The ‘Charanam’ Mantra

Charananam Sharanam Ramambike.
Charanam Sharanam Thrayambake.

This mantra is Divine Mother’s gift to mankind. On chanting this mantra sincerely and with devotion, a powerful energy will protect you, wherever you are on earth. This is Mother’s promise. Many devotees will vouch for the instant effect this mantra has on the devotee’s well being.

Even if you are not able to read this mantra correctly and you are trying to recite it, rest assured the right pronunciation will be made clear to you.

Mother is all knowing and all-pervasive. By chanting the mantra we connect to the divinity within each one of us.

Jai Matha.

(To read a more in-depth article about the Charanam Mantra please read this at the website of Rama Shakti Mission, Mangalore. An audio format of the mantra is also available there for correct pronounciation.)

Leaving a nightmare behind

When my wife Shridevi, bought a Hyundai Santro last year, it was an occasion to celebrate. She hoped that her travel within the city would now be smoother. She proceeded to polish her newly acquired driving skills with gusto.

One evening she was returning home from a hard day’s work, all her reflexes a little slower than usual and at the same time having to contend with peak traffic. As she drove towards a traffic intersection, instead of slowly braking to a halt, she inadvertently accelerated and ploughed into the stationary jeep before her! Nobody was hurt…even as the driver of the jeep rushed out. His jeep was a sturdy Mahindra which had seen better days. He was a Westerner and was more worried about her condition. Shridevi’s car was in a bad shape and with it her confidence. She was devastated!

“I am never going to drive again,” she confided in me. “I could have killed someone! How on earth did I accelerate? I had driven so well until then…” I was also very shaken by the entire incident. I told her, “there is nothing much we can do in this case. Let us go to the Ashram at Tellicherry. Divine Mother will provide us with a solution.”

Together we went. At the Ashram, Divine Mother’s Chief disciple who runs the Ashram presently – Swami Sripadathirtha gave a picture of the Divine Mother to Shridevi and asked her to place it in the car at all times. “Do not worry, Mother will protect you.” He assured her.

When we got back within days, Shridevi tentatively started taking the car out. Within days she was able to overcome her mental block. Today, less than six months when the accident happened, Shri literally zips through the city in the very same car. She is a great driver and there is no iota of fear in her. She agrees, that she loves driving these days.

I find this extremely fascinating. When I hear of stories of people who aren’t able to shake off personal nightmares years after it happened, I thank the Divine Mother for the tremendous amount of blessings she has showered on my wife. In such a short time, she has been able to leave her nightmare behind.

Jai Matha.

“God let me pass my exam!”

A few years ago, I met a distant relative – an old lady who was in her sixties. When she learnt that I was a devotee of the Divine Mother and had visited the Mother’s ashram at Tellicherry, she shared a very interesting incident.

“I was a small girl and my family was staying in Tellicherry then. I must have been in class IV or V. My friend who was a regular at Mother’s ashram once took me with her to meet the Mother. It was the day of our exam and she told me that if Mother blessed us, we could pass our exam. I was very excited and together with my friend went to the Ashram. The Divine Mother was present at the courtyard and seeing us she smiled at us and asked us what we wanted from her. I blurted out- ‘Mother please make us pass our exam’. At which the Mother burst out laughing. She was so amused by my reply that she gave me a flower from her garden. ‘Here keep this with you,’ she told me, ‘and come here whenever you can’. I don’t remember going back to the ashram after that. Subsequently, my family shifted from there, but this incident is etched in my memory”.

I was amazed to know that this lady had met the Divine Mother and interacted with her. What a blessing it must have been!

(If your prayers to pass your exam has been answered by Divine Mother kindly make a donation to Divine Mother’s Ashram where a small lamp can be lit to celebrate your success. The amount can be of any denomination of your choice and is a token of thanksgiving. The address is – Sree Ramadevi Bhakta Mandali, Sree Rama Devi Mandir, Main Road, Tellicherry, Kerala State Phone: 0490-2323414)

(A basic overview of Divine Mother’s life is given in this wonderful article titled The Housewife’s Yoga.)

