This is the talk given to the European brotherhood on the occasion of their tour to Tirumala with Sri K.Parvathi Kumar in January 1995. The entire group walked up the hills to experience the splendor and significance of the Seven Hills.

The Temple of Sripathi, known as Tirupati, is a temple of great spiritual significance. Thiru in Tamil stands for Sri in Sanskrit. Sripathi means the Lord that presides over Sri. Sri means the mother Divine in all her three aspects, viz. Lakshmi, Saraswathi and Parvathi (Cosmic Love, Cosmic Wisdom and Cosmic Will). Sri stands for the primordial light - Adithi, known as the Light that is responsible for all the successive manifestations in Creation and is the only knowable form of the Lord. The Lord absolute is the basis for the Light and the Light in turn is the basis for all Creative processes. The Lord absolute can only be perceivable upto His light and whenever Light is present, it should be understood that it is the Lord himself present. For example-we feel the presence of Electricity when it functions through its instruments. There is no other way to perceive Electricity, likewise the Lord absolute too. This primordial light called Sri in Vedic terminology details into Trinity and their consorts. They are popularly known as Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara and their consorts Saraswathi, Lakshmi and Parvathi.

To reach the primordial light and thereby feel the presence of the Lord, there is a specific discipline conceived by the Seers of the ancient times. The discipline is called the PATH and is known to those who follow it. The pilgrimage to Lord Venkateswara by foot, by walking through the Seven hills, enables one to ascend the seven steps of the Path and thereby land in the presence of Lord at the center of the Temple. The seven steps to be ascended are the seven planes of existence and the Path of Yoga pervades it, which is also filled intermittently at every stage by the Pilgrims of all times. It is these Pilgrims who conceived the Plan relating to the Lord of Seven Hills. Seven are the planes of existence while the Lord beyond and within the Creation is the Eighth.

The pathway to the temple can give the experience of all the seven planes provided one is deeply observant. The Hill - One represents the physical plane of existence and is considered difficult to ascend. The initial steps of ascent are more difficult than the subsequent ones, for the gross physical imprisons the consciousness stronger. Today, man is mostly concerned about his physical requirements and therefore does not live upto the seven planes, which do exist in him. Man does not perceive beyond his individualistic thoughts, his personal emotions and his personal, physical requirements. In fact, everything is oriented towards the physical existence while there is subtle, immortal existence of man within himself. The first hill represents all these difficulties followed by the second and third which are fairly cooperative to those who do not live in physical requirements. The mind and the senses when not so much oriented towards the physical, they get oriented in the upward direction, which is subtle, colourful and less mundane.

Man goes through many experiences of emotions on his way to the Lord. In this state man is emotional, when he is moving upward towards Divinity. He carries many vanities and has many hallucinations, dreams and other illusory experiences. The fervent belonging to a faith in exclusion to others, blinds the path and he moves in the vanity of being a highly devotional person, very distinguished from others. His understanding of God becomes too personal and emotional. The religious fundamentalism arises through such emotional understanding of God, where the science of God is substituted by the blind faith. Such emotional, gullible, ignorant Pilgrims of God cause differences, wage wars resulting in blood shed.

Such a narrow understanding of god will give rise to, in due course of time, introspection when the thinking-man develops from within the emotional-man. He realises that as much as he holds to a concept of God, others also hold to their concepts and that a concept of God is not God itself. He realises that a viewpoint is not complete vision and that vision includes all viewpoints. Mentally he opens himself to a revelation that God cannot be limited to a name, a form, a place, a time, a sound and a colour. This happens through evolution in him. This is the third hill while the second hill is one of emotion. The third hill relates to the third plane of existence, which is the mental plane of existence. Man is after intellectual pursuit in this third stage where he hungrily reads books after books to gain more and more comprehension of God and the path. He piles up in his mind innumerable concepts as coming from innumerable books where he feels exhausted of millions of concepts of God. He turns introspective, enquiring, searching and seeking truth. He reaches the brim of his thinking levels and fervently searches for the path to the truth. By this he would ascend into the state of consciousness, which is mental, and edges into the fourth stage where he has certain genuine flickering of Light and tingling of sounds. This is the half way through the fourth plane (meaning he covered three and half planes/ hills) and is at the beginning of the later half of the fourth plane. This is the half way through the fourth plane/ hill, where he meets a guide, who experienced the path.

