At the end of the day, one would ask, whose spirit it was, Guru Maa’s or Baba’s that made everyone continue at that pace.

There were nearly five hundred people on the final day of the puja. In the meantime, golden domes and kalashas were erected on the temple roofs. White curtains were hung outside each of the temples before doing the pranpratishtha. Behind them were the Vigrahas in which the priests did the pranpratishtha with the chanting of mantras and performing the rituals. Then was the hawan. All the devotees sat around the holy fire to offer ahuti to agni. The entire atmosphere was charged with bhakti. The air smelled of the ahuti. Even the chill outside in the air could not deter the devotees from doing their chanting.

After the Hawan, everyone gathered once again in the S. S. Mandir hall. Rachna Sarang, for the past few years, has taken on the task of creating young artists in the Kathak discipline of Indian dance. Her young students appeared on center stage and danced to the music in praise of Lord Ganapati. One cannot but admire the pain Rachna has taken to make these young artists good dancers. The names and ages of the dancers are: Barkha Patel, 9; Saloni Surana, 11; Kaeya Chokshi, 9; and Karishma Chokshi, 11. Afterwards, it was Guru Maa’s turn. She made each of the Trustees of Vedic Heritage get up and dance.

At closing, was the aarati of 108 Ghee Dipak in 21 Thalis., which was artistically decorated by flowers and kumkum. The aarti was most vibrant. The atmosphere was charged. The aarti was followed by Mahabhog. Food was prepared by Rajbhog with devotion and without monetary compensation. Twenty-five varieties of sweets were offered by Thali restaurant. The food was excellent – with the fragrance of love and devotion.

At the end of the day, I wanted to ask H.H. Sri Sri GuruMaa: “Wasn’t that a dream come true”? I also wanted to ask Her what inspired Her to build this temple. Perhaps this is the only temple in the entire United States where the oms and kalashas are of gold, where trustees work like volunteers, where everything keeps happening flawlessly. I wanted to ask H.H. Sri Sri GuruMaa: “what makes everything happen”?

It only requires a strong will like that of H.H. Sri Sri GuruMaa Jyothishandand Saraswati to build the kind of temple like Shiva Shakti in Vedic Heritage, New York. Just before the start of the navaratris, GuruMaa asked me to go to Delhi and bring the Kalash for the Shiva Shaki Mandir in New York. I didn’t know what she was talking about; I simply did what she asked of me. When I looked at the swarna mandita kalashas, I was overwhelmed by their sheer size. I packed two suitcases with the kalashas and took them with me. Travelling with me was Pandit Ramesh Choudhry – whom was to perform the Pranpratishtha ceremony along with Pandit Amool Mishra, the temple priest.

When I reached the temple, I could not recognize the place. It was the same, big hall in which the statues of Lord Ganesha, Lord Shiva, Maa Shakti, Maa Durga, and the navagrahas were kept. the temple was wearing a whole new look with granite flooring, separate temples for the Lords, and arches on the gates. Walter and his people – along with his main worker, Tomaz, who was awarded, on stage, for his excellent workmanship during the November 3rd ceremony – were working day and night to meet the deadline of October 16th, as the Navratri and Prana Pratishtha puja was to begin the next morning.

Early in the morning of October 17th, mantrochchar started. Pandit Ramesh and Pandit Amol Mishra changed mantras in their traditional manner. H.H. Sri Sri GuruMaa was sitting on her aasan – nearby, were the yajmans: Dr. and Mrs. Annapurna Bhangdia, Renu and Anil Jain, Kusum and Chaman Gupta, Jitu and Asha Patel, Prajot and Sangeeta Lunavat, although Nayanmitra and Sonal Kisnadwala were not physically present, chowki was there, and Annapurna and Dr. Bhangdia were taking care of that. All the couples had different chowkis for their puja. After varan of the priests and samkalp, the puja started and went on for days.

In the traditional way, the puja was held for eleven days and after the day of Vijay Dashami, on the auspicious day of Ekadashi, it was the finale: Pranpratishtha Samarooh.

But first things first...H.H. Sri Sri GuruMaa, Renu ji, and Gail, took it upon themselves, the doing up of the Murties. According to Her Holiness, Renu must get the reward for effort – her devotional seva. They took the colors and paint brushes in their hands, and painted each one of the statues to give them a new look. Dresses of the Gods were new silks embroidered with gold zari, and prepared in Vrindwan, India. The contrast of the silver and bids came out beautiful on the purple silk.

Sponsors
Vigrah
Ravi (Surya): Narendra Khosla
Mangal: Swaran Jaiprakash
Shani: Vipin Khullar
Brihaspati: Somya Mitra Chhabra
Shivling: Renu Agarwal, Madhu Gupta
Big Hanumanji: Annapurna Bhangdia, K. K. Mehta
Shiv on Kailash: Dr. C. M. Kohli

Shiva Pariwar
Vigrah: Renu Anil Jain
Madir: Sangeeta Prajyot Lunavat, Asha Jitendra Patel
Co-Sponsors: Renu Anil Jain, Dr. Jagdish Thakker, Dr. G. S. Gill

Ganapati
Vigrah: Mani Narendra Kapoor
Madir: Sonal Nayan Mitra Kisnadwala
Co-Sponsors: Omwati Nandan Prasad Gupta, Sanghapriya Mangal Thakker

Mata
Vigrah: Kusum Chaman Gupta
Madir: Kusum Chaman Gupta
Co-Sponsors: Annapurna P. Bhangdia, Seema Satish Sehgal

Puja
Krishna Dhoot, Beena Bahl, Annapurna Samant, Karishma Shivani, Monica Saboo, Dr. Arun Agarwal, Vedant Mitra, Asha Sadrangani, Veena Dua, Harish Kakker, Pramod Kumar, Anant M. Sachdeva, Kishan Ramachandani, Bimal Seth, Kewal Chopra, Sudha Singh, Shanti L. Naik, Vedant Mitra Bhavsar, Harish Chugani, Meena Dasgupta, Praveen Marwah, Narayan Dave, Vijay B. Singh, Silpa Seth, Sat Sharma, Guru Dutt, Sunita Jain, Naresh Bahl, Salini Bansal, Veena Dwivedi, Subhash Thappar, Yutipriya Thakker, Ved K. Sharma, Kirit C. Chugh, Bhavin Shah, Falguni Patel, Vibha Reggey, Ajay Prakash, Vishal Sharma, Ravinder Singh, Rameshwar Pathak, Paul Klecka, Gopalji Jaiswal, Sarika Soin, Gail L. Goldstein, Rachna Sarang, Allan Ramlall, Veena Wadhwa, Bharat Patel, Tinu Patel, Bina Swain, Anil Marwah, Jitendra Kapadia, Somyamitra Chhabra, Vipin Khullar, Ramesh Manju Patel, Amrish Kachhy, Harshad Shah, Dinesh Jaiswal, Poonam Ramani, Marie N. Hyppalite, Ajay Prakash, Nirmal Sachdeva, Piyush Parikh, Renu Amba Sharma, Pushpa Chopra