We were on our way to do the Circumambulation of Tiruvannamalai and visiting the Lord Arunachaleshwara in Tamil Nadu. Six of us started off by mid day of 6 Jan 2012, on this 17km walk; it was a hot and sunny day. We kept crossing many foreigners on our way and one of them a school teacher named Voila from Canada was also walking along with us. She told us that after reading the teachings of Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi which impressed her deeply, she came down to India to spend a couple of months here. We were pleasantly surprised to note that she is checked into a small home stay at Tiruvannamalai and does walk up and down to the Ramanasramam daily. After walking for 3 hrs we reached Ramanasramam and walked in with lot of expectations.
First we stopped by the big hoarding detailing the Ashram site map. After checking out all the places to visit we went on to Bhagavan Samadhi Shrine. It is a huge and peaceful hall where a Shiva Linga is placed on the Samadhi of Bhagavan and a close to real life idol is also there. Black and white life size pictures of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi adorn the walls of this hall. Every picture leaves you spell bound as the eyes are so full of life and seem to look through your soul.
We sat in that hall along with few others and meditated for a while. It was interesting to note that surroundings make a huge impact on the state of mind, as I found it was easy to focus and meditate positively here than usual.Our next stop was of Mathrubhuteshwara temple which has the remains of Bhagavan’s mother. This was inaugurated by Ramana Maharshi himself. We found a group of people singing some very pleasant and melodious Tamil songs in the hall of this shrine. We all found them so interesting and sat for a long time listening to that rhythmic and captivating music despite not understanding the language, it is so true that music has no language barriers to enjoy.
We went ahead and looked around the dining hall, meeting area, well and the residential quarters of the Asram. Everything is excellently maintained and we found many residents cleaning, sweeping and mopping these places as part of their routine. Then we visited the soul of the Asram, Sri Raman Maharshi’s personal chamber where he used to live and the articles that he used were also kept on display. The area was kept intact and gave a feeling as if He is still there and spreading some positive energy around. From here we went towards the Cow sheds or Gosalas. All the animals here are named and reared with love and affection. The helpers and the residents of the Ashram take good care of these cows and showed us around the place. We fed the cows with the fruits we carried after taking permission to do so, took few pictures and were surprised to see the way each cow responds when called by name. We were told that even Bhagavan had a favorite cow named Lakshmi that always stayed outside His quarters and grazed around close by.
There is a Veda Pathasala (Vedic School) where the mid day classes were going on. We waited outside and listened to the clear, rhythmic way of pronouncing the Sanskrit Shlokas. There were many Peacocks around this part of the Asram and we were lucky to see a Peacock dancing in very close quarters, it was so magical that we forgot to capture it on roll.
On our way back we visited the Book stall which stocks Books on Ramana Maharshi, Books written detailing his teachings and many other publications on Hindu religion, Vedic transcripts and many more. All the above books are available in different languages as well including Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and English. Cotton hand bags with long strap were on sale here with the logos of the Asram. They are so useful to carry along that I bought many to gift my friends and family. I also bought the Diaries that carried Pictures and quotes of Ramana Maharishi.
With that we walked out of the Ashram and were back on to the Parikrama of the Arunachalam Hill. My experiences of this walk deserve another blog altogether hence I will detail them later.
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