Arunachala Shiva

* Arunachala Shiva *

O Arunachala! Thou dost root out the egoity of those who think ‘I am, verily, Arunachala!’

“It is God’s grace that leads to Self-realization. The culmination of devotion (bhakti) to God lies in the realization of the non-dual Spirit. Arunachala the Supreme God, is the Self of the so called individual soul. What prevents the soul from realising this fact is the ego, born of ignorance. The ego, the pseudo ‘I’, has usurped the place of the real ‘I’,God. The soul, identifying itself with the ego, has estranged itself from God. The purpose of devotion is to remove this estrangement and bring about the recognition of God as the real ‘I’. The final realization is of the form “I Am Arunachala”, “I and the Father in Heaven are one.” Here the word ‘I’ denotatively and connotatively means God and not the ego. The Supreme Identity is the end of even bhakti. In some of the bhakti schools four paths are taught: the path of the servant (dasa marga), the path of the good son (satputra marga), the path of the friend (sakha marga), and the path of good union (san marga). Here, the grading is on the principle of lessening the distance between the devotee and the deity. The goal, therefore, must be the annihilation of even the least distance between the soul and God; in other words, the aim is the realization of the Supreme Identity. What stands in the way of this realization is the ego, and what causes the ego to appear is ignorance.”