Even when you get inside the temple, you must not do anything other than chant ‘Om Namo Narayanaya’, doing four pradakshana temple you visit. When you travel to Sabarimala and reach (circumambulations) of the temple and a prostration in front of the flag pole. This is the meaning of having an audience with Lord Vishnu. When we go to the temple, we speak about our difficulties; we must not go to the temple to speak about our difficulties. We need to withhold the difficulties within and overcome them through prayers.
When we go to the temple, we request God to help us buy a house, help with the land, get a job, to improve our studies and so on. There is no need to ask for any of these favours. We ourselves are none other than Narayana and we need to confidently believe in that assertion. We can then ask for remedies to overcome our problems. In the Guruvayoor temple, even after performing prasnam (astrological ritual), there were still a number of problems? number of remedies were suggested in order to overcome those difficulties. For example, if we conduct a prasnam on ourselves, we will experience a lot of problems. So we need to perform positive actions to overcome these problems. By merely folding your hands in prayer or performing a prostration will not take you anywhere. We must chant our mantras and complete our prayers sincerely.
If you see pictures of our Rishis, they always wear a sacred necklace (usually beads made of wood or sandal wood). We pray to Goddess Saraswathi who also sports a similar necklace. So does Lord Shiva! So if we pray to Lord Shiva, should we too not wear a similar necklace? When we see Lord Shiva, we say: ‘Om Nama Shivaya’! Later when we see Lord Guruvayoorappa, we say: ‘Om Namo Narayanaya’! When we see Lord Ayyappa, we say: ‘Swamiye Sharanam Ayyappa’! When we see Lord Hanuman, we say: ‘Jai Sri Ram’! We must have a strong mantra with us and it is with this mantra that we need to go everywhere. If you prefer to worship Lord Shiva, please hold on tightly to Lord Shiva! If it is Lord Vishnu, please hold on tightly to Lord Vishnu!
When you wear the sacred necklace of Lord Ayyappa, what should you do?
You should only chant the same mantra in any Kodungallur temple, you will still call upon Lord Ayyappan. We have dissolved ourselves into God at this time and once this happens, the mind must not change. We need to strongly hold on to that one God and then pray to all the others. A few days earlier, a lady and her family had come to see Swami and she said, “We have received the blessings of a very rare and holy Guru and because of this blessing, we do not think of anyone else now. We are completely involved with this Guru and we will not do anything for any other Guru.”
At this point, Swamiji thought: “We are brought up by our parents, we later get married, and then the wife starts loving us very much; children are born and they also start loving us very much. Now because we have children, is it proper to forget our parents at this time? If your wife starts giving you more love than what your parents used to give to you, is it proper to forget your own parents? We must not move away from the path that we followed in our early days. We must hold on to that tradition firmly and strongly.”