Michael James - The Power of Arunachala, #1

January 3, 2004

The Power of Arunachala

(First published in The Mountain Path, 1982, pp. 75-84.)

By Michael James

The Thought 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.

[ This verse is the fifth of the seven verses that Sri Bhagavan selected from

the Arunachala Mahatmyam and translated into Tamil. ]

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.

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.

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.

In this verse he sings, 'This is Arunachala-Siva, the ocean of grace that bestows liberation when thought of''.

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'''.

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?'

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'.

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].

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.

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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