T.R.THULASIRAM’S RESEARCH _ OVERVIEW

I am greatly happy to present this book (i.e.Arut Perum Jyothi & Deathless Body) to the reader in two volumes in the auspicious and sacred year 1980, though it was written with the intention publishing it in 1974, which was the centenary year of Swami Ramalingam’s sacrifice of his deathless physical body for a divine and world purpose – a sacrifice by way of dematerialization of the body, which is usually referred to as Siddhi in the known circles. Swami Ramalingam, popularly known as Vallalar, the great Benevolent and Munificent, lived a short span of an eventful life for forty one years only (1823-1874), but he has left behind him a vast yoga literature in Tamil in the form of poems and lyrics called ‘Arutpa’, besides a considerable volume of prose works, letters, public notices, records of speeches and teachings of Upadesha.

 

The first volume is concerned mainly with a comparative study of his works with those of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and with Tirumantram of Tirumoolar and my findings and inferences here and there are based on such a study. The second volume contains a large section of his Tamil poems and lyrics and their English renderings. It also contains transliteration of his texts of the rarest kind without a second, such as “Tatva lokas“, “Karanateeta lokas” etc., into the Sanskrit language but put into Roman characters with markings for Sanskrit pronunciation. Explanatory notes and translations of some parts of the said texts have also been given in English. In the translations and interpretations of technical terms, the same meaning has been consistently adopted for a particular term except when it occurs along with qualifying words. A number of charts have been drawn and presented in the two volumes, correlating the gradations of the worlds and also technical terms occurring in the different texts of the Swami and also in the background of the yoga literature of Sri Aurobindo and Tirumoolar. I may say that the book as a whole presents an exhaustive and comprehensive study of the Swami’s last works which may be rightly classified as a Supramental Yoga literature.

 

Though ironically enough the Swami was short lived from an outer superficial view of his earthly life, he had attained the crowning achievement of transformation of his physical body into its deathless state and eventually sacrificed it, after living for about a year or two the great blissful life of a physical deathless body, by way of dematerialization in an hour when the God of Vast Grace-Light was concretely present at his place and that for the collective fulfillment of the divine and world-purpose – 1) in order to bring to stay on the earth the stable manifestation and rule of “Arut Perum Jothi Andavar (abbreviated as APJA) or Vast Grace-Light”, the supreme Being of the death-conquering Vast Grace-Light and more especially the concentration of the Light at his place Vadalur, as a representative place of the earth; and 2) in order to make possible through such a manifestation an evolutionary progress of the earthly life as a whole and in the mind, life and body of men as seen by him in his visions which included a vision of the golden plane of the earth and the states of perfect matter, and more particularly to bring about true love, true compassion, true knowledge, true goodness and true action in the life of man which shall not be subjected any more to quick deaths and waste of consciousness in all the stages and ways of life; and 3) in order to make also possible the resurrection of the dead into bodily life, and transformation of even the aged into youth which are to take place as general phenomena of the earth-nature at some time or other and as indications of the divine Manifestation and 4) finally also with a concurrent view to enter into all physical bodies universally by means of his deathless body, evidently by and through its dematerialization had a two-pronged drive in as much as it was meant not only to bring about the divine Manifestation but also its transforming results in the body and men and even in the aged. Thus his dematerialization is unique and distinguished as it took place as above said after his attainment of a deathless and sleepless and ever indestructible physical truth-body, and it was by way of sacrifice for a collective fulfillment; and in that context, the deathless substances and powers of his body and its golden truth-Light should have been evidently fixed in the earth-nature and even in the Inconscient. Other cases of dematerialization do not prove any achievement of a complete transformation, much less of a deathless body, nor a collective purpose and in such cases, according to Tirumoolar, the substance of the body on its dematerialization goes up into Param, the Heaven.

 

It is quite evident from the swami’s writings that the Supramental Age had started right in his times and there is a clear unbroken continuity of the Mission of the Supreme Divine in regard to the manifestation of the divine Light on the earth in as much as Sri Aurobindo and the Mother came upon the scene of the earthly life quickly following him, as it were, both in time and place, and even settled in Pondicherry quite in the vicinity of the Swami’s place pf fulfillment and sacrifice i.e., Vadalur in Tamil Nadu in South India. The Mother brought down the supramental Light into an universal manifestation in 1956, though Sri Aurobindo had to sacrifice his body in 1950 for the same cause.

