Kailash Manasarovar darshan (yatra) - 23

Parikrama of Holy Manasarovar
16th & 17th day stay at Quhu

Quhu means pure mind , apt only after having the darshan of the Lord of Universe our mind becomes clean because of their grace. As we traveled as a single group we gained a day which will be used for exchange of parikramas so we stayed at Qihu for two days. The first day was spent in taking rest, taking a holy dip in Holy Manasarovar, washing the clothes and making preparations for the havan (fire offerings) next day. We collected all the items every yatri has brought for havan and dried the wood and made everything ready and took a well deserved rest and in the evening had a bhajan session. Goswami and his team scouted the area and found a Havan Kund just opposite to Holy Kailsh and we cleaned that place for the next day's havan.

Sunrise at Holy Manasarovar

The next day, seventeenth day dawned beautifully suns rays converted the whole lake into a crimson and then to golden yellow we captured those beautiful moments in our video cameras. As that day happened to be a new moon day, it was especially an auspicious day for doing the duty for the ancestors , as it is considered holy to do the duty at Manasarovar every one of us had a ablution in Holy Manasarovar for the third time, here only the mustard oil came to our help , if we apply mustard oil to our body and enter into the near freezing waters of the lake we can remain for more time and finish all our duties. We took the waters of Manasarovar in our hand and with sesame seeds we offered the offerings to the Sun God to be transferred to the ancestors of our families, . Every one is supposed to be born with three debts on this earth , first Is the debt to Celestials, second to holy men and third to the ancestors so we offered sesame third with water three times and felt very happy and thanked the Lord and Mother for having given this golden opportunity.

Havan at the banks of Holy Manasarovar

After finishing an important duty at the banks of Holy Manasarovar we all assembled at the Havan Kund for the special Havan. Mudgal was the chief priest and Goswami assisted him. When we started the Havan the sky was cloudy and also there was little drizzle, at the point Goswami ordered that nobody should move from that place still the havan is over , Lord Shiva is just testing our will power and the drizzling is the holy shower of the Lord. Everybody agreed to do so and because of the determination of the group the drizzling stopped and the havan started. First everybody offered prayers to Lord Vinayaka. The personal deities which we have carried along with us were worshipped by ablution with holy Manasarovar water and then applying vibuthi, sandal and kumkum , First Ganapathy Homam was done . then Sri Rudra Homam followed .by Durga homam for Mother Parvati. Followed it with Navagraha homama, Sudarsana Homam and Sri Sukta homam and completed the homams with poornakuthi and thanked the Lord and Mother for having given us a fine darshan and also prayed for the welfare of the whole universe. At the time of completion of the homam the sky cleared and there was bright sunshine and Lord and Mother also gave their darshan to us at the start of the havan Kailash was covered with cloud. The dakshina of Rs 5000 was donated to the priests but they didn’t accept that and donated the amount to the two temples at Gunji and Kalapani on the return journey we deposited this amount in the hundis of these temples. After the homam the author and Dakshinamurthy did Bilva archana to the Lord with the 108 silver bilvas brought by Bokre couples. Thus we completed some important duties on this 17th Day and it was really a very satisfying day.

Shri Dhanuskodi at the feet of the Lord ( Gowri Shankar)

A group of yatris from Tamilnadu who traveled through Nepal joined the camp and we made adjustments to give them accommodation though preference was given to us . We vacated some rooms for them and five yatris stayed in a single room meant for two people from their group. In the evening some of them joined us in our Devaram recitation. In the night some blessed yatris from our group had the darshan of stars bathing in Manasarovar, but the author was not so lucky.

Shri Deshpande worshipping Lord Shiva

The 17th day was the day of Thanks giving to the Lord and one’s ancestors.