This seems to be a year of travel! At least for me it has been so till now and i hope it remains so for the rest of the year. In January we have been to Sringeri, Udupi, Murudeswar, gokarna. In Feb we went to Thiruvanmalai, the place where Ramana Maharshi's asharam is located. Then we came to know that there is something called Girivalam or Giripradakshina, the circumambulation of the hill arunachala that is done on every full moon and we planned to do it "soon". Miraculously we did it the very next full moon, this march on 21st!!

First about the legend associated with the place: Vishnu and Brahma once got into an argument as to who was greater among them and they go to Lord Siva. Lord Siva then takes the form of a giant flame and tells them that the one who finds the origin or end of that flame would be the greatest. Vishnu takes the form of a bore and goes digging to find the origin. Brahma flies on his swan to find the end. They both fail. Vishnu comes back humbled, apologizes for his audacity and says that he has realized that there is someone greater than him. Brahma, on his ascent meets a certain kind of flower (don’t remember the name) and asks it from where it’s coming. It replies saying that it has fallen from one of the jatas of lord Siva. Brahma then conspires with the flower and asks it to bare false witness that he has collected it from Siva's head. The flower complies. However the truth is already known and they both (the flower and Brahma) are cursed. The curse is that Brahma wouldn’t be worthy of worship and that the flower should not be used for the worship of any God either.

That is the legend and the location where that flame has stood on earth is supposed to be the hill of arunachala. The legend also says that the hill was in the form of fire during satya-yuga, transformed into crystal and then by kaliyuga it took the form of rock. All this is unverifiable and is just a legend which we hope to believe. It is just for information that i mention it here. Coming to whether i believe it or not, I just read it and think "May be, may not be. I am not in the capacity to accept or reject."

It is not this legend that has pulled me to the place. It is Ramana Maharshi who did it. Sri Ramana is hailed as the greatest of the sages of the modern times by one and all. A sage without any controversy! None at all!!!! He came to arunachala in his teens and stayed there till he passes away at the age of 60+. All the while he remained the same, simple and calm, wearing just a loin cloth. One glimpse at the ashram and one would get a feel of the simplicity of the man.

Sri Ramana had come to Thiruvanmalai in his teens. He first meditated for 15 years in a cave atop the hill called Virupaksha cave. When his mother joined him, he moved to a little more flat/spacious cave called "skandashramam". When his mother expired, he built her samadhi at the foot of the hill, built a Matru bhooteswar temple on it and stayed there till the end. This is the current day ashram that everybody visits. The ashram consists of just 3 rooms. One room where he used to meet ppl, that currently has the couch that he used to sit on. Another, the samadhi mandir, called the meditation hall. Another 10X10 room where the maharshi used to stay. The scarce items used by him are on display there. That’s it! The ashram ends! The place is absolutely filled with pleasant silence, situated right at the foot of the hill.

Sri Ramana never gave any discourses or collected disciples. He became famous worldwide when Paul Brunton, a western journalist wrote about  him in his book "A Search in Secret India.." Brunton claims that his search has ended at Arunachala where he found the Maharshi. I bought the book and it is very well written. He is not an Indo-phile who drools over anything and everything about India. He is a rationalist in that he does not accept anything unless experienced/seen first hand. At the same time, he has the grace to accept the limits of his capability in understanding the esoteric and readiness to learn/accept something totally irrational by western standards, if given adequate proof. He does the tight rope walking with grace and I would recommend the book as a "must read" by all, believers and non-believers. The later more so :-)

Ramana Maharshi's was the path of "Self-enquiry". He did not recommend the guru-shishya path and used to claim that the guru is within everyone and there is no need to go around search. When people came to him with certain intellectual questions in their mind, he would ask them "Who is asking the question?" the answer would be "I am" He would then say "Who is the "I", find him and all your questions would be answered". His initiation was the initiation of silence. He would never speak. Ppl would just come, sit near him, with their heads full of Qs for the master. But in his presence, all the questions would seem irrelevant and meaningless. A forceful yet pleasant silence would permeate their being and they would find peace!

To Quote from wiki "The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre."

