TREES IN DEVOTION – STORY
There are two nice incidents related to the role of trees in devotion.
STORY-(1):
Guruvayur Manjula was a virtuous and devout girl.
Every night, she used to bring garlands for the Lord.
One day she was late and the temple was closed.
She could only reach the banyan tree from where the elephant race starts during Utsav or festival. She felt very guilty about it.
Poonthanam, a devotee of Guruvayur Krishna who was on his way back from the temple, saw her crying under the banyan tree.
He comforted her and said she could place the garland on the stone at the foot of the banyan tree, since the Lord is everywhere.
Convinced, she kept the garland there and went home satisfied.
Next morning, the Pujari removed all the garlands from the deity, but one garland remained stuck.
The Devotees were puzzled but Poonthanam remembered the event of the night before.
It was the garland Manjula had placed on the stone at the foot of the banyan tree.
Poonthanam told the story to everyone and then the garland slipped from the deity. Devotees started chanting the name of the Lord and went to the banyan tree to offer their obeisance.
Since then, the banyan tree came to be known as Manjulalthara.
STORY-(2):
A Helping Hand to the Devatas One night.
Poonthanam had the following dream. A beautiful airplane landed in the courtyard of his house.
The ‘Vishnu-dhoothas’ (Celestial servants of Maha-Vishnu) had come to pick up Poonthanam to take him to Vaikunta.
Poonthanam received them properly. The ‘Vishnu-dhoothas’ led him to the plane with due respect . That plane passed through many worlds and reached Vaikunta.
The celestials guided him throughout and Poonthanam got out of the plane -He saw many other Vishnu-Parshadas there who all had reached Maha-Vishnu’s abode due to their intense Bhakti-yoga .
Poonthanam did Pranams to the divine place .
As soon as he reached the entrance two divine Gatekeepers with a humble bow received him .
Poonthanam thought he was unfit to receive that kind of honors from those Devatas . But they said they were two plantain trees growing near the portico in Poonthanam’s house in their previous birth. They got to hear Poonthanam’s Bhagavatham recitation everyday, which elevated them to the level of immortals.
So they respected Poonthanam as their Gurudeva.
By this Poonthanam woke up from his dream with exciting memories of Vaikunta.
When he went to the front yard he saw those two plantain trees had fallen on the ground.
(LORD SIVA HEARS BHAGAVATHAM – STORY! READ HERE!)