(Chapter 1)
In Chennai in a place called ThiruVotriyoor and in the street where
chariot of gods used to be drawn, a naked saint was sitting and
commenting on the members who were walking on the street. He was
commenting on the people by telling “see a cat is walking, a dog is
walking, a donkey is walking, a pig is walking, a snake is walking.”
When our
saint Ramalingar came that way he called him “
See here a man of great virtuousness and nobleness is coming”.
The saint who is commenting on the people is called Dhigambara
Saamiyaar. He is calling people based on their character. When he saw
Ramalinga Adigalar he called him as a man of great virtue.
In middle of people who were born as human but behaving and living as animals, Ramalingar roamed as a man with great virtue.
He is the man who has controlled his mind and not the one who
goes/acts as per the whims of his mind. By constantly thinking on the
supreme lord he has made his mind pure, matured and divine.
Ramalingar lived according to the saying “
Donot go as per your mind wishes”. According to the divine saying his mind is always in a place where it is controlled.
(The mind will be controlled when always kept on the lotus feet of the lord which is the divine light in our eyes in our body.)
Since he controlled and lorded over his mind our saint Ramalingar has become a human.
This man becoming/attaining saintness is Gnanam (divine wisdom).
So the first thing for us is since we have taken birth as human, we
have to first become a true human(both in body and in our character) and
only then we can attain nobleness and divinity.
Our saint and seers tells
“Getting human birth is the rare thing.
It is still rare to learn the education of Gnanam (divine wisdom).
Still rare is doing divine donation and penance. “
With the great birth of human our Ramalinga Adigalar learned the
rarest education of divine wisdom from the supreme lord himself. With
Singularity and oneness and by always thinking of the lotus feet of the
lord he realized him. He did penance all the time by constantly
thinking, realizing and relaxation on the lotus feet of lord (Lotus feet
of the lord in our body is the divine light in our eyes).
The benefit of his penance is that his wisdom grew so much that it went
beyond universe of universes.
His physical body became body of divine light.
The blessings and attainment he got is such that there is no one equal or greater than him.
This great man being born in the date of October 5 1823 lived with
the physical body till the age of 51 and then he converted his physical
body to divine light body and is still living with us.
Like all of us saint RamalingaAdigalar (also called Vallalar) is also
a simple human born inside the womb of a mother. Because of him
constantly thinking of lord he lived in the state of Moona (Tranquility,
peace and silence of mind).
He lived with no attachments on the temperorary worldly things and hence he is not affected by the materialistic world.
Since his mind is always in union with the supreme lord his wisdom
and knowledge radiated brilliantly. Because of this he realized
everything without reading any book or going to school.
He tells “
I learned everything from you (Supreme Lord)”. He learned the supreme spiritual education of Deathlessness from the supreme lord.
Remaining in a single place with the state of sleeping without sleep
and in a state of complete silence and peace(moona) and with ever
hungriness of soul and with his mind fixed firmly on the lotus feet of
the lord and with his eye flowers blossoming he did penance with his
eyes open and with alertness.
Result of this is the human Ramalingar became saint Ramalingar and was called ThiruArutPrakasa Vallalar.
He realized “that” which is present in him is nothing but is
part/feature of the supreme thing that is present everywhere and is
almighty.
He also realized that the same divinity present in him is present in everyone.
He saw that the same divinity is filled everywhere in this universe.
He became “that”. The strength he had possessed got transformed to
divine power. He realized infinite bliss and supreme pleasure because of
this.
Because he came to knew “that” and realized “that” and became “that”
he got the qualities of “that” which is of infinite compassion. Because
of this our Vallalar Ramalinga Adigalar became a Philanthropist.
He saw every soul as his. He withered on seeing the withered crop.
He felt sad for the suffering of soul
because of ignorance. He felt bad on seeing the people doing immoral and
bad things. He feared on seeing people doing atrocious thing because of
their ego. He felt the pain suffered by other living beings.
Seeing other soul as his is Singularity. This is the spiritual
oneness. This is the quality of a person who has become a
philanthropist.
As a human atleast one has to remove the hungriness of others.
Because of food a living being will get life and live, and then it will mature. (Spiritually).
Once the soul matures it will immerse itself in finding who the philanthropist is.
One who searches the supreme lord who is the supreme philanthropist,
such a man will naturally help the poor and needy. Such a person
naturally will develop love and compassion.
So, for the people who have just begun their search for the
philanthropist, our vallalar thought food should not be an issue. So to
alleviate the hungriness of the people vallalar started Dharma Salai (in
vadalur) which provides food to all with no cost.
He removed the suffering due to hungriness of the people. He called all the people to provide food to the needy.
We the humans who have taken human form and for us to become noble
humans, he told us his divine experiences. This collection is called
“ThiruArutpa”. It contains around 6000 songs and teachings.
ThiruArutpa contains collection of all the teachings by saints and
seers who have taken birth during different times in this world. This
teachings were explained with simplicity and clarity.
Combining the teachings from great book of ThiruManthiram and
ThiruVasagam , vallalar has given us the incomparable book of
ThiruArutpa which explains about the divine greatness and ways to reach
the supreme lord.
A man who has got struck in the birth-death cycle, he defined the way
to come out by telling the divine words “Stand in the Supreme Path of
Chakra”. This chakra is our eyes and through his eyes vallalar is making
us to realize that the way to divinity is through our eyes.
By realizing the supreme lord he got supreme bliss and supreme
pleasure. He prays to lord that like him every soul should get this
supreme bliss and supreme pleasure.
