Greetings Fellow Travelers,
Let me come out very clear at the outset.I am an Atheist and don't believe in finding God in any statue or sculpture or any Mandir,Mosque or Church. So when I am writing about two religious places in Maharashtra its fair for you all to be skeptical in the beginning but trust me I am just writing this to let you know about my personal experiences and it has got nothing to do with my Views towards religions and GOD.
Recently,I have been to Gondavale as well as Pandharpur with my parents.This is a write up just to get to light these two places, having no intention of advertising or defaming any of the places,these are just my personal views so there is no right or wrong about it.
GONDAVALE: Place of True Charity
Gondavale, famous for SHRI BRHMACHAITANYA GONDAVALEKAR MAHARAJ, is situated in the Satara district at 65 KMS from the city of Satara, on the Satara-Solapur Road.There are daily ST buses available from Mumbai,Pune and Satara.
Gondavalekar Maharaj was a great devotee of Lord Ram, and spent his entire life in devotion and worship of the Lord. Today there is a Sansthan formed on the basis of his thoughts and teachings. There are also other Mandirs in Gondavale including Thorle Ram Mandir,Dhakte Ram Mandir and Appa Maharaj Samadhi.
My Parents are followers of the Maharaj, so when they decided to hire a car and visit Gondavale along with Pandharpur and a chance of visiting Kaas on the return, the dormant traveler inside me said "lets go for it as a road trip"... So we left from Thane very early on a Saturday morning and reached Gondavale by 12 noon. It was the first time for me to visit this so place so I was picturing a over-crowded religious place,with lots of noise and the typical smell of stale flowers and all, around.... To my surprise i was welcomed by the calm surroundings of this very small village. The Sansthan itself is very vast and spread over a very large piece of land...
Being a foodie i asked my Parents for the Lunch options around and was surprised to see that there is a free lunch service for all the devotees everyday. the whole area is so clean and well kept I felt guilty about being skeptical beforehand.We proceeded to have the lunch served which was very simple Maharashtrian Lunch with Dal,Rice,Khichadi,1 Bhaji and Taak(Buttermilk) and Sheera...(same applies for dinner with a lil change in the menu)
Offcourse after that good a lunch naturally wanted to crash for an afternoon nap, then i came to know tht not only the food was free for everyone even the Accommodation is without any charges.If you are a family you get a room in any of the 5-6 different buildings there and if you are alone or with a group of friends there is the dormitory open for all of you..
When I inquired about the very thought behind this kind of a service, I got the answer the the Gondavalekar Maharaj believed in chanting the Lord's name all the time as a way of worship. He taught his followers the mantra of "Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram"!! In order to let people concentrate on taking the lords name he wanted to take the major obstacle out of the way by providing free food and accommodation for all the devotees who wanted to worship Lord Ram.
We then visited the Temples all around the place, there are a lot of small small temples in the viccinity if one wants to visit.Coming back to the Sansthan there is the GOSHALA that can be visited which has around 25-30 cows of both the indigenous breed as well as the Jersey breed all named after Indian rivers,and 3-4 Bulls and around 10-15 young calves.. Even the Goshala is kept very clean all the time.. After this we called it a day and went sleep and next morning to the next stop PANDHARPUR.
Will be writing about the experiences about Pandharpur in the next Post...
As far as Gondavale is concerned it is a must visit place irrespective of you being religious or not because of the peace of mind you can get here and also feel very close to the natural surroundings of the place!!!
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