Chapter 1 of 10

Tiruchuzhi

Flight Of The Flame

Close view of the summit of Arunachala hill against a blue sky with a large flame rising from the peak.

“Arunachala Ramana, Formless Flame of Awareness that shines as the Inner Guru — in all beings starting from Lord Hari !

“Is it not You who manifested for the first time — aeons ago — as a Fiery, Infinite Pillar of Light? As the Outer Guru to the warring Gods, Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu, in order to quell their rutting egos and humble their puffed up pride?

“Oh, Pillar of Light ! Too dazzling for human eyes! Is it in answer to the prayer of the Gods or out of Your Boundless Compassion that You took the Form of this Obscure, Rocky Hill, bearing the various names, ‘Arunachala’, ‘Sonachala’, ‘Annamalai’, ‘Sonagiri’…?

“So that we, your children, realise our SELF and get Liberated from the cycle of births and deaths by approaching You, seeing You, worshipping You and thinking of You !

“Sacred Heart of the World! For too long did You remain a ‘secret’. Enflaming the hearts of only those rare and ripe souls who sought Your Feet and sang Your Glory through the centuries.

“Now the time had come for Your Fragrant Light to spread across the World. So that Your children in their millions hear about You, come to You and experience You as the Stillness and Silent Awareness shining in their own Heart — as the Peace that passeth all understanding.

Yes, the time had come and the place for Your next manifestation as the Outer Guru had been chosen.

Colour-tinted head-and-shoulders photograph of the young Venkataraman (Sri Ramana) with thick dark hair, bare-shouldered, before a pale rock background.

ARUNACHALA RAMANA IS BORN !”

Midnight, 30th December, 1879, Tiruchuzhi, Tamil Nadu, South India.

Black-and-white photograph of the front of a single-storey house with tiled roofs and lattice screens; a signboard on the parapet reads SRI SUNDARAMANDIRAM with Tamil above; a woman stands at the right and a dog lies by the steps. — Sundara Mandiram — The house in Tiruchuzhi — where Sri Bhagavan was born

Was there a better time than midnight for the Light that was to remove the darkness of ignorance from our lives to take human form?

Moreover, December 30th that year was Ardhra Darshan. The sacred day that the Infinite Jyothi Linga appeared — aeons ago — to destroy the egos of the warring Gods.

Tiruchuzhi, the village chosen for this momentous event was no less significant. It is where Lord Shiva pierced the Earth with His Trident to drain out all the flood waters of an earlier deluge.

And where once the primordial Element of Water had subsided, the Element of Fire was about to rise.

TRUTH wearing a human form, filled with Grace and with eyes raining Light.

“It’s a boy, Azhagu!” This was the cry that rang out in the night from a small house on the street adjacent to and north of Tiruchuzhi’s Bhuminatha temple.

Temple complex with a gopuram and pillared halls beyond a stepped tank, coconut palms and a low stone parapet in the foreground, blue sky. — *Sri Bhuminatha Temple at Tiruchuzhi*

The idol of Nataraja, the God whose Perpetual Dance of Energy creates, sustains and destroys all of creation, had just re-entered the temple at midnight, when the “baby” who was to be the Embodiment of Stillness and Silence was born.

Oval-vignetted black-and-white portrait of an elderly woman with her head covered by a white cloth. — *Mother Alagammal*

“I saw a bright light!” This exclamation of the blind midwife who assisted Mother Alagammal was forgotten in the excitement of the birth of a healthy, baby boy.

Nobody connected what the midwife saw with what the mother had felt all through her pregnancy: A burning sensation in the womb that was so unbearable that a special cooling paste of neem leaves and other herbs had to be applied regularly on her stomach to ease the pain.

The mother’s face too, shone with an unearthly glow during this period. Could it have been otherwise? Was it not of the Infinite Pillar of Fiery Light that was in her womb as an Infinitesimal Seed?

The sprouted seed grew, for all appearances, into an ordinary boy.

Named Venkataraman, he was unusually kind. And more than willing to share what was His with others.

For instance, when He used to suckle from His mother’s breast, which He did till he was four years old, He would often invite His friend Lakshmi to suckle from the other breast! Not at all surprising, considering how the milk of human kindness overflowed from Him towards all who sought His Grace in later years.

And as many boys are, Venkataraman was naughty too. Once, when He was about six years old, when His father, Sundaram Iyer, a respected Pleader in the local court, was not at home. He went into his office room and gleefully proceeded to make paper boats out of disposed case bundles of lawsuits. Was this not foretelling one of His 108 names of praise, “Samsaararnava Taaraka?” Meaning, ‘the boatman ferrying souls across the ocean of birth and death?

Circular black-and-white portrait of a man in a large turban with a dot on his forehead and an ear stud, looking to the side; appears to be a drawn or retouched likeness. — *Sundaram Iyer*

On returning home, his father angrily exclaimed, “Where is that naughty fellow? Strip him and send him out of the house in a loin cloth and let him live off begged food!” Little did the father know his words were as significant as the actions of his son! That his son would one day wander the streets of Father Arunachala’s temple town, wearing only a loin cloth and beg for food.

Shrine interior: a Shiva lingam draped in white cloth and garlands under a golden five-hooded serpent canopy within a dark arch, with an oil lamp. — *Shrine of Lord Sri Bhuminathar*

Black stone image of the Goddess dressed in a red sari and flower garlands, standing in a golden arched frame. — *Shrine of Mother Sri Sahayavalli*

The boy took the rebuke to heart and disappeared. His family and the rest of the villagers searched high and low for Him. But their search was fruitless. Where was little Venkataraman? Where had He run away to? Some hours later, when the priest went to do the puja at Mother Sri Sahayavalli’s Shrine, he was both relieved and delighted to see a figure silently seated behind the idol — it was the child Venkataraman. Hurt by the words of His all too human father, the child had sought solace from the Divine Mother.