Showing posts with label Arunachala. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

Aruṇācala Tattuvam and Dīpa-Darśaṉa Tattuvam: The Reality of Arunachala and Seeing Deepam

Friday 13th December 2024 was Kārttikai Deepam, which is an annual festival celebrated in the Tamil month of Kārttikai (mid-November to mid-December) on the day on which the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Pleiades (known in Sanskrit as kṛttikā and in Tamil as kārttikai), which always coincides with the full moon or comes one or two days before or after it. At 6pm on this day a beacon light or dīpam (popularly spelt deepam) is lit on the summit of Arunachala, and continues to burn for about ten days.

Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 21

This is the twenty-first in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 27 January 2023

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 20

This is the twentieth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Saturday, 24 December 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 19

This is the nineteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Wednesday, 7 December 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 18

This is the eighteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 25 November 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 17

This is the seventeenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 16

This is the sixteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 27 October 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 15

This is the fifteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 7 October 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 14

This is the fourteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 23 September 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 13

This is the thirteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Tuesday, 6 September 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 12

This is the twelfth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Wednesday, 24 August 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 11

This is the eleventh in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 4 August 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 10

This is the tenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 21 July 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 9

This is the ninth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Saturday, 2 July 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 8

This is the eighth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 17 June 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 7

This is the seventh in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 28 April 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 6

This is the sixth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 22 April 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 5

This is the fifth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Sunday, 17 April 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 4

This is the fourth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 14 April 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 3

This is the third in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 31 March 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 2

This is the second in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 10 March 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai: pāyiram, kāppu and verse 1

‘அருளும் வேணுமே. அன்பு பூணுமே. இன்பு தோணுமே’ (aruḷum vēṇumē. aṉbu pūṇumē. iṉbu tōṇumē), ‘Grace also is certainly necessary. Be adorned with love. Happiness will certainly appear’, sings Bhagavan in his concluding statements of the final verse of Āṉma-Viddai, and as he often said, ‘Bhakti is the mother of jñāna’, thereby implying that all-consuming and heart-melting love (bhakti) is the sole means by which we can know and be what we actually are. This truth is implicit in all his teachings, but in no other text does he express it as clearly, emphatically and heart-meltingly as he does in Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai.

Monday, 18 November 2019

How to merge in Arunachala like a river in the ocean?

In verse 3 of Śrī Aruṇācala Pañcaratnam Bhagavan says:
அகமுகமா ரந்த வமலமதி தன்னா
லகமிதுதா னெங்கெழுமென் றாய்ந்தே — யகவுருவை
நன்கறிந்து முந்நீர் நதிபோலு மோயுமே
யுன்கணரு ணாசலனே யோர்.




Sunday, 24 September 2017

We should not be concerned with anything happening outside but only with what is happening inside

A friend recently wrote to me asking several questions about practising self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) in the midst of family and work life, the role of physical solitude, attachment and detachment, feelings of utter desperation and disillusionment, and about how to live in the world when one feels no connection with or concern for anything other than the practice taught by Bhagavan. The following is what I replied to her:

Friday, 24 March 2017

After the annihilation of the ego, no ‘I’ can rise to say ‘I have seen’

In Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: the ‘I’ that rises to say ‘I have seen’ has seen nothing, which is the final section of one of my recent articles, There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist, I quoted a Tamil saying, ‘கண்டவர் விண்டில்லை; விண்டவர் கண்டில்லை’ (kaṇḍavar viṇḍillai; viṇḍavar kaṇḍillai), which means ‘those who have seen do not say; those who say have not seen’, and then verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, in which Bhagavan says:

Sunday, 19 March 2017

What is ‘remembering the Lord’ or ‘remembrance of Arunachala’?

This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to a friend who asked: ‘In Hinduism, it is written that if one remembers the Lord at the time of death one will obtain Moksha. Ramana Maharishi seems to endorse the same teaching with regards to Arunachala. I have read the path of Sri Ramana by Sadhu Om and practiced for many years what he calls Jnana japa. I have visited the holy mountain Arunachala many years ago. I am now over 60 and in the last years of my life. I am wondering whether it would be better to change my practice to remembering the Name of Arunachala. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated’.

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

Can our mind be too strong for our actual self to dissolve it completely?

In a comment on one of my recent articles, We can separate ourself permanently from whatever is not ourself only by attending to ourself alone, a friend called Viswanathan cited an extract from an interview in which David Godman said, “This is a key part of Bhagavan’s teachings: the Self can only destroy the mind when the mind no longer has any tendency to move outwards. While those outward-moving tendencies are still present, even in a latent form, the mind will always be too strong for the Self to dissolve it completely”. Citing the final sentence from this statement an anonymous friend wrote another comment in which he asked: “David Godman, did you say ‘mind stronger than the Self’? I can’t get this. Is ‘the Self’ (our essential self) waiting for the mind to grow weaker so that it can dissolve it completely? How then was the partial dissolution taking place till then? Further, why did not the mind, while strong, dissolve ‘the Self’, if it all boils down to strong dissolving weak?” Since I doubt whether David would have read these questions, in this article I will reply on his behalf, though I may do so in somewhat different terms than he would.

