A 2 day residential retreat : Body as Temple, Breath as Mantra
October 31st 2025 to 2nd November 2025
Friday 12.30 pm to Sunday 12.00 pm IST
Venue: Arulville, the Hermitage, near Chennai – Pondicherry
Facilitators: Niveditha and Arul Dev
Introduction Tirumoolar, the luminous Tamil mystic, stands among the 63 Nayanmars — the radiant saints of Bhakti — and the 18 Siddhars, the alchemists of the soul. His timeless work, the Tirumandiram, a garland of over three thousand verses, forms the heart of the Tirumurai, the sacred canon of Saiva Siddhanta.
The Tirumandiram is not merely a text — it is a living scripture, a river of wisdom that flows between philosophy and revelation. It is the first great Tamil treatise to unfold the mysteries of Yoga, Tantra, and Saiva Siddhanta — offering a vision where body, breath, and consciousness dissolve into the Divine.
Written in the Siddhar’s twilight language — symbolic, secret, and luminous — the Tirumandiram speaks in whispers of the Infinite. Its verses veil and unveil, carrying within them a sacred music that reveals what cannot be said.
Retreat Focus In this experiential retreat:
We turn inward — into the silence between breath and heartbeat – we dive into deeper body work
Through chosen verses of the Tirumandiram, we will listen to the wisdom of the body and awaken to its divine essence
Through movement, reflection, and stillness, we enter Tirumoolar’s sacred vision — where the body becomes the temple, the breath, the mantra, and the heart, the place of the Universal union.
Facilitator – Niveditha
Niveditha’s journey began in the world of theatre, where she worked with RASA, a creative and rehabilitative space for people with special needs. There, she helped weave theatre into learning—creating curricula, guiding facilitators, and discovering how movement, gesture, and voice could become languages of healing.
Through theatre, the body revealed itself to her—not just as form, but as awareness, rhythm, and quiet intelligence. It taught her to listen deeply: to silence, to breath, to the stories that live beneath words.
Over the years, her inner path has been shaped by her love for Tamil spiritual literature and the mystical poetry of Kabir, Akka Mahadevi, Lal Ded, Rumi, and other luminous voices. Their verses are her companions—calling her inward, filling her with stillness and a quiet joy that feels both ancient and alive.
Niveditha now holds gentle online immersion circles, where a few like-hearted friends come together to dwell in these texts—to listen, to reflect, and to let poetry open what words cannot touch.
Facilitator- Arul Dev
For over three decades, Arul Dev has been quietly practicing and guiding individuals into the sacred terrain of inner transformation. His work does not speak loudly — it listens. It listens to the breath, to the guidance of Masters, to the pulse of the cells, and to the luminous intelligence within the body’s subtle substance. Through retreats, writings, and daily practice, he invites seekers to enter the temple of their own being — through a sadhana that blossoms both in silent concentration and in the dynamic unfolding of everyday life.
Arul’s inner explorations have found expression through his books Into Great Depth of Your Being and The Flame Within. His retreats and workshops invite participants into Deeper Body Sadhana towards transformation of total self, guided by Divine Matter and Higher Consciousness. He runs one year programs on ‘Delight Matrix’ – Harmonizing your parts of being, a pair at a time. He is the co-founder of the Divine Body project, a sacred inquiry into the transformation of the body’s cells — illuminating pathways where matter itself begins to respond to consciousness.
As Founder and CEO of People First Consultants since 1995, Arul Dev has led its evolution into a hub for deep talent hiring, Conscious Leadership programs, and transformative leadership coaching across organizations. He serves as a trustee of EYES Trust, dedicated to holistic education for children, parents, and teachers. As President of Aurora Trust, he stewards a golden new creation—interweaving healing, education, youth awakening, conscious leadership, and cultural empowerment—rooted in Integral Yoga and the timeless Indian wisdom.
Register
A 2 day residential retreat
October 31st 2025 to 2nd November 2025
Friday 12.30 pm to Sunday 12.00 pm IST
Venue: Arulville, the Hermitage, near Chennai – Pondicherry
To Register
Email: maadivinebody@gmail.com
Call / WhatsApp: +91 98407 55049
Gpay No. : +91 92266 35804
Contribution:
Rs 7500/- inclusive of retreat materials, shared accommodation, meals and refreshments
Divine Body
This retreat is offered by the Divine Body project of Aurora Trust.
Divine Body Project: Awakening the Sacred Within Matter Divine Body is a key initiative of the Aurora Trust, inviting us to rediscover the Divine not only in higher realms but within the subtle substance of our own cells. As we open to the Light, Peace, Power, Joy and Love embedded in our physical being, we begin a profound journey of healing and transformation. Through experiential practices, inspired teachings from Integral Yoga and other Masters Divine Body supports the integration of inner body work with daily life and yoga routines—nourishing the whole being from within.
