I am 24 years old now and my earliest reminiscence of Nannagaru is way back in my childhood. I am indebted to my mother to having me introduced to Nannagaru at that tender age. As a kid I used to accompany my mother to Nannagaru without even knowing the purpose. I was told that he was the walking god and we should worship him. Little did I believe my mother then, as my perception of God as a kid was delusional influenced by the Hindu mythology. Perhaps my mind was not pure enough to see the truth.
Sometimes I went to Nannagaru willingly. sometimes only because my mother wanted me to go and some other times just to kill time. All this time people told me that Nannagaru was divine and never tried to reason much I just blindly forced myself to believe. Later as I grew I used to listen to discourses and was introduced to terms like 'Moksha' , 'Salvation'. I seldom understood what these terms meant but just understood that it was ultimate goal of human life . I liked few simple things that Nannagaru told about our day to day life and felt good when I could actually implement at least a very few of them.
Like many other people around I always thought I never harmed anyone, I was minding my own business and had a feeling that I am good person. But when I sit in front of Nannagaru and hear his discourse all my shortcomings, the impurities in my mind flash in my mind and I sometimes wonder if I even deserve to sit in front of him. I am certainly blessed to be able to sit in his presence. I continued to go to Nannagaru not with any particular purpose but it just became a habit by then. Whenever Nannagaru is in city, I try to go and meet him. There was one part in me which would say I should go meet Nannagaru and other part which would ask me to go to a movie with my friends, sometimes I did surrender to my mind and went for the movie. But many a times there would suddenly be a change of plan with my friends and I will be left with no option but going to Nannagaru. It felt like Nannagaru tethered me to a leash and would sometimes let me wander but would pull me back before I was lost. Later I began to know that Nannagaru was a divine soul but KNOWING is different from BELIEVING. My mind and heart were not ripe enough to have the faith.
His love and compassion are beyond comparison. He could not let an ignorant soul like me wander how ever undeserving I was. He had to teach me in my own ways. I always worshiped god but only for materialistic things. I used to pray to god like many college students for good marks, good job, pass in some entrance exam etc. My mother introduced to me "Shiridi Sai Jeevithe Charitra" (Biography of Shiridi Sai Baba) and "Shri Guru Charitra"(Biography of Dattetreya Swami) by Ekkirala Bhradwaja garu. Of course I did the parayana(read the whole biography in 7 days in a predefined order and with some puja) of these two books a couple of times only for my selfish motives, to get my materialistic list of desires to be fulfilled. But these two books describe the importance and glory of guru exhaustively.Do you see the master mind of Guru?? It is after I read these books and the description of Guru in these books that I started placing faith in Nannagaru and realized the importance of guru in life. I used to relate many incidents and characteristics of guru to Nannagaru and feel blessed that I had Nannagaru in my life.
Although I started placing my faith in nanngaru, my mind wouldn't let me place a 100% faith. I believe having faith is also a blessing that Guru has to bestow upon us. In Guru charithra and Baba charithra it is mentioned that when you cannot decide if you find the correct 'Guru' you should pray to the almighty to show you the right path and do Guru charitra parayana. This is also a method told be ideal in many other religions. Even after I knew about this I was never actually bothered to do a parayana for the quest of a true Guru. Again Nannagaru had to take things into hands and put me o the right path. I had a dream once and in my dream I saw Lord Dattatreya and his mother Anasooya matha. I wondered why I got the dream and I decided to do a Guru charitra parayana. As I was doing my parayana one day in my dream I saw Nannagaru. He was surrounded my many devotees as usual. I went to him and prostrated to him, he smiled at me and blessed me by placing some 'akshitalu' on my head. What more could my mind ask for to convince it that i was on the right path. From that day on my faith in Nannagaru deepened. He has been influencing my life in many ways since then, constantly guiding me and keeping an eye on so that I don't wander. Since then whenever I go to temple I pray for god me to help me keep my faith my guru. As I know that if we can keep our total faith in him and trust him he will always watch out for us and do what is good for us. This has been my experience in many cases. Whenever my faith fluctuates or I wander about in life Nannagaru is always there helping me in his own unique ways which are difficult to express but only can be experienced.
Even now I don't think I am intellectual enough to truly understand the purpose of life and about salvation. But what I know for certain is if keep my total faith in him he will show me the path sooner or later.
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