Wednesday, 6 January 2016

Friday, 2 May 2014

Ātma-vicāra: stress and other related issues

A friend recently wrote to me asking whether ātma-vicāra should be a state of relaxation or whether it can create stress, and also several other questions about the practice of ātma-vicāra and its relationship with Sri Ramana’s praise of Arunachala. The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

When practising vicāra, our entire attention should be focussed only on ‘I’, and since such self-attentiveness is our natural state, it should not involve any stress whatsoever. It is only when we try to resist being self-attentive by thinking of anything other than ‘I’, that we unnecessarily create conflict, and as a result of such conflict stress may be experienced.

When our attention moves away from ‘I’ towards anything else, we create the appearance of multiplicity, and in multiplicity conflict and stress can arise. But when our attention does not move away from ‘I’, we experience no multiplicity and hence there is no scope for any conflict or stress. Therefore any stress that we may experience is a clear sign that we have allowed our attention to move away from ‘I’, so we should try to turn our attention back towards ‘I’ alone.




Wednesday, 24 June 2009

Anma-Viddai (Atma-Vidya) – an explanatory paraphrase

In continuation of my previous five articles, which were explanatory paraphrases of Upadesa Undiyar, Ulladu Narpadu, Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham, Ekatma Panchakam and Appala Pattu, the following is the sixth of seven extracts from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai:

ஆன்ம வித்தை (Anma-Viddai), the ‘Science of Self’, also known as Atma-Vidya Kirtanam, the ‘Song on the Science of Self’, is a Tamil song that Sri Ramana composed on 24th April 1927 in answer to the request of Sri Muruganar.

That is, Sri Muruganar composed the pallavi and anupallavi (refrain and sub-refrain) of a kirtana (song), in which he said that atma-vidya (the science and art of self-knowledge) is extremely easy, and he then asked Sri Ramana to complete the kirtana by composing the charanas (verses). Sri Ramana accordingly composed the charanas, in which he emphatically confirmed the truth that atma-vidya is extremely easy.



Thursday, 4 June 2009

Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam – an overview

I am currently preparing to upload four new e-books to the Books section of my website, namely Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana and Sadhanai Saram, and I am drafting introductory pages for each of these. The following is an extract from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam:

ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல ஸ்துதி பஞ்சகம் (Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam), the ‘Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala’, which is a collection of the principal devotional songs composed by Sri Ramana, is the first section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil ‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’. The following are the five main songs that comprise it:

  1. ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல அக்ஷரமணமாலை (Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai), the ‘Bridal Garland of Letters to Sri Arunachala’, is a song composed in the metaphorical language of bridal mysticism or madhura bhava (the affectionate attitude of a girl seeking union with her lover, the lord of her heart) and consists of 108 couplets, each of which begins with a consecutive letter of the Tamil alphabet and ends with a vocative case-form of the name ‘Arunachala’.

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

What is self-attentiveness?

A couple of weeks ago a person called Jon posted the following comment on one of my recent articles, Self-attentiveness and time:

I’m having a hard time understanding exactly what Self-attentiveness is. I just don’t see where the ‘attentiveness’ part comes from. The way I understand it Self-attentiveness is the practice of simply remaining without thought while not falling asleep (being keen and vigilant to prevent any thoughts from rising). However, as I noticed, Sri Ramana says this isn’t so because if this were the case, one could simply practice pranayama [breath-restraint], and Sri Ramana said that the effect of this was only a temporary subsidence of mind and not the annihilation of it. So getting back to my question, what am I supposed to be attentive to? Self. Well what is Self? Self is the I thought. Unfortunately, I can’t find this I thought anywhere! How am I to be attentive to it? Please elaborate. As I said earlier, the way I understand Self-attentiveness currently is simply being keen and vigilant not to let any thoughts rise. Yet I don’t think that when I remain without thoughts I am being self-attentive, because when I remain without thought I am actually not paying attention to anything! (I believe) Yet, isn’t the goal of self-attentiveness merely to destroy all thoughts? Can’t I do that without focusing on some obscure “Self”? Am I supposed to be additionally Self-attentive? If so, can you please really break it down for me so that there is absolutely no doubt as to whether I’m doing it right?
In reply to this, an anonymous friend wrote another comment:
“Am I supposed to be additionally Self-attentive? If so, can you please really break it down for me so that there is absolutely no doubt as to whether I’m doing it right?”

With reference to the above comment of John, I might state that self-attentiveness and eschewing thoughts would constitute a unitary process, there being no additional self-attentiveness over and above not paying attention to thoughts.
Jon replied to this answer in his second comment, in which he wrote:
Thank you anonymous for your comment. Just to be clear, you’re saying that the sole purpose of self-attentiveness is to ignore thoughts, therefore if I simply ignore thoughts I would be Self-attentive? Michael’s opinion on this would be greatly appreciated as well.

