Vipassana Meditation Centre at Tiruvannamalai

 

 

There are now a number of Retreat Centres in the Tiruvannamalai area which offer sadhakas the opportunity to study a specific spiritual tradition. One such Centre is Dhamma Arunachala, a Vipassana Meditation Centre currently being developed at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of many centres dedicated to the teaching of Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin.

 

Aerial view of 10 acre Centre on 04.04.22

 

 

Presently, Dhamma Arunachala can accommodate 70 participants, 40 males and 30 females. All accommodations are single rooms with private bathrooms. Approximately twenty 10-day Courses are scheduled at Dhamma Arunachala per year, with nearly every course full with a wait list. Courses are conducted in English/Tamil.

 

The centre which is in a quiet rural setting and situated on 12 acres of land was founded in 2014 and is now offering regularly scheduled residential courses in Vipassana meditation. The centre is located close to Arunachala and within 10 km by road to Tiruvannamalai.

 

You can visit their website at this Arunachala Dhamma link.

Support Arunachala Grace Network

Dear Arunachala Friends, this is Meenakshi Ammal author of Arunachala Grace. Let me tell you how things are going with the Arunachala Network. 

To begin with since its inception and up to the current time the Network has received over 2 million visitors. Around 70% of those visitors reside in India and the remaining 30% from countries from all around  the world.

 

Front Page of Arunachala Samudra Website

Arunachala Grace Network is comprised of a website:

http://arunachalasamudra.org

And  five supporting Blogs.

http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com

http://arunachalaland.blogspot.com

http://arunachalabirds.blogspot.com

http://arunachalamystic.blogspot.com

http://arunachalasatsang.blogspot.com

As well as being the author of the Website I also author and maintain the five supporting Arunachala Blogs. Sumathi at Chennai continues her brilliant work as Webmaster for the Arunachala Samudra website. 

In order to take advantage of better terms, conditions, maintenance, and a larger content capacity to accommodate the growth of the site, the Website’s Server was recently transferred to a new Dedicated Server and Hosting Company.

 

To get the website even to its current level has been a long journey. Researching information, facilitating interviews, translating Tamil narratives and material into English, purchasing copyright photographs and material to be used on the sites, arranging and taking additional photographs and/or videos at various events etc.

Over the last few months my Webmaster and I, have been reformatting and recoding the Arunachala Samudra Website thereby making it accessible to all internet devices. The restructuring work is 90% complete and the fixed headers and navigation bars, photo galleries, flash drivers, plug-ins and audios can now be accessed by all internet devices i.e. computer, android, smart phone and tablet.

All that remains to be done in this particular upgrade—is to reformat existing videos already onsite and create a new Video Gallery section on the Website. After the video work has been completed from thereon we will be uploading new information, photographs and features to the Website.   

The thought behind the creation of Arunachala Samudra website, has been not only to make an archival record of this Holy Sthalam (and the people of it) but also eventually to have programmes on site that make visiting the Arunachala Samudra website an interactive, immersive and spiritually uplifting experience. 

Arunachala Darshan from Ayyankulam Theertham

I have over 200,000 photos on my computer hard drive connected with Arunachala and Tiruvannamalai. Now that the website has a large content capacity with the new Hosting Company, discussion is underway on how to create a photo archive on a dedicated section of the Website.

The speed of the Website development depends on the financial support from friends of Arunachala. If you wish to help with this service to Arunachala, for your convenience a PayPal donation function is available on the left column of this Blog page.

For any queries and/or additional information regarding alternative donation methods, you can get in touch with me direct at:

arunachalagrace@fastmail.fm

For those who wish to help in other ways by donating articles, narratives, audios, videos and/or photographs of Arunachala please also get in touch direct.

With Arunachala Light and Grace

Meenakshi Ammal

Message from Leslie Robinson

The below is in connection with the previous post about 85 Abandoned Animals Rescued by Arunachala Animal Sanctuary. 

In this regard Leslie Robinson, Founder of the Arunachala Animal Sanctuary is sending you this personal message. 

Leslie Robinson at Shelter

Message from Leslie Robinson 

Dear, dear People: 

In the 10 1/2 years we've been open, I have never, never heard of anything like this...or, this big. 

We just rescued 85 abandoned, starving Creatures. An entire village. 17 cows/calves/bulls. 6 large bullocks. 2 sheep. 56 goats. 4 pigs. 

Many of you have not heard of us before. When we opened, the animal situation was awful here. Over 7,000 homeless animals. 350 suffering and dying creatures on the streets. Rabies. Abuse. No facility to treat the animals. No small-animal vet within 70 kms. It's really different, now. The relationship of the animals with the people they live day in, day out has been totally transformed. The core of our Work is demonstrative love. We have a Staff of 21, volunteers, plus two full-time veterinarian doctors, both surgeons. The Animal Welfare Board of India in a public letter said we had established ourselves as one of the best in the Nation. 

We've hired ten extra caretakers to give around-the-clock care that alone cost 100,000 rupees a month. And the food cost is around 150,000 rupees...Coming to almost $4,000 US a month. 

We really need help with this. 

Love, Leslie Founder/Director 

********** oOo **********

To find out more about the work of this organisation and details of how to donate, please visit the Arunachala Animal Sanctuary at this link here. 

Arunachala Samudra Update

To those interested in reading about the recent Adi Annamalai Mahakumbhabhishekam please visit my website Arunachala Samudra at the section on Adi Annamalai Temple.  

Over the last month a number of new narratives have been added to the website, in the Temple Section, narratives and photographs on Adi Annamalai Temple, Rajarajeshwari Temple, Pachaiamman Temple and the Asta Lingams. 

There are also in depth narratives in the Festival Section, on the Thiruvoodal and Mahashivaratri Festivals. 

For morality tales, anecdotes and quotes go to this link here.

I will be continuing to upload new material on Arunachala Samudra over the coming months, so please continue checking in. 

Shirdi Sai Baba Site

I recently made the posting, 'Travelling to Shirdi Sai Baba,' which is about visiting the development of a Shirdi Sai Baba Shrine, here at Arunachala near Adi Annamalai. In this respect Ramani has kindly got in touch with the link of this excellent Sai Baba website

She also says: "Please visit the site now. You will find that the box has been opened and you can have darshan of the full murthy. You will also notice that construction of the Sai Mandir has started and will be completed in 9 months with Sai's grace."

India Water Portal

There is a new link under 'link friends' to the Blog of the India Water Portal. This is an excellent site with great information about the myriad issues of water, and will be of interest not just to Indians but to all conservation minded people.

Have in fact just been reading the India Water Portal Blog, and saw this interesting article - which is definitely the kind of faucet I need in this house.

Water-Saver Faucet with Measured Out-Flow Arrangement-Saves 60% Water

Fresh water to-day has become a precious commodity world wide. Water-saving, better utilization of water and avoiding wastage is becoming a universal concern. This New faucet, avoids inadvertent wastage during the usage of water for legitimate purpose such as washing of hands.

It is user friendly, Hygienic, Economical, Eliminates leaking taps, Made of recyclable material, and helps in the optimum use of water.

One of the basic problems with the commonly used screw-type faucet is that once the faucet is open to wet the hands, while the soap is being applied fresh water is continuously flowing down the drain without serving any purpose. As the time taken for applying soap constitutes more than 60% of the time in a normal hand washing cycle it can be easily understood that a large quantity of water is going to waste inadvertently. Apart from this screw-type faucet can continuously waste water if they are left open due to carelessness etc.

To continue reading this article, go to this link here.