|
If circling the Arunachala hill once can bestow so much spiritual good, imagine circling
the hill thousands of times! Those who circle the hill thousands of times are the ones who become Siddhas.
It is absolutely crucial that you circle the Arunachala hill barefoot.
The reason is that the very land surrounding the hill is a physical manifestation of Siddha beings and
it is a sacrilege to place your shoes on them. So one must
circle the hill barefoot. There are no exceptions to this rule.
From time immemorial Sri Agasthiar has been writing the endless saga of Arunachala.
And he is still working on it. If the superhuman Agasthiar, the Lord of the Siddhas, has been
cataloging the glories of Arunachala for countless aeons, where is the human tongue which can
describe the spiritual grandeur of Arunachala? Such a one does not exist. Sri Arunachala is
beyond beyond the gamut of human comprehension and calculation.
How then can one know Sri Arunachala?
Surrender to his Divine Will and He will make Himself comprehensible to you.
That's the only way.
While it is true that one can circle the Arunachala hill in three and a half hours,
the Siddhas take a lot longer. Sathguru Venkataraman's teacher took him on pilgrimages to Arunachala
many times. This was part of the Siddha's training procedure. During these spiritual excursions,
he and his teacher would take one month to circle the Arunachala hill once. Why so long, one might ask.
The correct procedure for circling the Arunachala hill is to take one step, look at the peak of the hill,
take the next step and repeat the procedure. Each time you look at the peak, you get a different
vision (darshan) of Arunachala and each vision bestows a unique spiritual benefit on you.
Sathguru Venkataraman's teacher would describe each vision of Arunachala and meaning behind it to his
sincere student. Such is the education of a Siddha.
There are an infinity of Arunachala visions. It's of course no surprise that the infinite Lord sports an infinity
of forms. But the spiritual aspirant should realize the vast infinity
that's Sri Arunachala and try to see as many of the visions that Arunachala grants us.
The more visions we see, the more rapid our spiritual progress.
But this must not be done with a calculating attitude;
rather it should be done with an attitude of loving surrender to the Divine Will.
We have made a few of these Arunachala visions available in the Photo Gallery section of this Website.
There are a lot more details concerning the circling of the Arunachala hill.
We will describe these in future issues of AUMzine, our e-magazine.
Sri Arunachala readily accepts those devotees who are willing to dissolve their individual egos
in His Universality. But how can we do this? The Siddhas say that constant meditation on the
Siddha Guru Veda Sooktha Maha Mantra
is the ideal way to protect oneself from the snare of the ego.
This maha (great) mantra is as follows:
Nothing is mine
Everything is yours
O Merciful Lord! Arunachala!
Those who meditate on this great mantra constantly will get the guidance of a Sathguru
and will get to see, know and merge with Lord Arunachala.
What we have provided here is a very basic introduction to Arunachala.
Click on the links provided above for more information, but keep in mind that
Lord Nandiswara has been recounting the greatness of Arunachala to
Maha Guru Agasthiar for aeons and He will continue to do so till eternity.
For there is no end to Arunachala, His greatness, His compassion and His boundless grace!
Sathguru Venkataraman, the founder of the Agasthiar Ashram,
has been communicating to the public the greatness
of Arunachala and the importance of Arunachala Giri Valam for decades,
right from the time he was a boy. He started out by talking to small
groups of people; from there to hundreds of public lectures in most of the important temples in the
Chennai area; and from there to books and then to his
unique, 100% original, 100% spiritual monthly magazine;
and now through his websites
agasthiar.org,
agnisiksha.com and
agnisiksha.org
as well. Of course,
the numerous one on one converstaions through the decades are an ongoing delight!
In response to the command from his Siddha teacher,
Sathguru Venkataraman's annadhaanam (feeding the poor and the homeless) activities at Arunachala started even
before he was in his teens! And because of Arunachala's grace, these charitable activities begun by
a young lad have continued for decades without a break. For such is Arunachala's compassion
to those who are sincere in following the command of the Siddhas.
May the whole world experience this bliss of Arunachala that the Sathguru has been conveying to us.
Click here for the Arunachala darshan gallery.
| 
