearts fulfilment. They looked ethereal. They are ethereal. I was crying. We made our way out the crowd towards another street which will lead us back to the place we were staying. Unbelievable, overwhelmed and immense joy is what each one of us were feeling. Our legs worn out we went back to the iskcon temple. Most of them were already asleep but kept the gate open for us to enter. 1 am. We freshened up and went to sleep. I thought about everything that happened and the emotions I felt. Unknowingly I learned a lesson. I now understood why Jagannath kept me stuck there even when I was so close to reach him. I realised why all of a sudden I got negative feelings there. This time he taught me a life lesson that is to never give up on my goals when I feel hopeless about it. Everything will eventually work out. We just need to believe in him, in us and keep going without losing or thinking of anything else. I will never forget this lesson and this trip in the entirety of my life. And this lesson was what motivated me to write this here and let you all know. Jay Jagannath!