 

The comparative study necessarily involves the consideration of a) the gradations of planes and worlds leading to the truth-world of Supermind, its poises and sessions and the Worlds of Satcitananda beyond b) transformation of the inner and outer nature of mind, life and body and c) the vision of collective evolution and fulfillment and the effective participation towards its fulfillment. The Swami had the divine call in him as an embodiment of the earth and as its representative and he felt and declared himself to be the instrument of the Divine for the progressive universal manifestation of the Supreme Being of the Vast Grace-Light for the benefit and joy of the whole world and applied himself towards its fulfillment.

 

Transformation of the body, as is proved in the Swami’s case, has its various stages until it leads to the attainment of a triple-deathless body capable of an adaptability to live in the conditions of the earth eternally or as long as one’s soul freely choose to live. The Swami attained the triple deathless body of Suddha deha, the divinised mmaterial physical body, Pranava deha, the transformed subtle body, and Jnana deha the causal body of knowledge. His deathless and indestructible body felt its divinity and it was fully conscious of the divine. The Swami declared that he gave to the Lord his life, substance and body and the Lord in return gave him His Grace, His Life, His Substance and His Body here on the earth itself. The sin qua non of a deathless transformation of body is the full and final emergence of the Truth-conscious Knowledge-Body (Jnana deha) into the physical and this effective deals with the contagion due to the impact and inter-change of the force of the surrounding impure bodies of others and also the problem of the unregenerate forces of the universal Subconscient. Once it emerged it brought about a quick transformation, a simultaneous transformation of all parts and cells of the body in a natural and spontaneous way. Jothi Agaval poem gives a direct evidence of such changes.

 

His physical body had become wholly pure, light, fragrant, radio-active, luminous, agile and mobile, supple and plastic and yet adaptable to the earthly life by retaining its transformed physicality and form – a divinised body so supple and pliant that the elements of nature, from the gross matter to the powerful radio-active cosmic rays, and even the instruments of weapon would pass through it without obstruction and resistance and hence without harm. It had the power to self-create all substances including those of the body and also the power to transform one substance into another, iron into gold etc. The Swami affirmed that his physical body was so much filled and surcharged with the divine Light of Consciousness-Force (Arut Cit Jothi) that the god and power of death and darkness had to flee away from him lest he (god of death) should be dissolved by its Light. He observed further that the deathless state of his luminous body was maintained by the Dance of the supreme and universal Lord in the Heaven of vast Truth-world. His body was divinised also by the frequent bodily embrace of the Divine Lord with his, both in the Truth-world and on the earth. The Swami went so far as to say that the deathless state of perfection of his body had a collective evolutionary influence on the earthly life itself.

 

The Swami not merely refers to his transformed and divinised body as a deathless body but also as an eternally indestructible physical truth-body of an eternal purity and with progressive change or growth even after attaining its deathlessness.

 

It is implied therefore that it could remain intact in its transformed state without disintegration and decomposition even if soul were to depart from it i.e., in the event of a purely technical death; but he dematerialized it in the Divine Presence for a collective world-purpose. He called his deathless, indestructible and ever-prospering body a special gift of the divine Grace “Arul Siddhi” and hence without the necessity of maintaining or defending its deathlessness by a personal force of Tapas – which Tirumoolar perhaps had to apply in his case, – a case of what Sri Aurobindo would call “a yoga-siddhi”.

 

It is clearly seen that in the overall pattern of fulfillment of the divine Mission in regard to the universal Manifestation of the divine Light, Swami Ramalingam, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, have played their respective special and significant roles in the broad lines of action intended by the Supreme Divine for each of them. All of them have promised to come again to enrich the new evolutionary life. Hail victory to these mighty Spiritual Masters and Founders of the new Age of Truth-evolution. Jai Jai Auro-Ramalingam-Ma! Swami Ramalingam has assured that he would come again in body when the God of vast Grace-Light manifests and rules on the earth and that e (Swami) would give deathlessness of body to those who are purified and prepared, and states of purity to the unprepared.

 

Swami Ramalingam has distinguished Arut Jothi the Grace-Light from Arut Perum Jothi, the Vast Grace-Light, and both from the supreme Being of vast Grace-Light. Again he distinguishes Grace-Light itself its roles as the guiding Light during the period of sadhana or spiritual discipline, and its role after the realization in regard to the transformation of nature and body into their deathless states of perfection. He refers to the divine Light also as Satya Jothi, the Truth-Light. He calls its Jothi Yut Jothi, Light within Light, Light of the Supreme Being within the Vast Grace-Light. The Mother considers the Grace-Light as one activity of the Supramental Light. Sri Aurobindo came to believe in the later part of his life that a few Yogis had achieved supramental transformation as a personal Siddhi maintained by Yoga-Siddhi and not as dharma of nature. However what the Swami attained was an ever-pure and ever-growing and ever-prospering, eternal, deathless and indestructible, sleepless and shadowless, physical body. It had become a truth-conscious vast or enlarged golden physical truth-body full of Truth-Light, Amrita and blissful impulsions of energies and it was meant by the Divine for a collective purpose and fulfillment, evidently to fix its substance and powers in the earth-nature. He called it a spontaneous and natural gift of “Arul Siddhi”. His eternal body implied an essential permanence of a limitless golden deathless physical existence (other than the subtle-physical), as well as a practical permanence of a golden deathless physical material body which was coextensive with the said limitless physical existence.

