At Thiruvanamalai on Guru Purnima!!!

Reached here this morning at around 10 am, no crowd , not much traffic on the roads. My younger bro and me walked up the mountain meditated for sometime at the caves and slept for a while on the mountain. at about 4pm We decided it was time to go to the temple and descended the mountain.

The sight that greeted us was a shocker, people people people everywhere, many important roads cordoned off for vehicular traffic, no place to move, no place to stand , jam packed crowd. I estimated the count to be around 1 lac. A policeman standing nearby said it was more like 1- 1.5 million.

Apparently a 1990s tamil flick had this hero who goes around(girivalam) the Arunachala mountain at Thiruvanamalai on a purnima day and his prayers are answered. I couldnt locate which movie it was but the impact has been astounding. A place that used to attract a few over 1000 people back in 1980 on purnima(Full moon) days now attracts 1-1.5 million. Although Ramana recommended girivalam to all who sought advice, he never mentioned anything about purnima days, but apparently Arunachala mahatmiyam the book on the greatness of Mount Aruncahala talks about the benefits of girivalam on a purnima day.

Another noteworthy fact is that most of the devotees doing the girivalam today are telugu speakers i am not sure if they are from Andhra but if they are boy they have travelled some distance.

I have been to Thiruvanamalai once before on purnima day and sworn never to visit again on a purnima day, but tomorrow being guru purnima (a day when u pay your obeisance ) to your guru I decided to visit anyways so that I can pay my obeisance to Ramana my guru ;-).

So far the visit has been anything but exciting , but nevertheless as with all Arunachala visits , its calming and has significantly recharged my spiritual batteries.

--Badri--