TamilHolyman Vallalar

(also known as Ramalinga) was instrumental in propogating the Sudha Sanmarga (Pure Gathering) School in the Tamil region of southern India, during the 19th Century. Vallalar belonged to a line of Tamil saints known as "gnana siddhars" ("gnana" means higher wisdom). The Suddha Sanmarga was spread and passed on by him not only in theory but mainly in practice by his own way of living which was itself inspiration for his followers. According to Suddha Sanmarga, the prime aspects of human life should be love connected with charity and spritual practice leading to achievement of pure knowledge. He recommended a rather spartan approach to obtaining Enlightenment -- complete abstinence from sex and the pleasures of the table.

Born in 1823 near Chidambaram, TamilNadu, India, Vallalar lived the early part of his life in Chennai and settled in later Vadalur in 1867. He had a divine call in him asa representative of the earth and felt himself an instrument of the Divine for the universal manifestation of the death - conquering Vast Grace -Light on the earth. He saw the vision of a divine evolution of the earthly life in the wake of its Manifestation. He realized the supreme and universal Divine integrally and his body became transformed and filled with Light so much so it did not cast its shadow on the ground. He eventually attained a transformed and divinised golden physical body, deathless and ever indestructible, shadow less and sleepless, and full of Light. Amrita and blissful energies and with a potential power to resurrect the dead into the bodily life. He preached deathless of body of the people and said that it was by an error they are consenting to death. After about a year or two of attaining the Deathless body, he sacrificed it by dematerialization in 1874 in the very concrete Presence of the Divine at his place in order to make the God of Vast Grace - Light manifest so as to stay on and directly rule the earth and to enable him to enter into all the physical bodies universally. Saint Vallalar of Vadalur stands unique in annals of spiritual and religious history, for he not only taught a simple, down to earth, rational philosophy such as could be comprehended by the simple amongst us, but also practiced what he preached, in full public view, even as he lived and moved like any mortal in our society during the last century. Preaching the philosophy of compassion coupled with dedication and prayer to God. He demonstrated by example what man can and should achieve in this very birth, through Universal kindness and generosity.

Saint Vallalar made an incisive analysis of existing philosophies, strengthened the basic concepts and laid stress on aspects that needed the greatest emphasis in or times. Shorn of the complexities and nuances or obscure metaphysical that are beyond the understanding of the 'work a day', the teaching of Saint Vallalar are simple and straight forward and appeal to the ordinary folks directly as being reasonable and credible. What is more, his assertions of the feasibility of salvation for all people through the practice of compassion, right in this very birth, here and now, gave them a reassuring feeling and a new confidence in themselves which greatly attracted them to the path of Sanmargha shown by him.

Saint Vallalar’s revelation encompassing as it does, the old and the new, the east and the west, the past and the present, is verily and gospel of the common man, for its outreach is at once vast and varied, is couched in simple and strikingly convincing language, as though it was penned by a common man.

Unraveling the potential verities of godhead in all living creatures, Saint Vallalar preach against dogmas and blind customs that had obscured the original jewels of wisdom immanent in early scriptures. Nevertheless his was a mission of kindness and compassion, persuasion, example rather than enforcement. There is no room for extreme enmity and quarrel, malice or disaffection in his dispensation.