Michael James - The Power of Arunachala, #6

January 7, 2004

Arunachala-pradakshina

Arunachala is the physical embodiment of Sat, the reality, and hence to have contact with it in any manner is satsang. To think of Arunachala is satsang, to see Arunachala is satsang, and to live near Arunachala is satsang. But one very special way of having satsang with Arunachala is to do Arunagiri-pradakshina, that it is, to walk barefoot round the hill keeping it to one's right-side.

The great importance that Sri Bhagavan attached to giri-pradakshina is well known to all the devotees who lived with him. He himself did pradakshina countless times, and he actively and spontaneously encouraged devotees to follow his example.

'Bhagavan, who scarcely ever gave advice to devotees unless asked, wholeheartedly encouraged their going round the hill as conducive to progress in sadhana,' writes Lucia Osborne in The Mountain Path, January 1974, p. 3.

Devaraja Mudaliar records that the importance of pradakshina became evident to him 'from the frequent references by Bhagavan himself to its great significance, and from the fact that thousands of people do it, including almost all the close disciples of Bhagavan, even those who may be considered the most advanced among them.' (My Recollections of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, p. 64)

Though comparatively little has been recorded of what Sri Bhagavan used to say about the power of pradakshina, there is no doubt that he considered it to be an act having great spiritual efficacy. In fact he used to say that the benefits which can be gained by meditation and various other forms of mind-control only after great struggle and effort, will be effortlessly gained by those who go round the hill.

'Bhagavan often said that those unable to meditate would succeed in their endeavour by circumambulating Arunachala,' writes Suri Nagamma in My Life at Sri Ramanasramam, p. 144.

Kunju Swami records on p. 108 of Enadu Ninaivugal that Bhagavan once told him. 'What is better than pradakshina? That alone is sufficient.'

While extolling the spiritual efficacy of pradakshina, Sri Bhagavan sometimes used to narrate the story of King Vajrangada Pandya, which is told in the Arunachala Mahatmyam. Vajrangada Pandya was a powerful monarch who ruled over most of South India, but one day he was told by some celestial beings that in this previous birth he had been Indra, the ruler of heaven, and that if he worshipped Arunachala he could regain his former position. On hearing this, he at once renounced his kingdom and, with the intense desire to become Indra, he began to worship Arunachala by going around the hill three times a day. After three years of such worship, Lord Siva appeared before him and offered him any boon he wished to pray for. Though his original ambition had been to become Indra, his mind had been matured by doing so many pradakshinas, he now realized that it was worthless to pray for such a transitory pleasure. He therefore prayed to Lord Siva for the eternal happiness of Self-knowledge. This story thus aptly illustrates that even if a person begins to do pradakshina for the fulfillment of worldly desires, his mind will in time be matured and he will gain proper discrimination (viveka), desirelessness (vairagya) and love for Self (swatma-bhakti).

Generally, whenever sages or scriptures prescribe any form of dualistic worship, whether for the fulfillment of worldly desires or for the attainment of Self-knowledge, they always say that it must be done with faith. But Sri Bhagavan used to say that the power of Arunachala is such that even if one does pradakshina with no faith, it will still have its effect and will surely purify the mind. Devaraja Mudaliar records on p. 64 of My Recollections that Sri Bhagavan told him, 'For everybody it is good to make circuit of the hill. It does not even matter whether one has faith in this pradakshina or not; just as fire will burn all who touch it whether they believe in it or not, so the hill will do good to all those who go round it.'

