Grandma tales of "Bells and Pradakshina"

I always remember my grandma telling me some captivating  mythological stories and answering my unlimited questions realted to certain rituals .I felt like sharing these few views from my grandmom's excerpts.

We Hindus have a customary practice of ringing bells at temple. This custom is also followed at homes in the worship place /’pooja room’. Of the several logics behind this tradition, the most appropriate one would be to “awaken the god “.does that mean god is sleeping? Well, obviously the answer is “no”. We all are aware that god is omniscient and may not need to be woken up. But what the people believe is that, act of ringing a bell after our prayers, creates alertness and invokes attention of god towards us, and that our prayers have reached his ears. We also ring bells during an” arthi” pooja /worship of god. This also again signifies the same .Also some mythologies claim that these bells drive the evil spirits or any bad omen away .There has also been claims that ringing bells would drive away all the distractions of human mind and reassure their presence of mind during the prayer and creates a positve "aura".Aarthi is almost the concluding part of the worship and we want to make sure that lord has heard all our prayers.

‘Pradakshina’ -This is a customary practice of moving around the temple outer “ankana” or premise with the almighty as the centre point of “reference”. This signifies that lord is the “CENTER OF ORIGIN “, everything revolves round him; just like how the planets revolve around sun ,with sun as center. Our lives are associated with the lord’s blessings; our sorrows, our joys are related to him; he is the force behind all the drives. This ritual is a way of cannaughting gratitude to the lord. Also while revolving around the statue of god, with god at center; a communication is aroused between the person and lord through the positive vibes /energy channelized from god to us. We also circumambulate 3 times to ourselves in front of the lord; sometimes with a recital of a “mantra” that says”yaanikani cha papani ,janmantara kritani, taani kaani vinaashanti pradakshine padepade”.This “mantra” translates that whatever sins we have committed in our life and also in the previous lives,are washed awayor demolished by the repeated “pradakshina”.