Ramalinga Swamigal, popularly known as Vallalar, was one of the most notable saints on the Indian sub-continent during the 19th century. He was born on October 5, 1823, in Marudur near Chidambaram into a Hindu Saivite family, the fifth child and last son of his father Ramayya Pillai and mother Chinnammayyar. It is said she had borne him in her womb after she received Vibhuthi, the sacred ash of blessings from an unknown guest of honor, a Siva Yogi who blessed her with a son like himself. Vallalar left the world on January 30, 1874 at age 51. When he was only six months old his father died and Ramalinga was brought up under the auspices and tutelage of his elder brother, who, it has been said, had a good working knowledge ot things religious.
From very early in his childhood Swamigal was attracted toward Shiva Bhakti, arriving at his more mature religious decisions without formal education, indoctrination, or guru. He was somehow aware of the numerous scriptures and literature, exhibiting a full understanding of their context and philosophy. Followers say his knowledge was through divine grace, staying all alone in a room provided with only a lamp and mirror for days on end. At the age of 27, he was married to one Danammal. Marital life did not distract him from his religious duty, moving to Vadalur, where he set Gnana Sabia and Dharma Salai. As an ardent sycophant of bhakti he was a relentless critic of practice based on birth, class, status or privilege. He had no regard for the ‘Puranas’, ‘Vadas’, and the ‘Agamas’. He worshiped god as light (jyothi) and was a man of utmost love and compassion for all the living creatures. It is said that he would weep at the sight of even a withering crop. He firmly believed in anna dana or free offering of food to the needy.
On the Giri Valam path around the holy mountain Arunachala --- the home of the Ramana Ashram and abode of the famous Indian saint the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi --- it is possible for devotees to see the peak of Arunachala from all Eight Cardinal Point Lingams around the path. However, at the fourth of the cardinal point lingams, Nirutthi Lingam, the view is MOST important because it shows two parts of the mountain, Shiva and Sakthi, aligned perfectly together. Because of that alignment the temple and dharmasala of Vallalar is on the right of the road after Nirutthi Lingam allowing for the most sacred of views.
People of all castes gathered around him in large numbers. However, not all who gathered came merely for his teachings as much as in the hope of witnessing miracles or Siddhis, of which the power of producing he was generally credited; though he himself discredited the idea of anything supernatural, asserting constantly that his was a religion based on pure science.
So said, it has been duly recorded that one day while in Madras, the Swami along with several devotees and disciples, were walking to Tiruvottiyur inorder to worship at the Ishwara temple. During the journey he and his party got caught in an exceptionally heavy downpour, all in the group suffering much difficulty because of the sudden flooding and rushing water. The Swami showed them a shortcut and in an instant they reached Tiruvottiyur. T.V.G. Chetty, in the book Life of Swami Ramalingam, describes the incident as follows:
They had reached half the way to Tiruvottiyur. There was heavy rain. His followers began to run pell‑mell. But the Swami "rallied them all together and darted through some mysterious bye‑lane" and got the entire body in front of the temple in a second of time.
Chetty goes on to write:
The above incident seems to be a case of collective dematerialisation and materialisation, that is to say the Swami took them within his subtle‑physical body or possibly enveloped them in his environmental body which is its extension and reached the destination instantly and projected them out again. His devotees should have felt the whole process as going through a mysterious way and reaching the temple in an instant.
Interestingly enough, coming forward in time now some one hundred years, a similar event has been recorded in modern times that transpired between a person known as a bio-searcher and some U.S. military personnel at the infamous fused glass debris field associated with the suspected downed object known as the Roswell UFO near Roswell, New Mexico. Because of the bio-searcher's intimate knowledge of indigenious plants of the desert southwest he, later to be known as the informant in various writings by Carlos Castaneda, was called upon to assist the noted scientist and meteorite hunter Dr. Lincoln La Paz in the investigation of the alleged craft. One of the military investigators, also assigned, apparently didn't like the bio-searcher's unorthodox methods and because of a disagreement over some debris found at the site, had him, along with his nephew who was traveling with the bio-searcher for unknown reasons, taken under guard to the vehicle they arrived in and told to stay there. When the military investigator returned to the truck he found the bio-searcher and the boy gone, and the guard assigned to watch him having no clue where he went or what happened to him. A search of the area showed no sign of either of them in the vicinity, as though he simply disappeared or vanished, the desert and the surrounding environment somehow swallowing him up without a trace. (source)
To the OUTSIDE OBSERVER both seemed to have just vanished, however to themselves everything was normal. The boy walking with his uncle wasn't aware of any difference. His uncle may have been fully aware of the situation, but for the boy, not versed in such things, just went along with his uncle enveloped by the circumstances. The only difference, still recalled very vividly, was that the distance they traveled by vehicle that day to the debris field was quite far and took quite a long time, however the trip walking back across the desert on foot took only a short time. As a youngster the boy never really thought much about the time-distance difference one way or the other, as a grown man it is another matter. See Apportation as well as Chalabhinna the sixfold knowledge of the worthy ones. See also At the Feet of the Bhagavan and the final paragraphs of The Sun Dagger.
THIS SITE LISTED ON
THE GATE KEEPER'S
LIST OF SPIRITUAL TEACHERS
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
(PLEASE CLICK)
AWAKENED TEACHERS FORUM
THE BEST OF
CARLOS CASTANEDA
<<< PREV ---- LIST ---- NEXT >>>
WE DO NOT HAVE SHAMANS
The Case Against "Shamans" In the
North American Indigenous Cultures
LARRY CAMPBELL: Cactus Jack
ROSWELL UFO ARCHAEOLOGIST
SEE ALSO:
POWER OF THE SHAMAN: WHERE DOES IT COME FROM, HOW DOES IT WORK?
the Wanderling's Journey
(click image)
CLICK
HERE FOR
ENLIGHTENMENT
ON THE RAZOR'S
EDGE
THE
RAZOR'S EDGE
RING
VIBHUTHI:
SACRED OR HOLY ASH
SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI
Also Vibhuti, Vibhooti. What remains out of our own life is a small quantity of ash at the end. A person's body, no matter how large or small, consisting of so many different organs --- the working organs and sensory organs and so on --- all doing so many different things while alive, will simply burn away like a piece of firewood, reduced to no more than a small quantity of ash. Any matter can be purified or transformed with fire (or its equivalent) and reduced to ash. If you burn iron it reduces to ash, if you burn wood it reduces to ash, if you burn the human body it reduces to ash; if you burn anything it reduces to ash. It is only ash which does not change its form. When it is burnt, it remains as ash. The one thing that remains permanent and the one thing that does not change whatever you may do to it is the ash. There is a lesson in this and that is ultimately everything reduces to ash. It is in this context that ash is taken in the name of all the five different elements and put it on the forehead. The meaning of this is that all the elements in the world are identical with ash and are essentially nothing else. What remains permanently as an unchanging thing is ash. Ultimately ash is the only thing which is symptomatic and equivalent to God.
SEE:
SARIRA