Because Arunachala is the 'fire of knowledge' (jnanagni) in the form of a hill, the outgoing tendencies (vasanas) of the mind are automatically scorched when one goes round it. When damp wood is brought close to a fire, it will gradually be dried, and at a certain point it will itself catch fire. Similarly, when the mind which is soaked with worldly tendencies goes round the hill, the tendencies will gradually dry up and at a certain point the mind will become fit to be burnt by the fire of jnana. That is why Sri Bhagavan said to Kunju Swami, 'This hill is the storehouse of all spiritual power. Going round It benefits you in all ways'. (The Mountain Path, April 1979, p. 75)

The spiritual benefits of pradakshina have been described by Sri Sadhu Om in one of his Tamil poems, Sri Arunachala Pradakshina Manbu. In verses six and seven he says, 'A cow grazing round and round its peg, does not know that the length of its rope is thereby decreasing. Similarly, when you go round and round Arunachala, how can your mind know that it is thereby subsiding? When the cow goes round more and more, at one point it will be bound tightly to its peg. Similarly when the mind lovingly goes more and more round Annamalai [Arunachala], which is Self, it will finally stand still in Self-abidance, having lost all it movements [vrittis].'

In verse eight he says, 'It is a well-proven truth that the minds of those devotees who ever go round Annamalai achieve great love to turn within towards Self. Annamalai is the blazing, wild hill of fire [the fire of Jnana] that burns all our worldly desires into ashes.' And in verse nine he gives the simile of a piece of iron being rubbed against a magnet; just as the scattered atoms of iron are all aligned by the magnet to face in one uniform direction, thereby transforming the iron into a magnet, so when a person goes round Arunachala, the divine magnet, his scattered mind, is turned towards Self and is thereby transformed into Self.

Sri Muruganar, who was a great sage and one of the foremost disciples of Sri Bhagavan, was noted as a staunch lover of pradakshina. In the days of Sri Bhagavan he used to write to any friends who were coming to see him, 'You will find me either in Bhagavan's hall or on the giri-pradakshina road,' and it is said that at one time he even used to go round the hill daily. How he first came to know about the greatness of giri-pradakshina is related by Kunju Swami in The Mountain Path, April 1979, p. 83, as follows:

Sometime after he came here, Sri Muruganar asked Bhagavan about the spiritual benefit of going round the hill (giri-pradakshina). Bhagavan asked him to go round it first and them come to him. Sri Muruganar followed his advice and told Bhagavan that he lost his dehatma buddhi [sense of identification with the body] after a while and regained it only after reaching Adi-Annamalai [a village on the way]. He reported to Sri Bhagavan that the experience was unexpected and unique. Sri Bhagavan smiled and said, 'Do you now understand?'

This incident proves very clearly the power of pradakshina, and it shows that mature souls can even lose their sense of identification with the body by going round the hill. It also illustrates what Sri Bhagavan meant when he used to say that while going round the hill one can experience sanchara-samadhi, a thought-free state of bliss while walking.

Though such a thought-free state is not experienced by all devotees when they go round the Hill, that does not mean that their pradakshina is not yielding fruit. The main benefit of pradakshina is that the tendencies (vasanas) are slowly made to lose their grip over the mind, but just as a child cannot easily perceive its own growth, so the mind cannot easily perceive the weakening of its own vasanas.

However, one very notable feature about pradakshina that can be perceived by anyone and which clearly indicates its spiritual efficacy is the extraordinary power of attraction it exerts over the minds of devotees. For no special reason one feels attracted to go round Arunachala again and again.

'Go round the hill once. You will see that it will attract you,' said Sri Bhagavan to Devaraja Mudaliar (My Recollections, p.65).

'Bhagavan used to say that if one went round the hill once or twice, the hill itself would draw one to go round it again. I have found it true. Now this is happening to Dr. Syed,' writes Devaraja Mudaliar in Day by Day with Bhagavan, 19th December, 1945.

In Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, volume 2, letter 98, Suri Nagamma records Sri Bhagavan as saying, 'The dhyana [meditation] that you cannot get into while sitting, you get into automatically if you go for pradakshina. The place and atmosphere here are like that. However unable a person is to walk, if he once goes round the hill he will feel like going again and again. The more you go, the more the enthusiasm for it. It never decreases. Once a person is accustomed to the happiness of pradakshina, he can never give it up.'

Just as the mind is automatically attracted to the Guru, knowing intuitively that he can bestow eternal bliss, for the same reason the mind feels automatically attracted to giri pradakshina.

from:

The Power of Arunachala

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

By Michael James

( www.davidgodman.org )