‘Let this injection be just a pin prick’

When my cousin’s wife Girija was down with acute spondylitis, she had to spend long hours in bed lying on her back. Those were the most trying days for her. Normally a very vibrant and humourous person, she suddenly felt all the joy vanish. With certain specialized weights placed on her and the even more painful injections administered to her neck, she found every minute painful.

She took recourse to chanting the Divine Mother’s mantra

Charanam Sharanam Ramambike.
Charanam Sharanam Thrayambake.

Once she started doing that she began to find a tremendous amount of inner calm and great inner strength. The bleakness and desolateness seemed to recede and she began to experience more inner peace.

What was truly miraculous was when it was injection time! In her own words – “I would be chanting rather vigorously in my mind once the nurse came to inject me. My only wish was for a reduction of the pain. I would screw up my eyes shut and the chant would be the only thing on my mind as I braced myself to be injected. After a while I would open my eyes tentatively wanting to ask the nurse why she hadn’t injected me yet. To my amazement I would realize that the nurse had already injected me! Mother through her infinite compassion had ensured that the injection had no painful effect on me!”

Today Girija is on her feet and a staunch believer of the Mother. Although her spondylitis does bother her mildly once in a while, she has not fallen into the acute state that I have written about.

Prayer in the garage

A visit to Jagannath’s two wheeler service centre is an interesting experience in itself. He runs what is arguably the best Kinetic Honda service in South India. He is basically a one-man army. Every scooter that enters his service centre gets the best ‘treatment’ that money can buy. What is more he doesn’t charge a penny extra.

Jagannath is a devotee of the Divine Mother. He runs his service centre like a holy place. Visitors are welcomed by the sweet fragrance of incense sticks and devotional songs. While interacting with Jagannath one feels that one is speaking to a yogi. He has a peaceful countenance. He was the one who spoke to me about the Divine Mother the first time. Like me there are numerous people who have learnt of the Mother first-hand from him.

In his humility and the tranquility of the service station, amidst the tools and the vehicles, one can’t help feeling that God is present here.

A ray of Hope

Although I have been blessed abundantly by the Divine Mother, I have never gone out of my way to propagate her or to speak about the Mother. This blog is the result of miracles that have overflowed for about 11 years. Similarly, my close friends are sometimes not aware of my faith in the Mother. Perhaps, Mother wants it that way. At certain times, when I come across somebody in very trying conditions and without any hope, that is when I am ‘prompted’ to speak about the Mother and the Divine Mantra…

Charanam Sharanam Ramambike.
Charanam Sharanam Thrayambake.

Needless to say, that person would have found instant relief from the ‘problem’. This is a fact and anybody who has chanted the Mantra sincerely will vouch for this. Why Iam saying all this is, I don’t want the reader to mistake this blog as a blog with missionary intentions. That is not the point. I believe that Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Krishna and Buddha have all shown us the path to salvation. What we choose is left to us. At the end of the day this is not a competition to see who has scored the most brownie points, but a celebration of life itself.

My friend Ravindranath who is a Flying Officer with the Indian Airforce was an atheist. About 3 years ago, when he came down to Bangalore, Ravi shared some very depressing incidents in his professional life. He told me that he was being victimized by a senior officer because he was forthright in his views and consequently he was undergoing a lot of stress.

I told him, “Ravi, I respect your beliefs, but I think I can suggest a way out for you. I will tell you a mantra…chant it under your breath while you continue with your regular activities. By the time you have chanted this mantra for atleast five thousand times, you will find a solution to your problem.” Ravi kept an open mind about this and jotted down the mantra. The next day he left for his posting station in Lucknow alongwith his wife.

On the train, a few hours after he embarked on the journey, Ravi fell ill. Soon he was running a high temperature. Within minutes he began to feel terribly weak. Ravi’s wife was at her wits end, there was no doctor around, and she tried to do her best to make him comfortable. Ravi’s condition was becoming very alarming. Even as everything around him was slipping away into darkness, Ravi remembered the mantra and began chanting it. It was incredible, Ravi later told me, “I felt a light shining through the darkness. I kept looking at it, with my half-closed eyes and chanted the mantra. Throughout the journey I was not aware of anything else, but that beam of light which was my only hope.”

