The Samadhi of Guru Sri Subramanium

Guru Sri Subramanium died in 2007. He had instructed that he was to be buried in the ashram, not cremated. After his passing, we were trying to decide on a suitable structure for his Samadhi. While at prayer in Mother’s Gopuram, the inner sanctum of the Shakti temple, asking for guidance, one of the Swamis saw an image in his mind’s eye of a massive shaligram on a plinth. A few days later, another Swami had a similar image while in the Sri Ranganatha temple, and also felt a strong conviction that the shaligram needed to be found straight away.

As providence would have it, there was a seminar in Switzerland that same week, and so the search began there. The first place people searched was in the Schraubach river, close to the chalet which has now become Somaskanda Ashram. Of course, in that first search, an enormous shaligram was found. The great stone had an incredible magnetism, and while the group spent the day looking at other rocks, ultimately this only confirmed that that first find was the shaligram we needed.

Arrangements were made, and the eight-ton boulder was extracted from the riverbed and transported to Wales, where it was polished and installed on the great plinth where you can see it today. The more it was cleaned and polished, the more the subtleties and intricacies of its patterning were revealed. The more you look at the great stone, the more it reveals, and the more its mystery becomes apparent.

Days of celebrations and ceremony ensued, with a yagnam conducted, as is our custom at Skanda Vale when a new image or statue of the Divine arrives and is installed. At the end of all this, the vibration of the shaligram itself was so ensconced, so magnified, that it retains a peaceful environment for pilgrims right through until the present day, and is an important site for special yagnams and pujas conducted by the Community.