SHREE KSHETHRA KATEEL – The legend of the holy shrine
All those who see do not see. Those who really see the value of the thing. This is the import of a line of Bendre, a renowned kannada poet. The sharpness of visual perception, the subtlety of mental perception, the ability of the brain to think logically-all then converge in the act of seeing. The Seer have all these faculties inherent in them and developed by them. They go on seeing more and more, better and better. So do they see and are called seers.

What appears as truth at one time may turn out to be a myth at the other time, and a wholesale untruth at another. It may haunt and even daunt the one who has set out to see. A truth emerge from this: Perception is not entirely the domain of the brain. There is something more to it, something large and deeper. After having done all that needs to be left to time to settle the issue. There is another truth implied by this: a formula of life that holds good for all times, may be a mirage. He who is after it, must needs to meet with a waste of life and with nothing else. The sense of waste could also be an illusion but which cause a desperate resignation. And all desperation pains.

The mother at the holy immersion.	A Profile of the temple on the day of the holy immersion (ARATA).	Dedicating the golden palanquin to all Auspicious mother.
The Uthsava idol, Grandly Decorated and studded with Gems.	The Silver chariot being drawn around the shrine in the inner yard.	The main Entrance overlaid with Silver and Dhwajasthambha (FLAG-MAST).
The Mother Being borne in the golden palanquin by her Myriad Children.	The Attractive scene of the uthsava idol on its rounds.	The Mother in the Silver Palanquin.

Doesn’t the face of the world today reflect this deep pain?
Doesn’t it look a puppet snapped from its string, a sphere without a holding center, a den of corruption and perversion? An abode of anarchy and disruption, a seat of dishonesty and cruelty? There virtue is a sin, righteousness is a crime and a disciplined life is a sign of weakness. All seems to have been lost. But suddenly appear from this heap of ruins some ray of hope and reassurance. A semblance of order presents itself springing up from disorder. All the loose hanging ends of a disintegrating life suddenly appear to get tied up and all seems to fall into a pattern. The discerning mind, then, beings to feel, albeit vaguely, that there is after all some discipline and order in the way the world moves on and life goes on. This is some reason for consolation. Internal quest is a most natural thing in man. It begins to ask what is behind this order and this discipline and somehow tries to settle itself in the belief that there must be something behind all this, something more than meets the eye. It may be an undefined, and unmediated phenomena, but it is and makes life what it is. It is this conviction that human mind finally stops at and reposes in. This repose of mind gets respond in the idol, placed inside the shrine and worshipped.

A visitor to a temple may find it an attractive place to visit for its art and architecture or for the beauty of its natural ambience. But this physical attractiveness cannot last long. A second visit will only be a repetition of the first. Evergreen and eternal beauty can only be discovered within. That beauty is seen and not just perceived. In other words, it is realized not visualized. The faithful see this beauty. That is why the devotee never finds a visit to the temple a mere repetition of an earlier visit. The temple never loses its attraction for him, its magic for him. He creates his temple, his sanctorum and his idol in it. The temple gets created and recreated within him in effect he sees himself in whatever the temple is and stands for.

Devotees fall into different categories belong to different levels depending on hthe stage of evolution the respective individual soul is passing through. Mysteriously enough, the temple satisfies all these devotees affording them what they want and what they need.

Arunasura could see in Ambika only a building beauty. The adorable divine light was nothing more than a physical attraction for him. Endowed with all the good thing of life, and even with spiritual powers, he was deluded and met with the inevitable result of delusion. On the contrary the seer Jabali saw and helped the whole world see ; see what we all today see in Kateel. Sage Jabali embodies the vision embodied in Bendre’s line. The allcontroling energy the Motherly Shakthi needs the inner eye to see it. Every devotee is a potential Jabali and the idol of the Mother is the passage to the real mother.

I feel honored and consider it my good fortune to be serving in the abode of the mother.

K. Ananda Moolya Administrator Sri Durgaparameshwari Temple Kateel.