Guide To Piligrims

Surrender to Him all that you are, “Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa.”

Such then are the conditions of austerity that are to be observed for a successful pilgrimage. They are severe; indeed, human that we are, slaves of the ego, immersed in unending search of the ever unsatisfied pleasures of the flesh, we may seem to be faced with not merely a problem but an impossibility.

But it should not be a problem or an impossibility. The way would be simple and easy if we had an unreserved and spontaneous desire, nay, craving to undertake the pilgrimage and to realize Him. “Give the key to the thief and the property is safe”. We have only to take refuge in Him to obtain the strength of mind necessary for observance of the austerities enjoined; and it will then be His obligation to make the task easy. Is He not the embodiment of love and mercy and will He not respond to the cry of his children? To whom else would He respond? However burdensome and seemingly impossible the austerities may appear, He will make easy that love cannot conquer and our love for Him, expressed spontaneously, no matter in what form, will bring His Mercy down on us, making everything that we feel impossible or problematic as easy as can be.

A great soul has said: “One who chooses the Infinite has already been chosen by Him”. It is not we, as individuals, who choose the Lord, but something in us of which we are unfortunately not aware, or which we are unable to know in our ordinary lives, that makes the choice by the Grace to Him who wants to unite the soul in us with Him; and it is to Him that we have appeal for his Grace to make a success of our lives. If He chooses, will He not show us the way also? It is because of His desire to lift us up from the swamp of Maya through which we are ploughing, clinging to the desires of the world, to cleanse us of our earthly desire, to bring the divine in us to the fore, eradicating our ego, and to prepare us for our upward journey, that He has chosen us.

It is said:

“Ask and it shall be given; knock and it shall be opened to you.”

It lies in us, therefore, to knock at the door of His palace of Grace in the right way, with full faith that His immeasurable mercy will carry us through to success.