India is often called as “punya bhoomi” or the sacred land. This is a land that has given birth to many saints and acharyas. Beautiful flowers and gopurams that can touch the sky abound in India. Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada are the sacred rivers flowing through our motherland. Ramayana and Mahabharata are India’s greatest classics.

Gaurangar, Purandaradasar, Meera, Andal  have sung hymns in praise of the Lord. They have often shown us the way. The devotion to Lord Krishna and Lord Rama are popular from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. In the North, Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharita Manas and offered his obeisance to Lord Rama. The legendary Hanuman Chalisa is so powerful that reading hanuman chalisa is equivalent to reading the sundara kandam.

In the South, in Kerala, Narayana Pattadri wrote the “Narayaneeyam” to grow the devotion of mankind to Lord Krishna/ Lord Guruvayurappa.
Hare rama Hare rama
Rama Rama Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Narayana Pattadri was an erudite person having mastered the veda, shastras, vyakaran etc. At a very young age of 16 years, Narayana Pattadri got recognition as a scholar. His guru’s name was Acyutha Pisharody. Narayana Pattadri was so devoted to his guru that when his guru suffered from paralysis, he served him selflessly and successful transferred his illness into his body. Due to this, Narayana Pattadri became very sick.

Without losing faith, Narayana Pattadri went to Guruvayoor in Kerala. He decided to stay in the holy city and offer his service to Lord. He was 26 when he was taken to the temple in his pitiable condition. He only partook the bhog or Prasad from the temple and sang 10 hymns every day. He continued to sing ten hymns every day for 100 days. On 27^th November 1587 he was completely rid of his ailments. Legend has it that Narayana Pattadri lived for 106 years.

There is also an unconfirmed myth that on every occasion when Narayana Pattadri finished reciting a shloka, he asked, “ Oh, Lord Guruvayoorappa, is this true?” and Lord whispered “yes” in his ears.

Mukundan Nair swears by the Narayaneeyam. A former employee of a software company in Bangalore, Mukundan Nair lost his job in 2013 and became a severe victim of depression. His daughter had gone to the States for further studies. His son was studying in Manipal Medical College. With meagre savings at hand, Mukundan did not know what to do.

Until then, Nair had a practice of lighting lamp on Tuesdays and Fridays and pray to Ma Bhagawati. All of a sudden, so incensed he was with God, that from then on, every time he saw a lighted lamp in his home, he felt like stumping it with his foot. He wanted to keep his foot on the lamp to extinguish it. He became hysterical. His mental health deteriorated day by day.
It became a habit then for Mukundan. Every time he walked into his home and saw the lighted lamp he would feel like stumping it. He was unable to overcome these negative thoughts. He felt guilty of committing a great sin. How can he have such impure thoughts for the lamp which is considered a form of Mahalakshmi ? He became more and more sick when he started analyzing the reason for his negative thoughts.

Nothing seemed to work for him. Neither Rudraksha therapy nor Feng Shui nor visit to Kula deiva temple. He even did AOL sudarshana kriya.

Today, there are so many people out there to give you wrong advice. Astrologers in particular. Thinking about stumping the lamp became a habit for him. He decided to commit suicide when he wasn’t able to get another job. It became a vicious cycle.

He felt he wasn’t able to get a job because of his impure thoughts. Unless he got another job he wouldn’t be able to overcome this hatred towards the lighted lamp and God. He started becoming an atheist. It is futile praying to God or visiting religious places – he started feeling in this manner.
Then one day, a neighbor Saraswati Balaraman advised him to read the Narayaneeyam. He is feeling better now after he started reading the narayaneeyam (one chapter every day) but he is still unable to come to terms with the hatred that he had developed towards Lord and towards the lighted lamp. Can any reader help him? How can he overcome this dirty habit?