Unstructured but Intense🔗

Arunagiri Yogishwara is an incarnation of Sadashiva that lived in the physical plane 3,000 years ago. Now, in Thiruvannamalai he is accessible in all planes. There are so many accounts of his darshans in and around Thiruvannamalai. People see him in dreams, roaming the forests of Arunachala Hill floating in the air, in the corners and secret passageways of temples. Especially for Paramahamsa Nithyananda, Arunagiri Yogishwara gave darshan for nine months. The beautiful relationship that evolved between them became one of the most central events in the childhood of The Avatar.

He begins with a bright smile on his face, "It was around the time I was eleven-eleven years of age and a half, before my enlightenment experience. One day as usual I was going around the temple..."

But the rest of the day went on anything but usual. When he arrived at the temple, coming out from below the main shrine, the young Avatar saw a beautiful sadhu walking out. He describes, "young, well-built, long hair, with the sacred ash on the face and kumkum and rudraksha, only one dhoti in the hip and only one towel on shoulder, bare chest, whole body was literally shining; shining means really shining, glowing in the golden color" He asked, "Where are you from?" The sadhu replied, "I stay here only" nodding at the cave-like structure behind him.

"What is your name?" "Arunagiri Yogeshwara" Understand I am neither lying no am I a brain deranged person. I am not telling you any stories. I am telling you the truth as it happened." Even the way that he describes the story is an initiation in itself. The reader and listener will fall in love with Arunagiri Yogishwara as he did, yearn to spend time with him as he did. During the signature 21-day program, Inner Awakening®, when he shares the experience he tells the participants, " When I am going to narrate, that same experience I will be letting it happen in my brain. I will be letting that same neuron activity happen in my brain. So just sit and listen from the space of feeling connection; you will see the same neuron activity just mirroring in your brain."

He began asking more and more questions until the conversation flowed easily into other topics from temple festivities to town gossip. Immediately, a vibrant connection was made between them.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda shares that the connection he felt was "friendliness to the extreme, to the extent even when I am sitting next to him I feel like I will put one of my finger on him, on his body, on his leg or on his hand. I will just put one of my finger on him; just want to be touching him. Or I will just hold his little finger and sitting and talking"

That night when the temple closed and Bhagavan had to return home, like someone who was in love for the first time, he watched the clock until he could go back to the temple. Early in the morning at four-o- clock, he called "Swami!" at the same shrine and Arunagiri Yogishwara walked out of what looked like a cave.

They spent the whole day together once again. Every subject would pass between them. Not only experiential lessons on the vedas, tantra, agama and upanishad but also casual conversation about the temple priest.

Nine months passed in this manner.

Finally one day, the young Avatar asked for Arunagiri Yogishwara to come to his house once.

In response, Arunagiri Yogishwara told him, “You come to my house.”

Immediately, he seized the opportunity and agreed. They both got up.

The next pivotal moments Paramahamsa Nithyananda describes in detail, “He entered into that cave by bending. I remember he just held my hand and pressed. Now, for first time when he pressed the hand I lost body consciousness. All these days I was with him I never lost body consciousness. He just walked into a cave and I also walked with him and suddenly the cave opened and we came out and I saw a huge banyan tree, little bigger than our Bidadi banyan tree. It was Arunachala hill that much I could very clearly say and the huge banyan tree and maybe some 20-30 sadhus were sitting around the seat of the guru. That seat of the guru was empty. They were all sitting down meditating. The moment he walked in all of them got up and stood and did namaskar.”

A few moments after they all settled down once again, one of the sadhus pointed out, "Who is this, the only one who is not a Sannyasi here?" referring to Paramahamsa Nithyananda as 12 year old in the white and blue uniform.

He stood for his defense, "I may not be wearing kaavi. I am also Sannyasi only."

Arunagiri Yogishwara laughed and said, "Why are you not wearing kaavi?"

He then implored, "You give me. You give me kaavi!"

During a recent program, Paramahamsa Nithyananda showed the wooden sandals that Arunagiri Yogeshwara and the kavi he received. In this photograph, you can see both.