Halfway through the seven hills, on the footpath one thus sees Lord Hanuman, the Master of Masters and the proximate one to the Lord absolute. He is dear to the Mother and the Father Divine. Lord Hanuman represents the Master (Sadguru). The Master is the Messenger of the God whose work is chiefly to show the way to the Lord to all the sincere seekers. The story of Ramayana well depicts the role of Hanuman, who comes from the Lord Rama at latter's instructions, meets the imprisoned soul depicted by Sita, within the island of Trikutas. Sita fervently seeks the Lord and consequently there is the presence of Hanuman to provide the way for liberation. At the place where Hanuman is found, one is expected to sit for a while and contemplate upon his personal Guru. Those who see, one Sadguru different from the other, cannot understand the concept of Sadguru. Sadguru is a principle that functions through many forms. There are many ways in which the Light expresses. The instruments of Light may vary, but not the Light as such. The principle of Sadguru is the Light that shines through many instruments. To those who realize this, there is only one Sadguru, functioning through various forms. Childish are the people, who are more oriented to the form of the Sadguru, than the content of the Sadguru.

For the one who gains this understanding, the second half of the fourth hill provides splendorous experience. He sees on either side of the footpath many Banyan trees, which shelter many invisible beings of Light, capable of being seen by the one who is mentally and vocally silent. The second half of the fourth hill is filled with such lighted beings and they continue to give their presence until the end of fifth hill. If the pilgrim is not in a hurry to quickly reach up to the temple of the Lord, he can experience much Light and also the presence of the Beings of Light. He is well recommended to spend time in meditation under any of the Banyan trees. The TTD appropriately called this part of the walk-path as Tapovan. The name hints at the importance of Tapas (meditation) in that region and also hints at the presence of invisible beings in meditation. The later half of the fourth hill and fifth hill orient the Pilgrim on the path to the subtle and divine side of life.

Many sincere truth seekers found their inner revelations in this region of the Seven hills, of whom Annamayya stands foremost. It is in this region Annamayya gained the subtle vision and the related beauty of the Seven hills, with the blessings of the Mother. One needs to orient thoroughly to the Divine face of the hills without which much is lost on the way. Mental and vocal silence, keen observation of the eye and the ear, are strongly recommended when one walks through this part of the hills until he reaches the temple of Yoga Narsimha.

The presence of Lord Yoga Narasimha, at the end of fifth hill concludes the serene atmosphere. The path meets the roadway. The busy moving buses, cars and other motor vehicles, naturally brings back the thought of the objective world and leads one to the difficulties of the sixth hill called, in Telugu, Mookalla Parvatham (hill with knee-deep steps).

Walking through the pathway alongside the road, if one orients to the valley on the right, he continues to have the same experience as in fourth and fifth hills. The valley to the right is called Tumburavana. This valley is deeply significant where one can relate to Tumbura Nada. During the midnight and post midnight hours, one can experience the Celestial music in the depths of the valley. Courageous ones experienced many such Soul music ragas and nadaas, when they dared to enter into the bottom of the valley with utmost faith. It is believed that groups of celestial beings gather in these valleys and sing the glory of the Lord. It is very challenging to the Pilgrim on the path to orient to the silence of this valley, while there is the busy movement of motor vehicles. This requires an additional discipline to be silent amidst noise. Those who are silent in the intellectual, mental, emotional and vocal planes can hear the voice of silence. To such ones silence 'is' at all times. The sound is nothing but a temporary disturbance to silence. As between the fifth and sixth hill, the beauty of the sound of silence is to be experienced while as between the fourth and fifth hill the beauty of the Light is experienced.

These hills as said earlier provide the phased experience of Light. While the first three hills relate to physical, emotional and mental aware-nesses and experiences, the fourth and the fifth hills give the graded experience of Light and Sound.

