Chapter 13§
The Straight Path to God
In the early hours of February 15, 1975, lying on a tatami mat in his Ryokan—the simple, oriental room where he slept—Subramuniyaswami was deep asleep. He was in one of those profound states of slumber that are neither awake nor full of dreams, his conscious mind fully absent. In this clear space above physical consciousness, the 48-year-old satguru experienced a three-fold vision that would be the spiritual birth of the great Siva citadel called Iraivan Temple, and its surrounding San Marga Sanctuary.§
Clockwise from upper left: Gurudeva hacks his way through the jungle, followed by a bulldozer, to find the self-formed Sivalingam; he stands between two completed pillars in 1995 after chipping the first stone of Iraivan Temple in 1990 at a grand ceremony at Kailash Ashram in Bengaluru; artist’s rendering of the completed temple; three vignettes below capture Gurudeva’s vision in three parts: Siva atop a Sivalingam; Siva revealing His face and Siva blessing devotees in a meadow.§
I saw Lord Siva walking in the meadow near the Wailua River. His face was looking into mine. Then He was seated upon a great stone. I was seated on His left side. This was the vision. It became more vivid as the years passed. Upon reentering Earthly consciousness, I felt certain that the great stone was somewhere on our monastery land and set about to find it.§
Guided from within by my satguru, I hired a bulldozer and instructed the driver to follow me as I walked to the north edge of the property that was then a tangle of buffalo grass and wild guava. I hacked my way through the jungle southward as the bulldozer cut a path behind me. After almost half a mile, I sat down to rest near a small tree. Though there was no wind, suddenly the tree’s leaves shimmered as if in the excitement of communication. I said to the tree, “What is your message?” In reply, my attention was directed to a spot just to the right of where I was sitting.§
When I pulled back the tall grass, there was a large rock—the self-created Lingam on which Lord Siva had sat. A stunningly potent vibration was felt. The bulldozer’s trail now led exactly to the sacred stone, surrounded by five smaller boulders. San Marga, the “straight or pure path” to God, had been created. An inner voice proclaimed, “This is the place where the world will come to pray.”§
Artist S. Rajam visits the future to show Gurudeva on the inner plane, with the gurus of our parampara behind him, blessing the mahakumbhabhishekam of the San Marga Iraivan Temple at his Kauai monastery.§