From the article Mahaaswamibhyo Chandrasekarendrasaraswateeyathivarebhyo Namo Nama
S.A. Ramakrishnan Salem
In the year 1975, a devotee of Sri Anantarama Deekshitar commenced performing “Sahasra Aavarati” of “Sri Gayatri Maha manstra” at Adhistanam daily, without break , for a month. He decided to perfrom this on listening to Sri Deekshitar’s recorded upanyasam, where in Sri Deekshitar narrates the importance of performing of ‘Sahasra Aavarti’ with concentration , daily, without break for a month outside the house. Sri Deekshitar also cited “ Manu Smiriti’ as to how such a person performing “ Sahasra Aavarti’ gets rid of all “ paapam’ effortlessly in the same way as the snake gets rid of its outer skin. This was done separately after performing “Praata: Sandhyavandanam”. After completing the japams for thirty days, he went to Kalavai , where at the adhistanams of His Guru and Paramaguru, Sri Mahaperiyaval was camping.
Without talking to anyone who had come to have his darsan, Mahaperiyaval went to the east side of Sri Adhistanams. This devotee along with his friends decided to do “pradakshinam’ of the Adhisthanams. On coming to the south east side, they could heard the voice of Sri Mahaperiyaval. They climbed upon the foundation stones and clutching the compound wall, started listening to Sri Mahaperiyaval, who was facing north and so could not see the devotees. He was speaking about how Sri Deekshitar preached successfully, the importance of performing one’s karma and and more specifically , one’s ‘nitya karma’. He was also recollecting as to how Sri Deekshithar even went to many villages that were far away from big towns and cities, as ordered by him, to give ‘upanyasam’ on our
Vaikida dharma’ under the auspices of ‘Veda Dharma Paripalana Sabha’ ( an institution founded as directed by Sri Mahaperiyaval, to spread the knowledge of Vedas, and the importance of performing the ordained karmas.) He was telling about how the upanyasams of Sri Deekshitar had a highly positive impact on most listeners.
At that time, Sri Mahaperiayva mentioned our relative who was in the Sri Mutt, doing service for some time. He enquired about the name of our relative as if he could not recollect it. aAt this time his ‘sishyas’ standing in front of him looked at us. Sri Mahaperiyava asked them whether someone is standing behind him and turned towards us. He asked the devotee (who performed ‘sahastra avarati’ for a month) to continue performing ‘sahasra avarati’ as often as possible. (innum niraya gathri panindu iru). The devotee was delighted, as he had not told anyone about his doing the japams. When the devotee replied that he would and that he has been doing it at Sri Adhistanam of Sri Deekshithar at Salem, Sri Mahaperiyaval, keeping his right palm on his chest, with a smiling fac,nodded his head to convey that he very well knew it.
The delighted devotee has been performing ‘sahasra aavarti’ and is naturally the experience the effects of it. He is also in the habit of narrating the incident to many, in order to induce them to start performing ‘sahasra aavarti’ of sri gayathi mahamantram preferably in a sacred place, outside one’s house.