With a laugh, Arunagiri Yogishwara looked to the side and suddenly another rishi was bringing the saffron cloth. He called Paramahamsa Nithyananda to come and take it. Within moments, he stripped his blue shirt and shorts and walked, naked, in front of his guru. Arunagiri Yogishwara tied the cloth around him and inserted the extra into his hip. Unbeknowest to the young boy, he had been initiated into Sannyas.

When Paramahamsa Nithyananda and Arunagiri Yogishwara emerged from the cave, his young body was clad in nothing but saffron colored cloth. While this might be a shock to any onlooker, for Bhagavan, this was a his dream come true. Now finally he was adorned in his favorite color and by his favorite tradition.

When guru and disciple bid their goodbye, Paramahamsa Nithyananda began to tell everyone. The first person he ran to was his childhood guru Mata Vibhuadananda Puri, or Kupammal.

After expecting an equally jovial response from someone he looked up to so much, Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi's sober response was a shock. From the clouds, eleven year old Paramahamsa Nithyananda plummeted to the Earth again.

"Giving kavi means giving Sannyas" Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi told him with a stern voice. "Who did you get it from?"

Paramahamsa Nithyananda recalled his promise to Arunagiri Yogishwara. "I just got a kavi" he told her trying to feign casualty. But she pressed further. She demanded that Paramahamsa Nithyananda take me to the sadhu that gave her disciple kavi. When he told her, he met his guru in the temple, she dragged him by the ears toward the mandir.

Once they reached the cave, Paramahamsa Nithyananda called for his guru, "Swami, Swami, Swami!"

To his horror, for the first time in nine months, nobody answered. The pain that Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi was inflicting on him suddenly multiplied. Where was he? Why was he not coming out? Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi seemed to get angrier now that Paramahamsa Nithyananda's alibi was not showing up. She started beating him against the pillar. Only then, when Paramahamsa Nithyananda looked properly did he realize that there was no cave under the mandir. What he had been seeing every day for the last nine months was not actually true!

His world shattered. He firmly grasped Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi's hand to stop her from beating him.

Then, he put his hand on her head and swore. "I promise in the name of Arunachaleshwara, on you, on me, I have not stolen this cloth"

Paramahamsa Nithyananda put his hand on her like he does now during energy darshan. From the way she stopped and stayed still for a moment, it was easy to tell some energy was transferred even then. She asked him slowly to describe the sadhu he's been sitting with for so long. How did he look? Where did he come from? All Paramahamsa Nithyananda told her was his name, "Arunagiri Yogishwara".

Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi didn't have a second thought. She swiftly fell flat in front of his feet. Shocked The Avatar fell silent. Both of them spoke in low voices now. Mata Mata Vibhudananda. Devi Devi asked one, then two and then three times more if who Paramahamsa Nithyananda saw was really Arunagiri Yogishwara Only then, when Paramahamsa Nithyananda was just about to be completely fed up, Mata Mata Vibhudananda Devi Devi explained that this garbha mandir was Arunagiri Yogishwara's jeeva samadhi and he was one of the greatest incarnations that ever lived. It was as if two extremes were pulling him from one end to the other. On one end, he had now broken his oath to his guru. On the other, he just found out that Sadashiva himself took this form and came to him for so long.

Fear and bliss pulled him a part. Paramahamsa Nithyananda describes, "The little bit of whatever bad karmas were left got burnt by that fear whether he may or may not come at all. This bliss and joy and pain burnt both the karmas. I just dropped. I can say by crying, crying, crying I just slept away there itself. I should not even use the word slept. I fell into some state. I got lost"

Through the night, he remained there itself, unable to see through his turmoil, until a well-known watchman told him to go and witness the night seva done in the garbha mandir. He continues, "So I just opened my eyes, and saw that everything was looking too new. I slowly walked to the garbha mandir, in those days, it was not that crowded and the garbha mandir, no priest was there.

The moment I entered the ardha mantapa the hall next to the garbha mandir to have darshan of the deity, in the moment I looked up, I saw Arunagiri Yogishwara sitting on the Shiva linga”

He ran as fast as he could to reach his guru. Then he told us,

“The moment this body touched him and that body touched this body, I just saw that twoness disappear. That Shivoham℠ and Unclutching® had happened. I just became one. The Shivoham℠ has become reality. After that, I never saw him physically. I never felt separated from him. I never felt the need to see him again. Just we became one”

Arunagiri Yogishwara sitting on the linga