It was indeed a delight to watch more than 1500 devotees getting blessings from Sadguru Sai on the very first day of year 2013. Throughout the day temple was packed with devotees coming from all over New England area to take the darshan and getting the blessing from Load Sai. Temple was open till mid night on Dec 31st New year Eve and was open all day on January 1st New year day. Temple priests Sri Krishna Murthy and Sri Nagendra Sastry conducted Samoohika Archana for all the devotees and Sri Sai’slaghu Arathi was throughout the day on hourly basis. It is unbelievable that Bhandara team prepared and served mahaprasadam throughout the day and prasadayala (Kitchen) was never closed. Special Ladoos prepared by volunteers are distributed to the devotees till they lasted.  

Special flower decoration on Baba’s podium was very attractive and kudos to all the volunteers and devotees who worked on this special decoration throughout the night on New Year Eve. Lot of engineering skills went in, to make the structure with correct dimensions with lot of artistic skills in color selection, design.  Above all it was a great team work to accomplish this.  On this very special day one of the Baba’s devotee who from North Carolina presented a new Silver Mukut to Baba.  They were former residents of New England and moved to NC few years ago. They flew into Boston to get Baba’s blessings and present this MuKut for Sai Nath Maharaj.
   
Also on this day NESSP Temple conducted Bone Marrow drive for Mr. Ravi Luckoor, who was recently diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called, Myelodysplasitic Syndrome, and needs a bone marrow transplant.  This was conducted with the help of another non-profit organization "Be The Match".  This drive was huge success and more than 150 people registered and the volunteers collecting the samples ran out of the registration forms. All devotees were so kind and they overwhelmingly wanted to be tested and we hope at least few of these bone marrow donors will be matched with Sri Sai Baba’s blessing.  The organizers of this drive were very thankful to Temple administration team for having this conducted in the temple on the New Year day.

Makar Sankranti is the festival of the Sun God. On this day, the Sun enters the Makararashi and this festival is celebrated as the festival of harvest in many parts India. Shirdi Sai temple celebrated this auspicious festival on Jan 13th& 14th.  On Sunday 13th morning after KakadArathi Baba’s Abhishekam we performed by all the devotees followed by melodious Bhajan’s by temple’s Bhajan team. Morning session was concluded with Madhyana Arathi and Bhandara.   Afternoon was filled with the splendor of SAI GAYATRI HAVAN (HOMAM) performed by chanting “Om Shirdi Vasaya Vidamahe Sachidananda Dhimahitanno Sai Prachodayathswaaha” 1001 times which concluded with Poornahuthi.

Followed by Sai Gayatri Hawan, temple also conducted “Bhogi Pallu” which is one of the important rituals performed during Sankranti. On this day, the children in the house are the celebrated ones. They are all dressed up in new clothes and given aarthi, which is done to ward off the evil eyes. Then a mixture of cranberries, sugarcane, rice and other food material is mixed up with flowers and some coins which are known as Bhogipallu. Then this BhogiPallu is showered on the heads of the children as blessings from the elders in the family.  It was wonderful to see lot of small kids and parents performing this traditional ritual in the temple. Evening concluded with Sai Bhandara and Shej Aarthi.

NESSP was founded in 2006 with a group of few families devoted to Shri Sai Baba (Spiritual Saint from Shirdi in Western India) with the idea to spread his universal message of Shraddha (Faith) and Saburi (Patience) in New England area. NESSP is a grass roots down-to-earth volunteer driven organization. Shri Sai temple is operated completely by volunteer families and has experienced strong growth in last 5 years of its operations. We are planning to acquire land this year for constructing a permanent Sai temple. Please visit NESSP at www.nessp.org for more information about its activities and mission.

Upcoming Events:

Feb 15, 2013                Vasant Panchami
Mar 10, 2013                Maha Shivratri        
Mar 27, 2013                Holi Celebration!   
Apr 11, 2013 - Apr 20, 2013        Chaitra Navratri Celebration!   

May Baba blessings be showered on all the readers of this article!

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