At the end of this roadway, emerges an astoundingly steep hill, which seems to scare the pilgrims. But if one starts climbing, he finds that it does not need one-seventh of the effort that he made for the first hill. But the climbing of the sixth hill is esoterically considered difficult. The steep steps of this hill are indicative of it. Man has to transcend his ego (personality), without which the ultimate experience of entering into the Kingdom of God (Seventh hill) is not possible. This is the hill one can transcend with the help of the mantram, Soham. Soham is, Saha-Aham, meaning 'That I am'. 'That' is the name of God and each Soul has to identify itself with 'That'. The ocean emerges as wave. The wave is essentially the ocean. It has no existence without ocean. It is verily the ocean. Ocean only exists as wave. Ocean only is wave. God only exists as man. Man looses his identity into God. Bridging man to God and God manifesting into man is accomplished through the thought 'That I am', Soham. If one climbs the sixth hill with this spirit, to him the Seventh hill is one of the beauties of Kingdom of God, i.e. Vaikunttha.

The eighth one who is beyond the seven planes is at the center of it, represented by the Lord and the temple.

As one approaches the Temple, especially in the evening hours, when the Light is giving way to night, the temple splendidly shines and even before one reaches the temple, he once again finds the small temple of Hanuman. The Sadguru thus guides the seeker on the path up to the doorstep of the temple and wishes him well to meet the Lord. The Sadguru himself stands with folded hands orienting to the Lord. One should pay his respects to the Sadguru and express gratefulness before he walks towards the temple. The path to the Lord is safely walked through at every point under the noble guidance of the Sadguru and hence at no point Sadguru can be ignored. In truth, it is the Lord himself that guides every Soul to Himself in the form of Sadguru. The one who does not realise the Lord in the Sadguru, cannot realise the Lord. Inability for such realisation is due to disability to dissolve the person. The final experience of the Lord at the temple is according to the blessings received from the Sadguru. Such is the way of the Seven hills.

The Lord of Seven hills is in unique form. The Lord holds on his chest (around the heart region) the symbols of Bhudevi and Sridevi, which give the message that, they are a part of the Lord and that they express through His heart. Bhudevi represents the grosser planes of existence and Sridevi represents the subtler planes of existence. In the gross, light is hidden. In the subtle, light is well expressed. In the human too, left is represented by the Material and the right is represented by Subtle. The symbol of Lord Venkateshwara is one of the most ancient symbols of the Indian tradition. It is said that matter dominates in the mundane plane and light dominates in the subtle plane. But in either way light exists. For the one who is mundane, the light is concealed due to dominance of material. It is such dominance that one cannot see the light in the most mundane form. This is depicted by the symbol of Kaali, who dances over the lying, sleeping Siva. As man is progressive in his awareness, he slowly gains the motherly cooperation of material nature. The infant Krishna being held by Mother Yashoda symbolizes this. This is the first initiation where man learns to work with material in tune with the Law.

As man progresses in his awareness there is more and more cooperation of material nature and is no more dominated by the material. In other words the material conditioning slowly turns out to be material cooperation. The man and his nature, function more as partners. This is the second initiation. The first initiation is birth of conscience (infant Krishna or Christ). The second initiation is growth of such infant, conscience to be a man. The nature therefore becomes his women.

Lord Venkateswara represents the final stage where, the nature becomes his child. This is the state of mastery. Lord remains the master of the universal nature, be it gross or subtle. Thus the states of ignorant man, infant Krishna, Artha-Nari and Jagannatha are to be worked out for final realisation of Truth. The symbol of the Lord of Seven hills reminds the Pilgrim of this path of evolution.

It is strongly recommended that the pilgrim should at least stay three nights and days to fill himself with the inspiration of the Lord. The forest and the valleys carry in them three thousand varieties of herbs while Himalayas are said to contain four thousand varieties of herbs. The pilgrim would have the benefit of absorbing the air that comes with the impact of these herbs. This is the reason why, one who stays in Tirumala is generally not sick. A pilgrim would gain nourishment to the soul, to the mind and to the body, if he stays for the three complete days.

Blessed are those who make a pilgrimage with such deeper understanding to gain the full blessings of Tirumala hills and its Lord.

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First Edition: 2003
© Copyright: Dhanishta

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