In this episode, Dr. Robert Svoboda explores the three extraordinary homes of Vishnu: Pandharpur, Tirupati, and Guruvayur.

Alaukika means out of this world, literally not part of this reality, not part of this dimension. They’re alaukika because you can actually connect to that dimension of Vishnu and they are very different from one another. They each have a different story behind them. They have different, means of worship, et cetera, but they’re all dear to my heart and that’s why I’m including them together. The first is pandharpur and I’ve only been to pandharpur one time, and that was 50 years ago.

But I still remember it because I, that is the home of Vitthal, who is the beloved deity of and Nam Dev and all the varkari,. A beloved deity of Maharishi and he’s, he’s, he’s very beautiful. He looks like, and Vimalananda and said this to me before I even, or after I saw him and, and just after I met Vimalananda, he looks almost like a bunch of little pebbles have been centered together, connected together somehow. He’s, he’s, it’s, it’s a very unique kind of stone that he is and he is actually literally Vishnu standing on a brick.

And there’s a wonderful story about that, that I encourage you to look up. It’s his devotee, Pundalik, was the one who threw a brick out for him to stand on, during the rainy season while Pundalik was serving his parents of course nowadays, especially temples in India are very busy all the time. Definitely do not go when the varkari pilgrimage is happening ’cause it’ll be very hard for you to get in, go at some time when nobody else is going so that you can have a good darśana.

I have no idea what the situation is nowadays, but it’s a wonderful place if you can get in you will be asked to indicate that you have faith in Lord Venkateswara And if you do, then even if you’re non-Indian, you’ll be able to have darśana Tirupati is the richest temple in India, it’s annual income is somewhere more than 200, $250 million. And it is very interesting because the devotees of Lord Balaji give money to, to Lord Venkateswara because Venkateswara Owes a bunch of money to कुबेर – Kuvera the Lord of Wealth.

The money has to be repaid at the end of Kali Yuga. So everyone is giving money of course a bunch of people are giving money ’cause they’re hoping that that Lord Venkateswara will take on some of the Karma of what they did to get the money. But what they’re supposed to be doing is giving money to him. So he can pay back this debt that he had to incur when he married the fake cita during the time that the real cita was over in Kolhapur during penance.

Check out that story also. And the third Wonderful temple is on or very near the Sea Coast in Kerala, and that is called Guruvayur. And Guruvayur is, not easy for non-Indians to get into, but if you can get in guruvayurappan is a small boy. He’s very beautiful. He has a very wonderful smile and it’s its own kind of reality. There are different stories of how he got there, but he has his own kind of Lila. There’s there are many elephants involved in the worship.

In fact, there’s an elephant stable, Punnathur Kotta, some people call it Annakotta where you can go and visit the temple elephants. And there’s a wonderful kind of art that is very specific to guru. So each one of these places is totally different. They’re all versions of Vishnu, but they’re all totally different. But they all have a wonderful flavor, and that’s what Vishnu is all about a wonderful rasa because the worship of Vishnu is rasatmaka (रसात्मक.)