Pradakshina is the natural way of things and delineates a primordial order in the universe. The earth and the other planets in their orbit do pradakshina around the Sun, while all created beings, faintly cognisant of their formless origins, seek the source of light hidden at their centre.
The first form of worship, pradakshina is circumambulation of the Self, which, though immaterial, is our true, original form. It expresses in bodily action a deep longing to return to the Unmoving Source of Being. Pradakshina is ‘right-facing’ because it is the right side of the body that represents the inward Formless Self while the left expresses outward bodily manifestation. In India, whether walking or traveling by conveyance, people instinctively pass one another on the left side in a ‘right-facing’ manner, thereby intuitively venerating the divinity that dwells as the Self within the heart of the other.
But what is done habitually is often unconscious, and though a fervent yearning to transcend the impermanence of the world undergirds many human actions, the veil of ignorance often causes people to lose sight of their deeper aspirations and the singular purpose of their lives.
Lord Arunachala’s Plan
Such a veil had settled over the generations of the modern world including those inhabiting the regions of Holy Arunachala in the late 1800s. Intimate devotion to the Lord of Sona Hill had dissipated and Arunachala’s former glory had receded from collective memory. Even though traditional rites during Kartigai Deepam, Mahasivaratri and other feasts were faithfully maintained, many failed to grasp their deeper significance. The former fervour for girivalam had disappeared as a paucity of understanding caused people to search outwardly for what lay overlooked within them.
The Unmoving One set about to remedy this state of affairs and devised a simple plan. It hinged on a young Tamil boy who lived a few hundred kilometres south of Arunachala in the town of Madurai. The son of a court pleader, the boy was ordinary in every respect. He played like other children of the time, attended the mission school and was being prepared for the householder’s life to be a breadwinner for the family. Though born into an upright orthodox family, economic necessity had come to supersede adherence to traditional ways and young Venkataraman failed to receive the training of his forefathers. Vedic recitation, Sanskrit grammar, memorising the hallowed verses of the Puranas, performing yagna and puja, singing hymns and stotras dedicated to Iswara and going on pilgrimage to the great temples and shrines of the region were not part of the secular curriculum at the local school. Yet this proved no setback for Lord Arunachala. He planted His seed of fatherly affection within the boy’s heart. In it lay the promise of restoration, not only for the child’s kith and kin, but for all in the Tamil land and beyond.
Unknown to young Venkataraman a great power was quietly at work within him. One day he chanced upon a copy of Periapuranam and when he opened the book and discovered the stories of the 63 nayanmars—the devotee-saints of Lord Siva—he found he was unable to put it down and went on reading its tales over and again with great enthusiasm. Gradually he lost interest in the boyhood games he and his companions were wont to play on the grounds of the nearby Meenakshi temple but instead found himself at the temple’s inner sanctum prostrate before the nayanmar murthis, weeping tears of devotion. This was Lord Arunachala’s plan beginning to unfold.
An uncle came to visit the family in Chokkappa Nayakar Street, Madurai. When Venkataraman learned that his relative was coming from Arunachala, he was struck with wonder: “How could anyone”, he thought, “visit Arunachala—that fabled, otherworldly realm, host to gods, devas, vidyadharas and celestial beings—and return to this world?” The relative explained that Arunachala was a physical place and lay in his native Tamil Nadu at Tiruvannamalai. Filled with excitement, Venkataraman pondered this revelation and quietly repeated the name that had pulsated deep within him from his early boyhood and now awakened in him such a ferment of introspection.
Arunachala’s Summoning
The following year Lord Arunachala delivered His coup de grace, the definitive visitation that would alter the lad’s life forever and indeed shape the course of human history. As the sixteen-year-old sat alone in the upstairs room one Sunday, he had intimations of death. As the feeling grew more intense, he realised that he was passing away from this world and would soon be no more. He lay prostrate and felt his form stiffen as the life force drained out of his body. He then heard himself softly uttering the following words: “Now, death has come. What does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.” He extended his limbs rigid like a corpse and held his breath: “This body is dead. It will be carried to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body, am ‘I’ dead? Am ‘I’ this body? The material body dies, but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. I am therefore deathless spirit.”
Such was the sequence of reflections that attended a great discovery. But instead of meeting with physical death, he found he had transcended death in a profound realisation that left him with the clear understanding that he was not his body but rather the Imperishable Self, the Eternal Witness dwelling within. From that time on, he found himself in a continual state of absorption, indifferent to the events of ordinary life.
Arunachala’s plan now fully in place, it was only some six weeks before the boy made up his mind to leave home forever. And so at the end of August 1896, he set off in secret for Arunachala, the great Mountain of whose location he had only just learned.
Catching Hold of Young Ramana
Upon arriving in Tiruvannamalai, the Lord of Arunachala drew young Ramana yet nearer and he entered Arunachala temple and embraced the holy linga there. He took his place in the Patala Linga where, by becoming himself unmoving, he melded with the One Unmoving Akshara that is Arunachala. For others at the temple, the mere sight of the boy engendered hope, rekindling a dormant flame within them. Citizens of the town saw in his radiant young face and clear penetrating eyes the flame of wisdom whose light had been for them up till then only a faint memory. In him they rediscovered the mystery of Arunachala’s true form: the pillar of stone is in reality the very Light of Consciousness Itself.
Dispossessed, living as a sadhu, young Bhagavan began to explore the Mountain who had ‘stolen into his heart’[1] and drawn him like a magnet to Tiruvannamalai. He ranged Its slopes, meditated on Its sublime form, hymned Its ageless past and savoured Its infinitely varying aspects. In time, followers gathered round him and the burgeoning young sage led them in the ancient, forgotten rite—circumambulating Holy Annamalai, singing the timeless glory of Siva’s own form.
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[1] From my home Thou didst entice me, then stealing into my heart didst draw me gently into Thine, (such is) Thy Grace, O Arunachala! (Aksaramanamalai, v. 97).