A Brief outline of his life and teachings can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi

About the Giri-pradakshina

Sri Ramana is supposed to have given great importance to the hill arunachala. He said that the hill was personification of lord Siva himself. He used to do pradakshina of the hill very often. One circumambulation would sometimes take a day, week or even month. He declared that there is not even an inch of the hill that he has not set foot on! He advised that every man should do the predakshina atleast once in a life time. He insisted even the old and the infirm to do the same and said that the physical pain is nthing compared to immesurable gain which is difficult to perceive. He did not encourage any other ritual, mantra or practice. It is the fact that the pradakshina was recommended by such a person that made me take up the strenuous walk, barefoot, for about 17kms.

The pradakshina is supposed to be done on the full moon day. In the month of march, full moon lasted from 20th(Thurday) nite to 21st (friday) nite.

We started from Bangalore at around 9 AM on friday and reached Thiruvanmalai at around 1.30. We had booked the accommodation at Seshadri ashram next to Ramana Ashram. We went there, occupied the rooms, had lunch and started the giri-pradakshina at around 2.30. It took 4 hours for us to complete the pradakshina of the hill, visiting the temples enroute. It took an hour more for the darshan at the temple. (Fortunately, it was quick. We somehow managed to go at lean time. Generally it is expected to take 2-3 hrs on full moon days.)  It was almost 9 by the time we reached the cottage and all we could do for the day was to apply balm to the aching legs and soothe the muscles in warm water! :-)

The experience of pradakshina was great, though strenuous for the unaccustomed feet of a software engineer. We could see the local people do it with ease, some, along with their luggage and kids! There are 8 lingas in the 8 directions (agni linga, vaayu linga, varuna linga, kubera linga..etc) in addition to number of other small temples. The place is literally infested with temples and ashrams of holy men. There are so many simple ashrams of so many little known babas there, that u wonder whether the one whom you have crossed just now is one of them!! There is Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram, Seshadri ashram to name the bigger ones. There are many smaller ones. There are lot of inaccessible and unknown caves atop the hill where at least one enlightened person stays at any given period in history. (Before Ramana, the cave where he meditated was occupied by a Great sage "Thiru". He was very famous and ppl thronged to see him. Once he is supposed to have asked everyone to leave, entered this cave and closed it. After certain time, when the disciples force entered the cave, all they would find were the ashes of the sage. Ramana is supposed to have chosen the same cave, made a heap of the ashes and meditated before it for 15 yrs. It is the virupaksha cave. A simple trek on steps made of boulders would take one there. We can even sit and meditate in the same cave for as long as we please. Needless to say, the vibrations are great! The quietness of the hill and the chirpy birds will make one forget the bustle of the town below and make him believe he is meditating at a distant forest.

On day two we visited the Ashram early in the morning, stayed there for the arathi and meditated for some time. The attention span was very less; blame it on my lack of practice of meditation or even sitting still for that matter! :-) I almost NEVER meditated before; by meditation, i mean sitting still and trying to observe thoughts or whatever. But even for me the 20 mins i sat there was absolute peace. I didnt have much thoughts to grapple with or "look" at. The fact that i could sit with eyes closed for 30 mins and not look at the watch even once shows "the proximity effect". We could not spend much time at the ashram as we had the target of visiting the two ashram-caves skandarshram and virupaksha askram before noon.

We set out on the trek at around 8 am. Sri Ramana, when he came to Thiruvanmalai had darshan of the lord at the temple, climed up the hill to virupaksha cave, stayed for 15 yrs, moved to skandashram, and then to the current ramanashram. Our trek was in the opposite direction. We started at Ramanashram, went to skandashram, virupaksha cave and finally landed near the temple, 2 kms away from the ashram. The beautiful trek and the brief yet fulfilling meditations at the caves left us wanting to visit the place again. This time we had to travel back to Bangalore before dark on the same day as i had left my son with my inlaws. This was the first time that he had stayed overnight without me and he surprised everyone by managing well!

The most remarkable thing about the trip, in addition to the place itself was the weather. It was just fantastic! It was raining cats and dogs while we were driving to Thiruvanmalai. We had apprehensions about having to do the pradakshina when there is down pour. But from our time of arrival till the time of departure, it did not rain! We were outdoors all through the stay in the excellent weather except for the nite, when it had promptly rained!! :-) The area is rocky and even a moderately sunny day by local standards would have left us drained by many more times. This time all we had to manage were just our aching legs and everything else was thankfully taken care of!