Dubai: Ramanand Guruji Meets Disciples on Maiden Visit to UAE
byShodhan Prasad and Sujay Bendore
Daijiworld Media Network – Dubai (SB)
Dubai, Oct 6: Ramananda Guruji, recipient of Indira Gandhi Excellence Gold Award, spiritual counsellor and dharmadarshi of Sri Durga Adishakti Temple, Doddannagudde, Moodusagri of Udupi was on a private visit to Dubai recently.
During his maiden visit, Guruji met most of his well-wishers and disciples residing in the UAE. Ramanand Guruji was accompanied by his brother Deepak, Kusuma Nagaraj, Pravin Shetty and Hoshang during his visit to the UAE.
The well-known community leaders he met were Dr B R Shetty, Sarvotham Shetty, managing director of Astoria Hotel and managing director of Kamath & Gazebo Group Hotels among others. His brief visit of three weeks in Dubai was to capture the essence of this land, provide spiritual guidance to those who were facing problems on account of recession and to suggest a better way of life.
daijiworld.com had an opportunity to interview this great personality and was able to get an insight into the life of this LIC investigator-turned-spiritual guru. The facets of his life are summarized below.
The Guruji's life-story may sound like a fable and appears hard to believe. He was leading a simple life and was dutifully carrying out his day-to-day duties as an LIC investigator. Besides, he had on his shoulders the responsibility of heading a family of eight other than his parents.
Apart from his usual duties he spent his spare time with his family. Since he hails from the backward community, he was blessed only with a meagre fortune. However, during his later life, he began receiving visions and messages from goddess Adishakti asking him to wake up and get the buried temple of her’s in Doddannagudde excavated. Initially he did not give a serious thought to the dream, while only being happy he could see his goddess therein. This went on for sometime, until one day when he began sharing the secret with his friends and acquaintances, who, upon hearing it, started researching on the background.
Due to financial constraints, he was not able to go ahead at once. But he made efforts to find a way in accordance with the advice he received from the Goddess in his dreams. With great difficulty he managed to buy that small portion of land from its Brahmin owners and began the excavation work.
Somewhere in between all this, the Guruji had lost all hopes and even contemplated suicide. But he says the Goddess woke him up and assured of her strength to him. From then on he went ahead in full steam and to his utter surprise; the people close to him gave him all-out support. Ultimately it was a dream-come-true for all of them, when, as they got down to 42 feet below the ground level, a beautiful stone idol of goddess Adishakti in the form of ‘Mayuraroodha Shata Shira Shanmukhi’ was unearthed, which in itself was a miracle, he feels.
Doddannagudde on the outskirts of Udupi has been in the past a place where people feared to pass by, but now it is an abode of a Goddess. The site has changed completely and a new era has begun. Along with Ramanand Guruji, advocate E Balasubramanian Rao, Usha Ramanand and Kusuma Nagaraj were the main supporters who put in a lot of effort in developing it into a full-fledged temple campus. It is believed that this temple existed long back but had remained buried for unknown reasons.
Today this place of worship is also blessed with a school called Prajna International School where free education is provided to all who cannot afford it on their own. The school imparts education under ICSE syllabus and has classes till VII Grade with over 75 students. Other than free education all the students are provided with free midday meal, books and stationery.
He not only guides people on spirituality but also cautions the public about blind faith that they fall prey to. A soft-spoken, simple man that he is, Guruji has a good number of well-wishers and devotees irrespective of religion.