According to the revered & sacred Hindu scriptures (Puranas), Vishnu, out of love and affection towards His devotees, reincarnated as Venkateshwara. To deliver, resurrect and uplift Humanity from difficulties, destruction and evil in this Kali-Yuga (the age of contention, discord, greed, quarrel, strife, vice and everything that is anti-wellness, anti-progress, anti-happiness); this form is considered to be the most supreme form of Vishnu in this age. His temple is also referred to as Kali-yuga Vaikuntam.
The Divine Meeting: As always, the plan was a face to face meeting with the lord of 7 mountains. With great belief & faith, that the lord himself had beckoned us cheerfully and imagining him calling us with a beautiful smile, the serene broad forehead decorated with a pure white Tilaka (Lord Venkateshwara Style), calm beautiful eyes glittering full of warmth and hope, the dark cheeks gleaming with his enticing appearance, palms showering blessings on every devotee in the world who may have heard of Him or seen Him or even thought of Him!
The first belief is, you get to visit and see Him only if He wishes to! So, no matter what your plans are, be mindful of this fact.
Of the several other beliefs, another is once this meeting is scheduled and you are all set; when you enter the sanctum sanctorum for His Sri-Darshanam, is that once after you are face to face with Him; incase you get to see any visible part of His always heavily decorated divine body (with fresh flowers, gems, jewels, silver, gold) during the Sri-Darshanam, if you manage to capture the moment in your memories, remember and recall it willfully, until the next visit, consider yourself blessed as then His blessings are believed to be with you always!
Unaware of this, did not know the action to take the first 2 times we met, but ever since and each time time we met, always made it a point to look at His bright, calm, compassionate, divine, smiling visage, OR His palms, that are perpetually showering blessings Or His feet, where the whole wide world is believed to lie and devotees prostrate in complete voluntary submission seeking attention, blessings, and mercy for every sin committed. Also made it a point to take a lot of photographic memories back with me. :o)
The ever increasing heavy security, video cameras relaying real-time feeds about queue situations etc., scanners, et. al. make you feel the place is nothing less than many Fort Knox and all the Global Banks put together. The immedaite exterior areas around the sanctum sanctorum is where you get to witness the very reason for such ever increasing heavy security measures day & night - Brahmin Sevakas counting all kinds of currencies that devotees have donated. The words am looking for are perhaps nothing short of He is Simply The Richest God in the Whole Wide World!
This is a little story I heard from my Father-In-Law about His Wealth...and this is what occurred during the divine ages...The beauty of Hinu Mythology is that every story has a story which started with another story as the main cause. So a story preceded by another story preceded by another story and so on... So here goes.
Lord Vishnu (a.k.a Srinivasa) descended to earth in the form of a mortal body and looking for MahaLakshmi, who left Vaikuntha and Her Lord Vishnu for a reason (another story) descended earth to reside in Karavirapur (a.k.a Kolhapur). Lord was forlorn and decided to go after His beloved Wife and reached earth too. Divine are the reasons in the way the Lord works; No science and logic will ever explain why He does what He does. Anyways, back to the story, His arrival on earth was also to resurrect a king who committed a sin unawares. So, Lord Srinivasa decided to stay in Varaha Kshetra and requested Sri Varahaswami to grant Him a site for His stay, which was readily granted. Srinivasa ordained that a pilgrimage to His shrine would not be consiered complete unless preceded by a bath in the Pushkarini and darshan of Sri Varahaswami and that Pooja and Naivedyam should be offered to Sri Varahaswami first. Vishnu built a hermitage and lived there, attended to by Vakuladevi who looked after him like a mother.
Sometime later, a King named Akasa Raja (this is the king who will be resurrected later) was ruling over Thondamandalam. He had no heirs, and therefore wanted to perform a sacrifice. As part of the sacrifice, he was ploughing the fields when his plough turned up a lotus in the ground. On examining the lotus, the king found a female child in it. He was happy to find a child even before he performed a sacrifice and carried the baby to his palace and handed it to his Queen to tend to it. At that time, a divine aerial voice said "O King, look after her as your own child and good fortune will befall you". As she was found in a lotus, the king named her Padmavati. She grew up as a princess into a beautiful maiden and was attended by a host of maids.
One day, the Lord, who was hunting, chased a wild elephant in the forests surrounding the hills. The pursuit led Him into a garden, where Padmavati and her maids were picking flowers. The sight of the elephant frightened the Princess and her maids. But the elephant immediately turned around, saluted the Lord and disappeared into the forest. Lord Srinivasa, following the elephant on horse back, saw the frightened maidens. However, He was repulsed with stones thrown at Him by the maids. He returned to the hills in haste, leaving His horse behind. The Lord informed Vakuladevi that unless he married Princess Padmavati he would not be calmed.
Meanwhile the King & Queen learnt about Padmavati's love for Srinivasa. He decided to go ahead with the alliance after consulting Brihaspati. Lord Kubera (Lord of Wealth), lent money to Lord Srinivasa to meet the expenses of the marriage. Lord Srinivasa, along with Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva started the journey to the residence of Akasa Raja on his vahana Garuda. At the palace entrance, Lord Srinivasa was received by Akasa Raja with full honours and taken in procession on a mounted elephant to the palace for the marriage. In the presence of all the Devas, Lord Srinivasa married Princess Padmavati, thus blessing Akasa Raja / resurrecting him. Together, they lived for all eternity while Goddess Lakshmi, understanding the commitments of Lord Vishnu, who then chose to live in His heart forever.
Millions of devotees throng the Tirumala Hills practically round the clock throughout the year. So you can imagine the amount of good will, hope, blessings, positive energy emanating and touching every devotee visiting this place and ofcourse everything else associated with these when these converge at one divine place.
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