At 2009 , I had my first encounter with Arunachala. I came to Arunachala, without a plan , but yet, there seemed to be a divine plan into it . At Pondicherry , there was a group where we use to seat together and Chant OM . These was known as “OM Choir” . One day , while doing these “OM Choir” , I had a very deep experience , and when I walked out from the room in night , I found a very big shadowy image of Shiva , as if trying to locate somebody. The next day , a French filmmaker from Hollywood, who was in my next room, where I was living, asked me that whether I would like to company, him on his visit to a place called “Tiruvannamalai”. Little did I know, that these visit, with a unknown person, to a unknown place, would change my entire direction of life. I had not much important things to do in pondy, at that point of time, and being with a French Filmmaker from Hollywood and visiting some parts of South India would be the most exciting thing to do. So , I accompanied him.
My Journey was literally horrible. The Bus which was already overloaded and while travelling it got punctured, and we have to change the Bus. Both of us , could not speak Tamil , so we had very hard time, on understanding, what’s going on . When we reached, we found ourselves in a gathering, which was the largest gathering, we had seen up to that time, and the Bus had to leave us a long way before the city. So we started walking , my partner seemed to be very excited by seeing so many people at a time , and at the same time , irritated thinking about what will happen next , as there would be no chances getting room in these situation. And his prediction was right , there were absolutely no accommodation, available across the town and everywhere there was this tag “No Room”.
In the meantime , I saw Arunachala for the first time, a big mountain standing alone, and there was a kind of majesty and a greatness, in the entire mountain . It seemed that somebody is meditating. I felt a lot of devotion and love, towards the mountain. But my partner started explaining me rationally, why did the mountain made such an impact, in our minds, with the first viewing. As because these mountain was in the plain land, and not in a land, which is surrounded by mountain , so the gradient looks very erect and height magniminous , and that is why it looked so good, and made such an impact . If it would have been surrounded by other mountain , it would not look that majestic. I didn’t buy his logic of conventional western mind, as I felt a certain degree of auspiciousness, and a kind of aura, which I had seen into people who are Great Saints, and very renowned Yogis. Let me tell you at that point only, I had already visited many Ashrams and Temples across India, and met many Holy People whose very presence gives a certain degree of peace, and emotional upliftment. And all those experiences, was there emanating from the mountain, in a magnified proportion. The vision itself was so glorious, that even though, there was so many people, in the street, there was a radiation of Inner silence and True bliss which was pervading everything .
Many things happened in my life, and my career after these first encounter with Arunachala. And something’s where so extreme , that it took me some time to believe , that I am doing those. For example , at the same year I founded Sri Joydip Ashram. I had again no plans for it , but then again I felt , such an urge inside me, to share the vast wisdom which I have recieved from Arunachala with the world, that I had to build an institution to do things properly. Infact , the next day when I was returning , I told to my partner Lious [ French Filmmaker from Hollywood] that now I know everything of Bhagvad Gita , and you can ask me anything you wanted to. Such was the glory of Arunachala , that great scriptures can be mastered on very small time. Later Sri Joydip Ashram runned a very popular education program inspired from the teachings which I recieved from Arunachala, called Wisdom Stimulus on application of Bhagvad Gita in Management which started online , but later was conducted on different Management Schools and it further culminated in 3 books on Management – 1) Wisdom Stimulus – Application of Bhagvad Gita in Self Management , 2) Wisdom Stimulus – II – Application of Bhagvad Gita in Human Relationship Management , 3) Wisdom Stimulus – III – Application of Bhagvad Gita in Organisational Leadership.
While speaking in these series of articles with stories and inner meaning of Glory of Arunachala., which was originally from Skanda Purana written on Sanskrit, I have kept all the stories as it is written in Skanda Purana , Shiva Rahasya , Arunachala Mahatmaya and Arunachala Purana and just tried to elaborate the inner meaning of the stories at the same time , make the reader know about the places.
From the time, when Gautama instructed to Gauri about the Glory of Arunachala, thousands of years might have passed, but still now in year 2013 , Arunachala stands as it is , bestowing his grace and helping people to do the same things, which they has been doing ,at earlier times at the time of Gautama Maharishi too , purifying themselves – “in order to get rid of there sins and fulfil there desires and attain liberation”.
Sri Joydip Ashram 