Tiruvannamalai

Soon I leave for the dusty temple town , where Shiva is celebrated upon the dry and rocky soil of Tiuvannamalai .Where people come to walk reverentially around a holy place such as Arunachala . The mountain is said to be Shiva , and sign of his manifestation . The sacred story goes that A subtle light ,a pillar that stretches into infinity reaches from this place and aligns with the constellation of the Paladies (karthik) in December ,which will be directly above it when throngs of people (up to 2.5 million ) will gather to light a flame of large proportion to blaze for ten to thirteen days during which there is celebrations of processions dancing and singing . To walk around the mountain is said to be wish fullfilling and granting ones desire to be liberated Eternally.

A place of Tapas, (Ganapati Sastri (also called Ganapati Muni) had visited many sacred places in India, and had learned to repeat mantras and to perform tapas (asceticism). He was not satisfied, and so he asked Ramana what tapas was. Ramana replied that if one observes the source where the notion ‘I’ arises, and the source where the mantra is produced, and if the mind is absorbed into that source, that is tapas) it can be a catalyst for burning up latent tendencies that may arise.

To sit on the mountain is good , it is a quiet and solitary place to spend some peaceful solitute before returning to the town and traffic which winds it's way around the mountain . I like to walk up to Skandashram which is a 45 minute walk up steps to a cave where Ramana Maharshi sat for a number of years . Here it is like a shade of oasis and silence , and definitely a place conducive for meditation . I find it much easier to slip into deep states of absorbtion in these places , if one can rest then the rest can be profoundly deep . Below it is another cave said to have been inhabited by the Sage Virupaksha whose remains are there within the lingam made by Ramana himself .A place that is potent with silence it is also a sauna to sit in and sweat .

In the town itself is the main temple of Arunachalaeshwara and is where the Fire lingam is presented to devotees . Tiruvannamalai has the lingam for the fire element , and so you see why it can be experienced as a place where latent tendencies can be burnt!The other places of the remaining elements are : Kalahasti - Vayu or Wind element said to be the father of Hanuman , Kanchipuram - Earth lingam said to be the place where Bodhidharma came from .Sresialam - Water lingam .There is also a lingam for Space in Chidambaram of course there is no lingam because it is full of space .

During the festival once I was in the town for the celebrations and followed the procession of the gods who were being paraded by the many people out of the main temple, caught up in the excitement of the crowds we ran down a lane way barefoot and climbed up these steps, as this is where they mounted the deity onto the giant raths or chariots which they pull around the entire temple complex . There were so many coconut husk on the ground from the offerings that I was literally walking over one vast coconut mat . This small place on the left is were I climbed to watch the procession to mount the gods into the raths .