The Meaning of Dakshinamurthy

Yesterday being Tuesday, I got up very early and went round the Hill. After returning home and finishing my household work, I went to the Ashram at 7-30 a.m.

Yesterday being Tuesday, I got up very early and went round the Hill. After returning home and finishing my household work, I went to the Ashram at 7-30 a.m. As soon as I got up after prostrating before Bhagavan, he asked me, “Have you come back so soon after Pradakshina?”

“I returned by 7 O’clock but I was delayed a little at home,” I said.

“Is that so? At what time did you start?” asked Bhagavan.

“At 3-30 a.m.,” I said.

“So early? Who else was with you?” asked Bhagavan.

“No one. I have been going alone. I do not feel afraid,” I said.

“That is all right. What is there to fear? When we were going around the hill, we were mostly doing it at nights only,” said Bhagavan.

A devotee said, “It seems that on one occasion when you all went round the hill, a devotee requested you to explain the meaning of the ‘Dakshinamurthy Stotram’ and, by the time you had completed explaining only one sloka, it was daybreak.”

Bhagavan: “Yes, naturally; there is so much to explain if one wants to. When I was on the hill, Palaniswami asked me and I wrote in verse the meaning of those slokas. I wanted to write the commentary also but in the meantime the book was sent for printing. Later on, one devotee sent a man urgently to ask for material for an introduction. And that was the end.”

“So that was all we were destined to get,” said the devotee.

“Today, while going round the Hill, I noticed in the Arunachala Temple the idol of Dakshinamurthy with the figure of a demon under the feet and wondered why it was so. The same thing I observed in the idol of Dakshinamurthy by the side of the road here and also, in the Amman Temple. What is the significance?” I asked.

“It is said that that figure represents the magically created demon called Muyalakan, that was hurled at Siva by the Tapasvis of the Daruka Forest and that Siva stamped the demon under his feet, killed it and sat on it. After all, Dakshinamurthy is one of the five forms of Siva. To explain esoterically one can say that that demon is ahankara (egoism) or some such thing,” said Bhagavan.

“There being no form (rupa) for egoism, why do they say like that?” I asked.

Bhagavan: “Even Dakshinamurthy does not mean only a form. In the “Dakshinamurthy Stotram” it is that formlessness that has been described in various ways. They all indicate only formlessness. Just as that formlessness was invented, so also descriptions of form.”

Another person took up the conversation and asked, “It is said that Valmiki got his name because he got out of a valmika (anthill) and that Vyasa got his name because of his arranging (vyasa = arranger) the Vedas in their present form. What could be the reason for Vasishta being called by that name?”

Bhagavan: “Vasishta means a person who knows what is best (Visishta).”

Devotee: “What is the meaning of the words ‘pasyan sarvam tavakrititaya satatam’ which occur towards the end of the fifth sloka of ‘Arunachala Pancharatnam’?”

Bhagavan: “That means ‘seeing everything as a form of Yours.’”

Devotee: “I am not able to understand that yet. May I request you to let me have the meaning of the whole sloka?”

Bhagavan: “All right. Now listen. ‘Tvayyarpita manasa’ means with the mind surrendered to you. ‘Pasyan sarvam tavakrititaya satatam’ = seeing everything as your form at all times; ‘tvam’ = yourself; ‘bhajate ananya preetya’ = worships you with wholehearted devotion; ‘saha’ = he; ‘jayatyarunachalatvayi sukhe magnah’ = gets lost in Thy bliss, Oh, Arunachala! and thus succeeds in his efforts. That is the full meaning of the sloka. When the mind gets merged in the Self, everything is the form of the Self. As, at all places, his own Self is all-pervading, he worships his own Self.”

Hereunder is given the full sloka: TvyaipRt mnsa Tva< pZyn! sv¡ tvak«ittya sttm!, Éjte=nNy àITya s jyTyé[acl Tviy suoe m¶>. He who dedicates his mind to Thee and, seeing Thee, always beholds the Universe as Thy figure, he who at all times glorifies Thee and loves Thee as none other than the Self, he is the master without rival, being one with Thee, Oh Arunachala! and lost in Thy bliss.

Arunachala Pancharatna, verse 5