Lord Murugan at Arunachala & Sindoor Appearing Mysteriously on my Mum

Two experiences of Divine play at work.

In December 2018, on one of our visits to India, my parents decided to travel to Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, to visit the saint Ramana Maharishi’s ashram. It was my dad in particular who felt a desire to go there and though none of us had prior knowledge of this sage or his works, we went along with it. 

Prior to the ashram visit, we had planned to stop by an ancient temple of Lord Shiva known as Arunachaleswara or Annamalaiyar. The background is that there are 5 temples of Shiva where the deity personifies one of the 5 elements of fire, water, air, earth and ether. This temple nestled at the feet of the beautiful Arunachala Hill represents the fire element, also known as agni. 

Agni is considered a sacred purifier that burns away delusion and ignorance of our minds, leaving only that which is permanent and worth keeping.

The journey was around 4-5 hours by car, which I didn’t mind at all. For as long as I can remember I’ve relished extended car or train journeys where I could just play my music and let the mind soar off beyond the window pane into meandering vistas. It was interesting that although the outer vision was in a constant flux, it helped evoke an incomparable stillness in mind and breath, often for extended periods of time.

What started as just childish flights of fancy later evolved into lucid contemplations, sometimes leading to spontaneous and effortless realisations or problem solving for day-to-day issues.

On this occasion, I felt drawn to devotional songs of Lord Murugan (Kartikeya). Without meaning to, the entire journey passed by in a single, unbroken thought of this deity. With complete concentration on Murugan for hours together, it felt like there was no one else there with me except Him, and nothing else mattered. The kind of bliss, peace and security this brought is impossible to explain in words. As I recall the memory and write this now, it’s as if I’m reliving it.

As the car approached the temple vicinity, I felt a sudden surge of energy rush to the top of my head. It felt so intense that I thought I might burst! Yet, it wasn’t painful or fear inducing. In fact, ever since that day the energy surges have kept coming and going to varying degrees, sometimes accompanied by a searing heat at the back of the neck or other physical phenomenon. 

As one would expect at a major pilgrimage site, the temple grounds were humming with devotees of all temperaments, each queueing with an ingrained determination to see their beloved deity.

At one point, either before or after we had been inside for darshan (sight of the deity), I decided to sneak away to find a quiet, shaded corner to do a little meditation. My feet were also grateful for the respite they received from the scorching earth. 

On returning to my parents, my dad said something which surprised me. He told me that as I walked up to them it appeared as if Murugan was walking towards them. My mum then shared that she too felt the same at that moment. The strange thing was that neither of them knew what I had been listening to in the car, or the depth of my feelings during the journey. 

Perhaps I had lost my little self in the deity to such an extent that there was no “me” left at that point. Even if temporarily, the ego dissolves, and the devotee and object of devotion become one shared consciousness. To have this union with the Divine in a permanent way, is ultimately the true goal of yoga (sorry Lululemon!). 

It’s not about becoming “special” - I maintain that either we are all special, or no one is special. People may be flowing at different parts of the river, but ultimately, we’re all going to join the sea and be there together!

Now that I look back at this incident, I realise that whatever happened was despite:

• Not having formally learnt or been initiated into any meditation techniques

• Not having read religious scriptures

• Not being dogmatic in my personal practice of religion

• Not having yet met my spiritual guru

• Being essentially a nobody in the grand scheme of things

This isn’t to say that there isn’t any value in studying scriptures or learning meditation. Everyone should be free to practice whatever they wish, providing they don’t harm others. I was later initiated into Kriya yoga along with my family and know this to be a very potent technique for one’s spiritual evolution. The presence of my living guru, Himalayan Master Yogiraj Satgurunath Siddhanath, whom I met in 2019, became invaluable and a turning point in my journey.

What I have always felt, however, is that too many people mistake the technique for the goal, which is union with our own highest divinity – some call this God, but the label simply doesn’t matter. The key to this union is not dry intellectualism or rigorous asceticism necessarily, but pure and unconditional Love for the Divine, to the point where our mind naturally gravitates in that direction ceaselessly. 

As we make a habit of practicing Love, it blossoms outward – first from within ourselves, radiating out to our family, friends, strangers, animals, plants, and ultimately to everything that exists. This type of Love is Divine, because the Divine is essentially Love. In any case, that’s the only arrow I had in my quiver.

Sindoor mysteriously appears on my mum 

It’s not uncommon for parents to believe their child is pretty great, no matter how they actually are. There is a lot of truth in the belief that if you keep seeing the best in people, you can actually bring out the best in them even if they have human ups and downs. 

My parents are no different and my mum in particular is someone I have had a lot of shared mystical experiences with over the years. They could share a lot of their own stories to be honest. 

Other than thinking I was a bit crazy for being a teenager and young adult so obsessed with finding God and unintentionally withdrawing away from things people my age normally liked, they supported me. I’m not sure a lot of conventional Indian parents would have been so understanding of their daughter being like this. I’m just grateful that mine are.

At some point our shared experiences spoke to my mum in some way that made her say things about me, my past and future that made me feel uncomfortable. I neither agreed with her nor felt like there was anything much to warrant such statements. There was a deeper concern that all of this only serves to inflate the ego and feed further delusion.

One night in 2019, I had challenged something she said and quite upset with the situation, inwardly prayed for some truth and clarity, so that this sense of unease may go away. 

The next morning when I saw my mum she was beaming, keen to share an extremely lucid dream she had had the night before. She recounted that the dream/vision took place on the banks of the river Ganges in India. Both her and my dad were there together, on the way to collect their child (who they had apparently left behind!). She said the child was me but I was in the form of a small boy wearing shorts. This wasn’t unusual for me to hear, so I asked her to continue.

The young lad was sitting alone under the feet of his guru, except there was no clear form of the guru. She described only a white light so bright that it was blinding. 

After taking the boy with them, they proceeded to sit on the steps leading down to the river and she put her right arm around the boy. 

And that was the end of her dream.

I thought it was quite interesting but it didn’t mean very much to me. There was curiosity around the identity of the guru in blazing light, but other than that we moved on.

A little later that morning my mum came down to start cooking, right before we had all planned to head out somewhere. Keen to avoid further delays, I hovered next to her, stubbornly trying to persuade her to leave.

It was then that I noticed some alarming red marks down her right arm. In panic, I asked her if she had cut herself on anything and whether we should seek medical help. She hadn’t even realised anything was on her body and confirmed that it wasn’t painful. 

It wasn’t just her arm though. She soon discovered that these red marks were around her waist on the right side of her body too. On closer inspection, we found that this wasn’t blood from an unexpected animal attack overnight, but rather it was sindoor. 

Sindoor is a red powder worn by married women and is an auspicious offering of love and devotion, as well as being symbolic of the divine creative life force.

Here it marked her body in the same place she hugged that little boy in this “dream”. 

None of us had any answers or questions at this point, so we chose to accept it as a blessing. Years later, she eventually asked our Divine Mother about the incident, and it was confirmed that the child was me—and that this was no delusion.

Yet, there are some things that the Divine simply won’t answer until the time is ripe and we are ready. Other things are meant to be left as a mystery. I’ve learnt this the hard way. She encourages us to live our lives well and in a balanced way, taking blessings as they come but never getting carried away with them. 

In my view, the only reason for any such experiences or confirmations is to gradually unfold a hidden potential that is meant to flower in service to others. How, when and where? No idea. It’s like getting an outline sketch for a painting. You have an idea of the eventual picture, but it’s up to you how artfully you fill in the details.

Kiruthika Rajeswaran