RE: The Power of Arunachala - By Michael James

[Guest guest]

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Dear Vicki:

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Thank you for sharing the beauty of Arunachala.

Mysterious is the force of the Heart.

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Love to all

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Harsha

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">

font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold">viorica weissman

[viorica (AT) zahav (DOT) net.il]

Friday, November 26, 2004

2:38 PM

H_S

[ - Ramana

Guru] The Power of Arunachala - By Michael James

12.0pt">

The

Power of Arunachala

(First

published in The Mountain Path,

1982, pp. 75-84.)

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By

Michael James

Page 1

 

 

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color:blue;font-weight:bold">The Thought

bold"> of Arunachala

By seeing Chidambaram, by

being born, in Tiruvarur, by dying in Kasi, or by merely thinking of

Arunachala, one will surely attain Liberation.

The supreme knowledge

(Self-knowledge), the import of Vedanta, which cannot be attained without great

difficulty, can easily be attained by anyone who sees the form of this hill

from wherever it is visible or who even thinks of it by mind from afar.

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:gray">[This verse is the fifth of the seven

verses that Sri Bhagavan selected from the Arunachala Mahatmyam and translated into

Tamil.]

Arial"> Such

is the assurance given by Lord Siva in the Arunachala

Mahatmyam about the power of the mere thought of Arunachala, and

this assurance has received striking confirmation from the life and teachings

of Bhagavan Sri Ramana.

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> In the second line of

the first verse of Sri Arunachala Ashtakam

Sri Bhagavan tells us that from his very earliest childhood, when he knew no

other thing, Arunachala was shining his mind as the 'most great'. And this

thought of Arunachala so worked in his mind that at the age of sixteen a great

fear of death arose in him and turned his mind Selfwards to drown forever in

its source.

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font-family:Arial;color:blue"> In his writings Sri

Bhagavan has repeatedly confirmed the mysterious power that the thought of

Arunachala has over the mind. In his Tamil Collected

Works, under the picture of Arunachala, there is a verse that can be

considered as his dhyana sloka (verse

of contemplation) upon his Sadguru,

Arunachala Siva.

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> In this verse he sings,

'This is Arunachala-Siva, the ocean of grace that bestows liberation when

thought of''.

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> In the first verse of Sri

Arunachala Aksharamanamalai (The Marital Garland of Letters) he

sings,

'O Arunachala, you root out the ego of those who think of you in the heart as

''Arunachala'''.

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> In the 102nd verse of

Aksharamanamalai, he sings, 'O Arunachala,

the moment I thought of Arunai [the holy town of Arunachala] I was caught in the trap of your

grace. Can the net of your grace ever fail?'

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> And in the last line of

the second verse of Sri Arunachala

Navamanimalai (The Necklet of

Nine Gems) he sings, 'Mukti

Ninaikka varul Arunachalam,' meaning, 'Arunachala, the mere thought

of which bestows liberation'.

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> But only in the tenth

verse of Sri Arunachala Patikam does

Sri Bhagavan actually reveal how the thought of Arunachala works in the mind to

root out the ego. In this verse he sings:

I have seen a wonder, a

magnetic hill that forcibly attracts the soul. Arresting the activities of the

soul who thinks of it even once, drawing it to face itself, the One, making it

thus motionless like itself, it feeds upon that sweet [pure and ripened] soul.

What a wonder is this! O souls, be saved by thinking of this great Arunagiri,

which shines in the mind as the destroyer of the soul [the ego].

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> The words 'oru tanadu abhimukhamaha

irttu,' 'drawing

it to face itself, the One,' used here by Sri Bhagavan are a mystic way of

saying 'drawing the soul to turn inwards and face Self, the one reality'. Thus

in this verse Sri Bhagavan reveals how the thought of Arunachala works within

the mind to arrest its activities, to attract its attention towards Self and

thereby to make it still. In other words, Sri Bhagavan assures that the thought

of Arunachala will lead the mind to the path of Self-enquiry, the 'direct path

for all', as indeed happened in his own case.

font-family:Arial;color:blue"> Knowing from personal

experience this unique power of Arunachala, Sri Bhagavan confidently advises us

in the last line of this verse, 'O souls, be saved by thinking of this great

Arunagiri, which shines in the mind as the destroyer of the soul!'

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