Encounters and blessings from Monkey Gods

Almost a decade back I attended an Ayurveda conference in Rishikesh and was listening to a very interesting discourse by Dr. Robert Svoboda. When he started chanting Hanuman chalisa and asked us to join, I realised the sad truth that I didn’t know it by heart. I felt ashamed that Dr. Svoboda, a westerner knew it and I didn’t. On coming back home I learned it and started chanting every day.

A couple of years later we were in a Shiva temple in Lucknow. When we came out, I noticed that one of my chappals was missing. I heard some sounds from the top of a nearby tree and looked up to find a monkey holding my chappal. I looked at it, pleaded in my mind to return the chappal, and it promptly threw down. 

In Myanmar too

We reached Yathaypyan cave in Myanmar on 11^th September 2019 at around 3.30 pm. It was drizzling and the sky was cast with dark clouds. 

We had to pass through a small bridge, where so many monkeys were roaming, and go up through steps to the cave on the mountain. I was hesitant to take off chappals and walk all that way. But that was the rule there. So hesitantly I left the chappals and off we went. On coming back I noticed my chappals were missing. We searched all around, but couldn’t find them. When we reached our car, told Mr. Amo (who was driving the car) about missing chappals, and voiced our doubt that somebody must have taken them. If it was taken by a monkey, most probably it would have taken only one, not both the chappals.

Mr. Amo was very perturbed to hear that. He told that it has never happened that people have stolen chappals. As we got into the car, He went off to search. After about 15 minutes, he came back beaming, with my chappals in his hands. He told that he and another local person searched and saw they were lying at quite a distance from the bridge, one on either side.

Thandayuthapani temple

On 13^th September 2019 we started from Mawlamyne (Myanmar) early morning, Mr. Amo told there was an Indian temple on the way. I was chanting Kamakshi mantra in the car (I chant different mantras at different times) and was surprised to see an idol of Kamakshi Devi when we stopped at the Thandayuthapani (Indian) temple. 

We noticed that there were too many steps to climb to reach the main temple and since we had a long day ahead, thought of saying namaskar from down only. I was feeling a little uneasy regarding that, and then noticed a monkey sitting on the top in a small opening on the archway. It was looking at me intently, and I felt ok, it was fine not to go all the way up.

I took a photograph of the monkey sitting there. Then Mr. Amo saw it and he tried to take a snap and I saw to my amusement, it turned its back towards him.