I understand now why people return to this mountain. Here’s my experience….
The prose below were written as I sat at the foot of Arunachala Mountain outside the Samadhi Hall at Sri Ramanashram. I had taken up the habit of listening to early morning chanting at the ashram, walking to a lookout point on Arunachala for sunrise Surya Yoga and meditation, then returning to the ashram to continue looking within.
On my last morning before departure as I sat in meditation, the mountain pulled my body into complete stillness, just as it had done the first time I meditated on Annamalai hill in Virupaksha Cave. And while all normal reasons for movement once again became inconsequential, the difference this time was that the body felt lighter.
The energy of this mountain is very different from any other energy I’ve experienced on this earth. I only notice an outward radiation via its absence, when I’m greater than 30km away from Arunachala Shiva. Its internal presence, however, is strong, grounding and stabilising, without being rigid.
Arunachala: my guru
The grounding force of Arunachala Mountain is relentless. With earth and water, it fills every cell and embeds itself in my mental processes. It stokes passion with fire that drives upward development. It is the air that is dynamic movement. And it holds it all as the ethereal space.
Arunachala pulls at all that is unnecessary, the waste and excess stuffed into mind and body, causing it to come out of solution. This body experiences heaviness as if these things are dense particulates being drawn through every pore and collecting as sediment. Only as it is let go does the thick layer dissipate. The result is a lighter and quieter constitution.
The Mountain is compassionate in both its patience and its persistence. It teaches me to be at home in my own design, this unique and cosmic manifestion of the Divine.
Sri Ramana Maharshi invites me to ask deeply, “Who am I?”
Arunachala reveals the answer.
Namaste,
✌️ ∙ 🌱 ∙ 🙏
