30th Saptaaha Mahotsava at Chitradurga

Time: Feb 24-25, 2023

Place: Chitradurga & Sadhguru Sannidhi @ Chikkaballapur

Company: Wife, daughter and mom and met rest of maternal Family at destination

Highlights: 

Day 1: Saptaaha event being conducted at this place for 2023. We left on 24th at about post noon, it was a smooth drive in the car for 4 hours and we reached just after dusk. The program events were slightly delayed, and that helped us! Pravachana was going on, and we used that time to check-in to the room that was already booked for us at a nearby hotel. Then headed back to the choultry where event was underway. 

The program which we wanted to attend viz Mysore Ramachandra Music concert was just about to begin. It started at about 8 pm, almost 2 hours delay! The event went on till almost 11 pm. MR's concert is always lively and entertaining. At one point, lot of people were dancing with divine joy and having a gala time altogether singing hymns of the Lord. We then had dinner and retired for the night.

Day 2: We left at about 8 am to the Chitradurga fort. We entered the fort and headed directly to Obbavvana Kindi. This place is something that I always wanted to visit since the day I read about it in great detail. For some reason or the other, I always pushed out the itinerary since Chitradurga was close to BLR with the thought that it can always be done some other weekend. Thanks to Saptaaha, this was a must-do trip!

Upon reaching Obbavvana Kindi, we did the customary thing of trying to enter from the small cave-hole. Thankfully was able to do so! After that, we saw some more places in the fort such as Gopalakrishna Temple, Yenne Kola (oil container), Bombe Mantapa (Toy Temple), Ekanatheshwari Temple, Akka Thangi Honda (twin ponds), Maddu Beesuva Kallu (Gun Powder grinding stone pulled by elephants - an engineering marvel), etc. All around, the marvel of the fort is that it is built alongside boulders. It is as if fort & temples inside are camouflaged. And it is serpentine in nature, so that no army can easily ram the entrance. It was believed to be the most fortified fort for many decades until one of the inside men gave away the secrets of a hidden entrance which was compromised. 

We finished the seeing the fort in about 3 hours but there is definitely a lot more to see here, and the timing matters too. Early morning is preferred before the boulders (and hillock) get too hot to climb on barefoot (if venturing). Though, we climbed only the stairs-part and with slippers on. It is a massive fort, with lots of interesting places to see. We were out by about 10ish and headed back to the Saptaaha event place.

There were lot of homas going on at different places plus spiritual discourses. Almost four things were going at the same time at different places at the site, so kept shuttling from one place to the other! The divinity and spirituality everywhere cleansed the soul! There was vedic chants, shlokas, songs, etc. as is typical in Saptaaha events. Then it was time for lunch. After lunch, there was a felicitation program and we left at about 5 pm.

We went from Chitradurga to Chikkaballapur Sadhguru Sannidhi where we were supposed to attend one more event - Volunteers' meet with Sadhguru. That event also was nice, and it was awesome to see how Sadhguru conducted the meeting. All volunteers were fed with nice food prior to the event and showcased a nice classical dance as well. After the event, we went to see the Divya Darshanam. 

All done, we left home and reached after 2 hours at about 1 am. Overall, a weekend filled with spirituality!