My dear Anandi

For those of you who don't know (I forget if I have mentioned it) Anandi is my pet name For Anandaswara. It may seem weird to give God a pet name, but when you see him a lot, and talk to him, it's hard to be always saying Anandaswara, and something like Lord, just seems to formal for the conversations I have with him. So and I call him Anandi. Anyway.

Yesterday I was doing the evening routine. First I set up for evening Ararthi and helped set up the pooja, and then sat for the pooja. Well during the pooja I was really hot, so Just like I was saying to a friend I said "Anandi, can you please cool it down in here, I'm super hot. I promise to try to be extra focused during arathi" (my mind tends to wander a lot during it) well at that point I had to light the arathi lamp and forgot about it. Well a couple minutes into arathi and I realized I was almost chilly, which was a huge contrast to the overly warm feeling I had experienced earlier. I looked up at Anandi and realized he had fulfilled my request. He had this totally satisfied expression on, after that I spent the remaining part of arathi (in addition to doing it) keeping my part.

The funny thing about this incident is, for the past few weeks I really haven't felt a big connection with Anandaswara. Sometimes when I walk into the temple I feel as if I am greeting my best friend, I feel he is smiling especially for me, and have lengthy complicated conversations with him about stuff, and then other times (such as the past few weeks) I feel he is a stranger, someone I don't know just sitting with Anandaswari staring into space. Kind of like in the movie Night at the Museum (good movie by the way, I highly recommend it, and number 2 as well) how at night the exhibits would be all alive, and then during day, just exhibits. This incident opened him back up for me now, and I feel we are good friends again, and I can relate to him.

Picture Credits: I took this picture a few weeks ago in Chicago, it's the front of the field Museum (not the Smithsonian which is the sight of Night at the Museum but I very good museum all the same. We went to the whale and horse exhibits, and it was awesome.