Saturday, 27 December 2008

Self-enquiry, self-attention and self-awareness

A few weeks ago a very long anonymous comment was posted on one of my recent articles, Self-attentiveness, effort and grace. Though this comment was posted under the identity ‘Anonymous’, the name ‘Michael Langford’ was written at the end of it.

I do not know whether or not this comment was actually posted by Michael Langford (though I suspect it probably was not), but except for his name at the end of it, the entire comment is a verbatim copy of a webpage that he wrote entitled Sri Sadhu Om - Self Inquiry, which is one of the many pages in the Awareness Watching Awareness section of the Albigen.Com website.

Most of this webpage, Sri Sadhu Om - Self Inquiry, is an edited copy of chapter seven of Part One of The Path of Sri Ramana, a PDF copy of which is available on my website, Happiness of Being. However, before his edited copy of chapter seven, Michael Langford has written the following two introductory paragraphs:
Sri Sadhu Om spent five years in the company of Sri Ramana Maharshi and decades in the company of Sri Muruganar. Sri Sadhu Om wrote a book called The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, which contains what has been called the most detailed teaching on the method of Self-inquiry ever written. Sri Sadhu Om points out that:

Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness;
only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path.

However, Sri Sadhu Om never actually wrote or said that ‘Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness; only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path’, either in this chapter of The Path of Sri Ramana or elsewhere, and to say that he pointed out such an idea is misleading and confusing. Before explaining why this idea is misleading, however, I should first say something about the way in which Michael Langford has edited the copy of this chapter on that webpage.

Thursday, 11 December 2008

The truth of Arunachala and of ‘seeing the light’ (deepa-darsana)

I began to write this article on Thursday of last week, 11th December, which was the day of Kārttikai Deepam, but for various reasons I was unable to complete it till today, 18th December.

Kārttikai Deepam is an annual festival celebrated in the Tamil month of Kārttikai (mid-November to mid-December) on the day on which the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Pleiades (known in Tamil as kārttikai and in Sanskrit as kṛttikā), which always coincides with the full moon or comes one or two days before or after it. On this day a beacon light or dīpam (popularly spelt as deepam) is lit on the summit of the holy mountain Arunachala, at the foot of which lies the temple-town of Tiruvannamalai, where Bhagavan Sri Ramana lived for the last fifty-four years of his bodily life.

On Kārttikai Deepam day in 1931 (called prajōtpatti in Hindu calendars, the fifth year in the 60-year Jupiter cycle), which was 24th November, when answering some questions on the subject Sri Ramana explained the tattva — the truth, reality or inner significance — of Arunachala, and his explanation was immediately recorded by Sri Muruganar in a Tamil verse entitled ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல தத்துவம் (Śrī Aruṇāchala Tattuvam), which is as follows:

புத்தியகங் காரம் புலம்பெய்த வோங்கு
மத்தியித யந்தான் மறையவனு மாலு
நத்தவறி யாது நலங்குலைய வன்னார்
மத்தியொளி ரண்ணா மலையினது மெய்யே.

buddhiyahaṅ kāram pulambeyda vōṅgu
maddhiyida yandāṉ maṟaiyavaṉu mālu
nattavaṟi yādu nalaṅgulaiya vaṉṉār
maddhiyoḷi raṇṇā malaiyiṉadu meyyē
.

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam — English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James

Recently the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, the 'Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala' composed by Bhagavan Sri Ramana, has been published as a book, and it is now available for sale in Sri Ramanasramam Book Stall.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first book to contain the word-for-word meaning in English for each verse of the entire Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, and within the next few months it will be followed by a similar book containing the word-for-word meaning and English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Upadesa Nunmalai, the 'Garland of Teaching Texts', that is, the poems such as Ulladu Narpadu that Sri Ramana wrote conveying his teachings or upadesa.

The following is a copy of the introduction that I wrote for this translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam:

Bhagavan Sri Ramana taught us that the only means by which we can attain the supreme happiness of true self-knowledge is atma-vichara — self-investigation or self-enquiry — which is the simple practice of keenly scrutinising or attending to our essential self-conscious being, which we always experience as 'I am'.

Saturday, 1 September 2007

Nan Yar? - complete translation now added to Happiness of Being website

Today is the 111th anniversary of Sri Ramana's arrival in Tiruvannamalai, to celebrate which I have added my English translation of Nan Yar? (Who am I?) to my main website, Happiness of Being.

I have also restructured my website, replacing the old Resources page with the following five new pages:


Within the next few days I will also add to my website an e-book version of the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Guru Vackaka Kovai, the 'Series of Guru's Sayings', which is the most comprehensive and reliable collection of the sayings of Sri Ramana, recorded in 1255 Tamil verses composed by Sri Muruganar, with an additional 42 verses composed by Sri Ramana.



Last updated: 7th November 2024