Before I had actually been to the Sacred Hill of Arunachalam, I had been told it is akin to a magnet. Once it gets hold of your mind it never really leaves. Now I can testify to the truth of this. In one of my blog posts this month of December 2011 I had written about Samyama, how it awakened and what I have learnt about Arunachalam as a consequence. Yet I find that Samyama has deepened as a result of the contact with the Agni Lingam that is the Hill. I have had many new insights about Arunachalam, all of which may seem strange, and none of which I can prove per se. I do not wish to do so; I merely state herein what I have come to realize about Arunachalam. It may of use to other spiritual seekers, but I feel it is important to get all of this down on record. {Samyama is a peculiar ability of Yoga in that knowledge of a subject is vouchsafed to you when you put your attention upon the subject; sometime when your mind touches the subject or you view something, the knowledge about that surfaces in the mind. My blog post on Samyama has details} I am also avoiding all the usual mythology about the hill which is easily accessible. These are my insights from Samyama.
Arunachalam has been described in the Puranas as the oldest hill on earth. This is true. The one overwhelming experience about the Hill is that it is alive and immeasurably old. The earth is four and a half billion years old. The rocks in South India are unique in that they exist on perhaps the only place on the planet which was not under water at some time or other. Many of them are easily 450 million years old. The Arunachalam area however is dated at 2.6 billion years! Arunachalam is a giant crystal so as to speak and one of the properties of that substance, as yogis know, is that it can be infused with consciousness to a quite amazing degree. Mythologically the Hill was described to be originally made of diamond. In this case the Hill ‘awakened’ into a rudimentary consciousness, and since it was both stable and still it began to evolve at a clip that in yogic terms was quite rapid, though we are talking millions of years here. Not being an organic body sometimes has advantages for consciousness, as the traps and pitfalls of desire and karma acted upon are bypassed. Arunachalam in that sense is the first enlightened energy, not exactly being, on the planet.
Today that energy has coalesced into a being or divine form called Dakshinamurthi, the South facing Silent Teacher form of Shiva. It is instructive that South Indian Yogis have always found this form of Shiva easy to access: it hardly known in other parts of the country. Arunachalam is a fully realized Master of Masters, with all the active chakras, and none of the human limitations. Just to make matters even more complex as human and divine Yogis were magnetically drawn to this most ancient and powerful Shiva Lingam they left their impress upon it. The Lingam means a sign, a signifier, in this case of Pure Auspicious Consciousness.{Later tantric byways made the lingam a synonym for the male organ but that is irrelevant here} The heart of the crystal mountain is the fire within the earth’s crust hence it’s obvious form as the Fire Tattva. The many yogis who left their impress here also realized the Masculine and Feminine concordance of the Divine, hence the hill is also an Ardhanarishwara lingam, half male half female, the West side supposedly the female side. The Akandashram cave on Arunachalam is also backed by a giant Ardhnarishwara yantra. But the Fire of the Hill is the light of illumination, the inner guru that is present in all, and is the infallible source of wisdom. The Fire is beyond comprehension, category or conclusions.
If Kailasha where Shiva resides, Aruanchalam is his ‘heart’ so as to speak. It is older than Kailasha that much is sure, but as I said earlier Kailasha seems to have emerged onto this reality from another dimension to speed up evolution in all planes, not just the visible one. I don’t know if this makes sense or not but I know exactly what the difference is between them, these two sacred Giris or mountains. Kailasha is the knowledge base, the potential, the possibilities, the catalyst, the future of consciousness as it evolves. Arunachalam is the Witness, the Fire, Kaala Agni Rudra, the First and the Last, the base of Being. Like I said, words fail. Many places claim to be the Omphalos, the Navel of the World and they are right for there is something of value at each of those sacred spots. But Arunachala,, Aruna – Achala , The Red-Unmoving, The Red-Unshakable, this is the ancient heart of the world.
There are approximately 1920 Siddha shrines, mostly invisible, all over the Hill and its periphery. Siddhas are beings who are greater than the gods, evolved to a stage that is beyond belief and they have left their energy signatures or ‘booster packets’ all over the place. Those who have the Adhikara, the karmic right, having earned it with sadhana, can access the energy. Entire spiritual lineages or paramparas can be reconstructed from Arunachalam. There are also many paramparas which have not yet begun, waiting for those with the Adhikara to discover them and put them to use in teaching – if they want to deal with the karma! While crisscrossing the hill there were several times when I felt the energy change distinctly. Since to be near the Hill is to get a perpetual blast of inrushing energy I did not think much of it but now, in Samyama, the realization dawns that they were places of karmic linkage with me, teachers and paramparas in alignment with me.
My parampara for this round is the Eight Spiritual Breaths but Samyama is teaching me that sometimes you have more than one option in your set of skills. Masters may choose to transmit a parampara which can then be taught to somebody else with greater Adhikara than the person first receiving the transmission. Weird but then Yogis have always been a law unto themselves!! The parampara can thus be revitalized. In my meditation I had received a Sanskrit saying “Shariram Parampara Vahanam” – the Body is the vehicle of transmission of Parampara. I now realize that a Parampara can also use you as a bus service till it gets to the person who has the Rnanubandhana and Adhikara to develop it or revive it! You may also receive input that you don’t use in this lifetime. Since the input is not to your mind but to your pranamaya kosha you will carry it easily across multiple lives till the need comes to utilize and access it. I think I was being given such input but I was too dense to see it at the time.
The Siddha shrines are all covered in the Girivallam, the sacred circuit round the hill. This is matter of great good fortune. To do puja for four hours is usually not possible but since the circuit takes four hours for most people, that is four hours of puja to an Agni Lingam right there. It is an immense achievement. As to the number 1920, why not a round 2000, all I have to say is that to evolve into being a Siddha is not easy even in a time frame of 2.6 billion years. Just 80 more to achieve the magic number of 2000, which will be an immense tipping point for humanity but as we are currently constituted it is not going to be easy or soon. The Hill always has a Master in residence, sometimes more, usually not embodied. But a Siddha is another level of reality or rather Unreality and not easy to come by. Even Arunachalam finds that particular miracle to be a slow possibility.
Dakshinamurthi Shiva is physically present here, under or near a miraculous Banyan tree which is visible and invisible according to receptivity. I have not been able to understand more at this stage. The hill is very traditional in outlook so vairagya, world weariness and renunciation is activated almost as a default. That has been the trend for a thousand years now and the Integral view of spiritualizing life in all aspects is an older, somewhat covered over aspect of the Hill. If you stick to it, you can access that layer. It must not be forgotten that almost all the Vedic rishis were family men with great roles to play in the world. The magnetic pull of the Hill is impossible to describe, it grabs hold of you and I finally understand the famous words of the Yoga Sutras – Yoga Chitta Vriddhi Nirodaha - Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind. An unbelievable quietude and stillness takes possession of the mind when Arunachalam is remembered. In my case it seems to be cleansing accumulated sorrow and grief over many rounds, the mind body organism is one mass of pain that is slowly leaving the being, replacing it with Presence. It is terrible, but it is great. Like the Sacred Hill you rely only on your Self.
Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book} published in the last quarter of 2011. He has also written A Gathering of Gods due at the same time. He is the Editor of The Leadership Review, a corporate trainer, as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga
Another brilliant article. I agree with your interpretation re. the relatioship of Arunachala and Dakshinamurti. You have discovered a great secret Your fine prose is a joy to read. Arunachala Om. Alan
ReplyDeleteSuperb Rohit. Your insight is incredible!!!
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