In ThiruArutpa he sings “
The whole world should get the blessings and attainment as I have got”.
If a human removes all his impure and bad character and then follows
the teacher who knows the supreme philanthropist and lord then he will
become a true human and then will become a saint and then will shine as
philanthropist.
“Protection to our eyes is the lotus feet of the supreme lord”
The holy feet present in our eye which is the divine light of our eyes, is the one that comes with us on our way to divinity.
“Two divine lights of our eyes which burns were the sun and moon in our body”
So in our body the divine light of our eyes were the sun and moon,
and this was conveyed by all divine philanthropist and great seers and
saints.
“So the place that is needed to know to realize oneself were the
divine light of our eyes. Only the one who realizes himself will know
and realize the supreme lord”.
One who realizes the supreme lord who is the supreme philanthropist will become a philanthropist.
If we enter inside the pupil of our eyes and fix our mind there then
we can see the supreme lord, realize him and attain nobleness, saintness
and greatness. This is what vallalar teaches us. We can live a supreme
life which is a life of deathlessness with supreme bliss and supreme
pleasure.
Our noble ancestors were advising us to live a life with lot of disciplines and has defined us a way for good living.
We have to get before the sun rises. After finishing our morning
bodily needs we need to pray the lord and do chanting of lord names and
do meditation. Take breakfast only at 11 AM. Before that take only
liquid food. During afternoon take pure vegetarian food. Then before
the sun sets eat dinner in small quantity. During evening also involve
yourself in doing chanting and meditation. Do your daily duty dutifully.
Be with truth, sincere, honest, pure and follow the life disciplines.
In all ways for a human to live life like a human our saintly ancestors
have given as life code for us to follow.
If we follow the life disciplines and live our life in this way, then
we will get peace of mind. Only when we get peace in our life, then
will our wisdom start working and growing.
When a man’s wisdom starts acting then he will start respecting
others. Where there is peace and calm only there the divine light will
be visible.
“Come oho people with divine light in your eyes
Come oho people with very strong heart” – Song by Tamil Poet Bharathiyar.
MahaKavi Bharathiyar lived a very good life.
Mahatma Gandhiji lived a very good and noble life.
Our Saint Thiru Ramalinga Adigalar Vallalar lived a very good, noble and virtuous life.
One who does not see differences based on caste, religion or race is a true human.
One who suffers on seeing the suffering of others and shows compassion to all is a true human.
One who sees all the soul as his is a true human.
Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed Nabi – all these people were example for good and true human.
Our Philanthropist Vallalar sings “
Oho
supreme lord and supreme philanthropist, whenever I sing about you my
mouth is emitting sweet fragrance and all my bad karmas were getting
removed from my house (my body)”.
Only our ancestors have defined the code for a human to live like a
human. Right from the time immemorial there were so many people in our
country who lived as humans and saints. There were so many people who
lived a noble and complete life. They lived the life realizing that the
supreme lord is the “beginning and the one responsible for everything”.
With this realization they sang praises on him and lived by surrendering
to him.
In the beginning there is no death and disease. After living a very
long eventful life they attained the state of JeevaSamadhi. JeevaSamadhi
is the state where the soul doesn’t leave the body with the state
equivalent to that of supreme and in which all the outward activities
were withdrawn inside. This is one way of overcoming death.
Leaving a life without any disease they overcame death by attaining
the state of JeevaSamadhi. This is because the code and discipline that
they followed in their life is very noble and great.
In this way India is the only country which gave and still gives the
code and discipline for a human to live like a human. This code and
discipline is called as
“Sanadhana Dharma”.
In India there were so many people who lead their life as per this
Sanadhana Dharma. That is why we find so many people here who have got
the grace of the supreme lord. Who are the persons who lead the life as
per sanadhana Dharma? We find answer from vallalar who tells “Who
doesnot see any sort of difference among the souls and who sees all the
soul as his” were the people who lives the life according to Sanadhana
Dharma. Vallalar calls those people as
“sanmargi”. Doesn’t we people want to become Philanthropist?
So for us to become a good human first and then become a saint let us
follow the foot steps of our great saint Ramalinga Vallalar.
So let us live our life as per the teachings of our saint Ramalinga
Adigalar (Vallalar). Let us follow the Sanmarga path shown to us by our
vallalar. Let us become humans first.
When vallalar Ramalinga Adigalar was just six months old his parents
took him to the holy Nataraja temple in Chidambaram for a darshan of
Nataraja. There is a place in the temple which is called “Chidambara
Ragasiyam”(Secret of Chidambaram). When the child Vallalar saw this he
laughed big. On seeing this the priest in the temple blessed the child
by telling that in future this child will become a great saint.
Our vallalar did not attend any school
and even when put on school he did not go there. Instead he had this
habbit of often visiting the Lord Muruga temple near his house and
praying to the deity there. It is his teacher who was the first to know
the extent of his knowledge and intelligence.
Vallalar’s elder brother is the one who gives religious discourses in
the temple. Once when he had ill-health, his younger brother vallalar
was sent to give the discourse. Our vallalar gave discourse and
explanation for a single hymn throughout the night. The discourse was so
good and so deep that those who heard the discourse were completely
spell bound and enjoyed every word of him. After this they wanted only
vallalar to give them the discourse and not his elder brother.
His Elder brother realized the greatness of his younger brother only after this incident.
This is the incident after which Vallalar’s greatness was known by all.
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