Guptkashi
It was a few days before Ganga Dusshera, in the year of 2013, that we decided to go to Shiva’s sacred temple at Kedarnath. We had booked a place, a little ahead of GuptKashi. While enroute, I saw a signboard which mentioned Agastya Muni – a town on the banks of the Mandakini River in Rudraprayag, named after one of the seven Saptarishis, Rishi Agastya.

We checked with the local people, because I was sure, that there would be a temple dedicated to the Muni. And so we made a stopover at Agastya Muni and visited the temple. There at the temple, I had a flash thought, there was a saint I had once visited in Indore, as advised by my Jyotisha Guru, Rao Sir . That was in 2009 and I clearly remembered that in 2010, Bhagvan, as he was lovingly referred to by his disciples, had taken mahasamadhi in GuptKashi – Rao Sir had communicated this piece of information to me. Now I had this sudden urge to visit Bhagvan’s samadhi and stay at the Temple Ashram. But there was no connection since the last four years – I fumbled through my phone and found one number, they very warmly welcomed me to Shri Vidya Dham at GuptKashi. I cancelled my previously made bookings and moved to Guptakashi – to the Samadhi sthala.

It was here by the grace of the divine – that on that fateful day of the trek, we were stopped by Swami Chinmayanand ji, this was at 4.30 am in the morning, we were ready to leave and he said, ‘Wait, don’t go now, have some tea. We had tea, he still didn’t let us go and said wait. An hour and a half went by and we got a call from our pujari at Kedarnath , telling us to stay put and not move.’ The floods had come.

We were at Guptakashi for many days after that. There were landslides, we could not leave. I made that phone call to my father, he did not know I was at GuptaKashi. I told him I was in the midst of floods, but safe…

After that, hordes of people used to come down from the upper villages everyday, since the floods had ravaged everything. They were fed at the Shri Vidya Dham. Swamiji used to say – we have enough ration for 6 months, don’t worry, we will feed all who come. Such was our miraculous escape.

The place we were previously booked at, was swept away in the floods. Om Namah Shivaye