Mid-way, the Airforce authorities stepped in and Ravi was admitted in an Airforce hospital. He was overawed by the entire experience.  Within a week he was back on his feet. Ravi’s experiences are a miracle in itself. Within a few months, his senior officer was transferred and Ravi is happy pursuing his dream in the Airforce.

A dream home

My father gifted a small plot of land to my mother and me before he died in 1982. Having lived a very happy life where he helped his brothers and their sons and daughters get a foothold in life, this was his final gift of them all. Building a home on that land was my dream.

The years passed and in 1999 I finally found an architect-builder who spoke my language. He was into low-cost construction. He believed in combining art with practicality. When he spoke I was overawed. I saw visions of space mingling with functionality. Red-oxide floors, with wire-cut bricks and terracotta tiles…This was my dream home! And thus the journey began…

It took 2 years for the designs to emerge. He was never satisfied with the results and the process was very slow. I waited patiently knowing that at the end of the journey would be the rainbow.

Then finally the work started in 2001. All my dreams, hopes and aspirations centred on the home – Indu named after my father. The work was painfully slow, and a little after the foundation was laid it stopped. My builder friend was a very emotional person and he was going through a period of intense stress, all his projects stopped. His clients like me waited. Most of them dropped him and carried on their projects with other builders. There wasn’t anybody else who understood this style of construction and I had no other option but to wait.

Meanwhile my folks piled pressure on me… time was flying and my friend was out of reach…the home showed no signs of progressing. Prices of construction materials were rising and it seemed absurd that the house could ever be completed in the earlier budget. The only hope seemed to be to sell the plot and buy a home or a flat. I was miserable. I wept inconsolably at the photo of the Divine Mother praying for relief. Everyday I would read out the biography of the Divine Mother written by her chief disciple Swamy Sripadathirtha in Malayalam. Mother’s message and the story of her life gave us hope. I was constantly chanting the Divine Mantra Charanam Sharanam Ramambike. Charanam Sharanam Thrayambake.

Days passed into weeks and weeks into months and months into years…and the house showed no signs of moving an inch.  I visited Swamy Sripadathirtha in Tellicherry and fell at his feet, “Swami kindly pray for me, Mother doesn’t seem to be listening to my prayers.”

“The human concept of time is not necessarily the divine concept of time. Be patient, pray to the Mother. She will certainly heed to your prayers” – he consoled me.

Then one day, while reading Mother’s biography, I read a passage where Mother had been invited by a disciple to his newly built home and when Mother visited the home she was amused by the interest shown by people on the outward design of the house, the door carvings, the colour of the paints, and the overall design…but no one was interested or had thought about the foundation of the house. Was it really strong? Had adequate time been given to it so that it was set? While reading this bit, I felt maybe that is what Mother wanted this house to have – a strong foundation…being thoroughly exposed to the changing seasons, this house would have a really strong foundation. I found solace in this.

However among my friends and relatives I was becoming  the laughing stock. People either took pity on me or thought I was a fool.  My dream of getting married in this house certainly did not take place, but the day after my marriage, miraculously things happened to change. I got new ideas. I took a year off from my work and stayed at the site every day. I followed the same design of my friend and hired labour to build the house the same way he wanted. At every step I was led by the Mother. Funds flowed in from all quarters. Once work started it did not stop for a single day. It was an incredible process. All my prayers were bearing fruit in one final flow. In 2005 September, the house was finally completed. The saga had taken all of 7 years!

Today, visitors who come home are taken aback by the sheer simplicity of the design, the freedom of the space and the soothing effect of the exposed bricks. My mother has lovingly created a terrace garden which adds to the allure. There is a peaceful energy in this space, which is very captivating.

I thank the Divine Mother for this blessing. When I look back at the seven years of desperation, I think that was a blessing too. It taught me a lesson in humility. Thank you Mother. Thank you.