The Path of Self-Knowledge
Arunachala is one of the oldest and most sacred of all India’s holy places. Sri Bhagavan declared that it is the heart of the earth, the spiritual centre of the world. Sri Shankara spoke of it as Mount Meru. The Skanda Purana declares: “That is the holy place. Of all, Arunachala is the most sacred. It is the heart of the world. Know it to be the secret and sacred Heart-centre of Siva.” Many Saints have lived there, merging their sanctity with that of the hill. It is said, and confirmed by Sri Bhagavan, that to this day Siddhas (Sages with supernatural powers) dwell in its caves, whether with physical bodies or not, and some are said to have seen them as lights moving about the hill at night.
The Path of Self-Knowledge
“All the actions that the body is to perform are already decided upon at the time it comes into existence: the only freedom you have is whether or not to identify yourself with the body.” If one acts a part in a play, the whole part is written out beforehand and one acts as faithfully whether one is Caesar who is stabbed or Brutus who stabs, being unaffected by it because one knows one is not that person. In the same way, he who realizes his identity with the deathless Self acts his part on the human stage without fear or anxiety, hope or regret, not being touched by the part played. If one were to ask what reality one has when all one’s actions are determined, it would lead only to the question: Who, then, am I? If the ego that thinks it makes decisions is not real and yet I know that I exist, what is the reality of me? This is only a preparatory, mental version of the quest that Sri Bhagavan prescribed, but it is an excellent preparation for the real quest.
The Path of Self-Knowledge
Annually large crowds of pilgrims throng to Tiruvannamalai for the festival of Kartikai, falling in November or December, when a beacon is lit on the summit of Arunachala in token of Siva’s appearance as a pillar of light described in Chapter Six, and this year many came to gaze on the young Swami or prostrate themselves before him. It was at this time that the first regular devotee became attached to him. Uddandi Nayinar had engaged in spiritual studies but had not found peace therefrom. Seeing the young Swami immersed in perpetual samadhi and apparently oblivious of the body, he felt that here was realization and that through him he would find peace. It made him happy to serve the Swami but there was little he could do. He kept away the crowds of sightseers and stopped the persecution by the boys. Much of his time he spent reciting Tamil works expounding the supreme doctrine of Advaita (Nonduality). His great hope was to receive upadesa, spiritual instruction, from the Swami, but the Swami never spoke to him and he himself did not presume to speak first and intrude on his silence.
The Path of Self-Knowledge
He reached Mambalapattu in the afternoon and from there set out to walk. By nightfall he had gone ten miles. Before him was the temple of Arayaninallur built on a large rock. The long walk, most of it in the heat of the day, had tired him and he sat down by the temple to rest. Shortly after, someone came along and opened it for the temple priest and others to make puja. Venkataraman entered and sat down in the pillared hall, the only part that was not yet quite dark. He immediately beheld a brilliant light pervading the whole temple. Thinking it must be an emanation from the image of the God in the inner sanctuary, he went to look but found that it was not. Nor was it any physical light. It disappeared and he sat down again in meditation.
The Path of Self-Knowledge
This whole sadhana took barely half an hour, and yet it is of the utmost importance to us that it was a sadhana, a striving towards light, and not an effortless awakening; for a Guru normally guides his disciples along the path that he himself has trod. That Sri Bhagavan completed within half an hour not merely the sadhana of a lifetime but, for most sadhakas, of many lifetimes, does not alter the fact that it was a striving by Self-enquiry such as he later enjoined on his followers. He warned them that the consummation towards which it leads is not normally attained quickly but only after long striving, but he also said that it is “the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realize the unconditioned, absolute Being that you really are” (Maharshi’s Gospel, Part II). He said that it immediately sets up the process of transmutation, even though it may be long before this is completed. “But the moment the ego-self tries to know itself it begins to partake less and less of the body in which it is immersed and more and more of the consciousness of Self.”
The Path of Self-Knowledge
One day the schoolboy Venkataraman met an elderly relative whom he had known in Tiruchuzhi and asked him where he was coming from. The old man replied, “From Arunachala.” And the sudden realization that the holy hill was a real, tangible place on earth that men could visit overwhelmed Venkataraman with awe so that he could only stammer out: “What! From Arunachala? Where is that?” The relative, wondering in his turn at the ignorance of callow youth, explained that Arunachala is Tiruvannamalai.