 

What the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram experienced in 1969 and 1970 and named it as “The Superman Consciousness” is identifiable with the Swami’s dematerialized Consciousness, because the Swami, by dematerialization of his deathless body in the Presence of the Divine at his place, wanted to enter into all the physical bodies universally. Further it came with its shadowless golden Light along with compassion and smiling benevolence and directly entered into the physical body of the Mother who was then undergoing the transformation of her body. The Mother observed that it has the power to infiltrate into all the bodies. Our inference that the dematerialized substances of his deathless body should have entered into the earth-nature is therefore largely justified. Our further inference that the said substances should have entered into the Inconscient also is largely supported by the hour long, rare and wonderful vision which Gangadharan of Sri Aurobindo Ashram had on 14-1-1978 in regard to the dematerialization of the Swami’s body. Gangadharan saw the Swami’s golden body being burnt by the Flame of divine Grace-Light, and its sub-atomic and radiating luminous white substances (or ash) pervaded into the entire universe and the farther pure Worlds of Consciousness and also into the earth and its matter and into the Inconscient. Finally, he had also the vision of the Swami’s golden Light of Truth-Knowledge and Grace similarly everywhere and into all the physical forms and objects including his body and also into the Inconscient. The details of the vision as given by Gangadharan is publishes in Appendix IV (e) of the book, of his spiritual experiences and visions.

 

The book was written not as a thesis, but as a part of my spiritual discipline. The ringing words of truth of the Swami’s poems and Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s works have sustained me to the very end in making s patient comparative study. Where meanings were not clear, I had to wait till one day in a silent hour of concentration they became clear. The special help of the ashram divine atmosphere was always there to guide me at each stage. Besides, there were also some inner glimpses from time to time. On the first of January 1969 I had my first “Prosperity” day, when I felt in my heart for half an hour the concrete presence of the Mother soon after receiving my “Prosperity” articles. I came to know later that it was also the day of descent of the “Superman consciousness”. At another time when my heart was almost moved with feelings of sorrow when considering the dematerialization of the Swami after his attaining a deathless body and promising so much about the advent of the Light, the answer came from within the depth of my heart. I heard, “Swami Ramalingam dematerialized in the Inconscient”. It solved many problems. When keenly inquisitive to know the nature of the Swami’s revolving legs mentioned in the Jothi Agaval poem, I had the experience once when my own legs revolved quickly. It was a subtle physical experience but felt concretely as in the physical body. It does not suggest any transformation in my body, though it came to give me a taste of the experience for a short time. Later in 1972 when once walking in the Dharma Shala dining Hall at Vadalur, I felt the Swami’s big form and presence in my body and felt concretely that He Himself was walking in my body. His spiritual presence was also felt in the depth of my heart for some time at ” Siddhivalagam”(the cottage where Swami lived before his dematerialisation)”, Mettukuppam village near Vadalur. The wonderful atmosphere here at the Swami’s place is so subtle and fine that it operates from the subconscient levels also and enters into us which is clearly indicated as for example, when my and nerves got body harmonized and their tiresome removed quickly, and that my sleep naturally and effortlessly got reduced in time, and the tamas of sleep was changed into a sort of awareness, and the body as a whole felt better in health in spite of the reduced hours of sleep for three consecutive days. Others too have such experience in the Swami’s premises at Siddhivalagam. There is an atmosphere of Amrita here – the people say so. Our body too absorbs something of its deathless forces which get indirectly translated by way of rejection and reduction of tamas and sleep of body. For this it is better to keep the body pure by vegetarian food. Our Ashram (Sri Aurobindo Ashram) too has its characteristic force of action on the body in harmonizing the body and nerves and removing their tiresomeness and the body absorbs its forces which we indirectly come to know particularly when we go out of Pondicherry, because the body then is clearly felt to shed off or throw out the absorbed forces. Such places are really the special gifts of the Divine to the people of the earth and they only speak of His Glory. The reader may not give importance to these subjective experiences nor read the book through this subjective colouring. My findings in the book are placed on an objective footing.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Pondicherry
31-1-1980

Courtesty: Arut Perum Jyothi & Deathless Body
by T.R.Thulasiram,Vol I.