Visit to Sai Dham Mandir at Raipur. Chattisgarh

20th Feb 2010.

Sai Ram.

Today I got a chance to visit one more new temple of Shirdi Sai Baba while on my trip to Raipur. I was free for the day by around 3:30pm. So I decided to go out on a small trip around Raipur. As I like to spend more time seeing some spiritual place rather than a shopping mall or some other place, I decided to go to Sai Dham Mandir at Kumhari Village in the Raipur Nagpur High Way. It is around 28 kms from the Raipur city centre towards billai/Durg.

Decided to take a Taxi & finally ended up getting a Taxi & was happy to see sai baba’s statue installed in the dashboard of the taxi too. He was too handsome & was well dressed & even wore a beautiful garland. Hope that the owner of the taxi company a devotee of Sai Baba.

It took around 30 min to reach the temple & most of the journey to that place was in the main four lane high way & we even needed to pay the toll at the toll gate.

At temple I was happy to see Sai Baba & he was well maintained. It looked like an expensive temple as there was Air Conditioner to keep him as fresh so that he can take care of all those devotees who come to visit him.

As it was a Saturday there was a moving population of people around the temple & it was really nice. Sai was warm & welcoming every one. There was a wonderful flower decoration done in front of him. Quite huge & very impressive.

There was a small Dwarkamai & Gurusthan next to temple in Room. Both together in the same room housing 2 different photo of Baba. The Fire place was not visible. The priest there told that people are not allowed to put anything directly in the Duni.

It is a usual custom that I carry coconut & some puja articles to the temple. But the strangest part was that they don’t break the coconut & keep it infront of him. Also they don’t allow us to light the incense stick/agarbathi in the temple premises.

They just collect the coconut & the articles & keep it aside. Break the Coconuts during the aarti & distribute the same to every devotee who visits the temple. The Incense stick is put into the duni directly at the stipulated time.

The strangest part of all was that I was not allowed to even take a snap of Sai Baba. The temple head priest was very particular that no one is allowed to take the snaps of Sai Baba Statue there.

I did not want to take any unnecessary risks but taking a snap of baba. So I am not able to publish the photos of the temple.

They also feed people free of charge every day during afternoon & evening after the aarti is performed.

Langer as it is called for the kitchen serving the devotees is filled by Sai Devotees every day. As I went at an odd time I was not fortunate enough to get the Prasad.

There is a small stores attached to temple complex selling puja articles & other stationary on Sai Baba. There was a good collection of Baba’s Photos there.

There is also a small hotel near by the temple entrance. They provide tea to all the sai devotees visiting temple at a subsidized rate of just 1 Rupee. Tea too was pretty good. It was a special Masala tea & I was tempted to drink more of it.

While returning back I visited a Jain temple by name Kaivalya Dham. It is really a wonderful temple. It is so huge that we need to walk a lot & there are steps to go up every now & then. There are a total of 24 temples & one Main Temple in between them. 24 temples represent 24 saints of Jain Community. This temple is maintained by the Swetanbar sect of Jain community.
Nearby there is another temple of the same community. The complete temple complex is built over s small hillock & made of Jaipur marble, pure white in colour. There is an un usual thing at this temple. They ask everyone to voluntarily fill their name & address before entering the temple. I don’t know for what reason this is being done. This temple is also between Raipur & Billai/Durg National Highway.

To complete the trip, we visited Iskcon Radhe Krishna Temple & Ram Mandir Near to Iskcon Temple. Iskcon is planning to build a huge temple complex similar to the one in Bangalore but that that big.

I Finally ended up at a hotel near Railway station to have the night dinner. Maharaja Hotel served a wonderful thali meal for 60 Rupees & there were more number of side dishes than the main course.

Came back to the hotel by an Auto . The only think I could notice where ever I go was that baba was with me. In the taxi he was sitting in the form of statue. In the hotel he was sitting inside the cash chest for the hotel owner. In the Auto he was in the form of a newspaper displaying some advertisement about some spiritual puja here in Raipur. At the place of stay he was in the form of calendar.

What shall I say now, I’m Really very lucky to have baba where ever I go.

Baba Says: Trust me & I’ll follow you where ever you go & protect you.

Om Sai Ram.

Allah Malik.