This project is dedicated to those drawn to the transformation of the body at its deepest levels. By connecting with Sources of Higher Consciousness, embodying absolute surrender and receiving Divine Qualities, we begin to heal the past, refine our senses, harmonize our emotions, and organize the mind toward luminous futures. Divine Body offers research, practices, and support rooted in the wisdom of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Vallalar, Tirumular, and other Masters—guiding individuals and families toward integral health, conscious evolution, and radiant embodiment.
With great humility that we are children in this sadhana, let us explore this quote of The Mother in Mother’s Agenda. The image indicates Her experience. Just before we begin our meditation let us read this quote and allow what comes naturally to unfold. We can request the Divine Mother to teach us this sadhana in Her own choice and our pace possible.
“This is one of the things I’ve learned lately by experience—universalisation, the contact with everything (horizontal gesture)—and it has been shown to the body in such a precise way, in the detail of the vibration…. In the state of receptivity (vertical gesture to the Heights), of receptive passivity (the opposite of action, that is), the body must be turned exclusively to the Supreme (same vertical gesture): the body and the cells have been taught that, and they’ve understood—they’ve understood and are now used to it. In the state of action (horizontal gesture), when you are one with (well, let’s limit the problem to the earth), one with the whole earth, there must be an ACTIVE radiating vibration of the supreme Force. Receptivity like this (vertical gesture that receives the Force), and activity like this (horizontal gesture that spreads the Force out). And the cells have felt, they’ve understood, they can do it. And the relationship with everything around you, down to the smallest
When you realize those two attitudes simultaneously, the contagion is abolished: the mental contagion (the one Sri Aurobindo refers to here, the one you get when you “admire” something), the mental contagion, the vital contagion, and EVEN THE PHYSICAL CONTAGION—when the cells realize that, you stop catching illnesses….
There are those who found this, the vertical ascent to the heights, and who isolated themselves from the world (they weren’t able to do that completely because they didn’t have the knowledge, but they tried). That’s not the solution. Then there are those who want to help, the generous ones who are like this (gesture of horizontal expansion), and who catch everything, even the mental illnesses of all the people around them. The truth is the two together: this, the passive, receptive state (vertical gesture), and that, the active state of action and radiating influence (horizontal gesture). And the body has become wholly conscious of the dual movement and is working to realize it in detail.
A great problem has been solved.
And it’s interesting because those two attitudes can be almost simultaneous, but they are … From the standpoint of vibration, of vibratory sensation, they are two opposites that combine with each other: receptivity like this (gesture), towards the Consciousness, the Force, Power, Light, all, that comes from above, and naturally Love (but about Love I will speak later). And it comes (gesture of descent), it comes down and everything, everything is ab-so-lute-ly passive and receptive (gesture of vertical opening): it absorbs and absorbs and absorbs, like that, totally given, in the state of a sponge that absorbs and absorbs and absorbs…. At the same time, there is the relationship with the world (horizontal gesture) and the Power coming through and working, with the sense of the Force, the Action, the Thing imposing itself. It’s magnificent. And in the SAME vibratory radiance of … of “That.” Always the same all-powerful Perfection being absorbed and acting (gesture of flowing through Mother over the world in a perpetual movement)…..
So it’s the solution to these two errors that constantly contradict each other: the error of shrinking, of an exclusivism of influence (which, when practiced on the mental level, becomes a limitation, a pettiness, like all exclusive faiths); or else eclecticism without effect or force, which makes a sort of muddle of everything, of all ideas (mentally it doesn’t matter, but on the level of the transformation, it’s serious). So for these two opposites the problem has been solved.
And the state I’ve just described is possible in the body’s cells and in the corporeal consciousness, also in the psychic consciousness; but vitally and mentally, even if you understand, it seems like an almost impossible realization because of a fixity, a fixity in the form: the form of thoughts and the form of sensations. Mentally it could only be expressed as an acceptance of all thoughts, all formulae, raising them up towards … something that’s no longer a thought, no longer a mentally formulated thing, but a light, a conscious light that organises and unifies. But if you take them all on the same plane … You can accept everything, but everything as one viewpoint—one among innumerable viewpoints on “something” that cannot be expressed in words, because as soon as you put words on it, it becomes a formula, and the formula takes the power away. But physically, in the body’s cells, it’s very, very clearly perceptible and is lived quite spontaneously: you receive only from on high, and you spread it.”
Sitting with your eyes closed in a relaxed sitting or lying down posture, learn to do inner practices within your body and its substance. Naturally and with Grace receive and allow transformation of your body, life-energies, thoughts and inner vision. Aspire and practice to connect to higher consciousness above mind, depth of heart, sacred ground below and within our pure subtle body. Slowly learn to do these practices of progress, evolution and transformation with eyes open and alongside regular activities.
3 day residential retreat Facilitator: Arul Dev, practicing and sharing in these areas for 31 years Date: 2nd to 5th October 2025 Venue: Arulville, the Hermitage, Retreat Center (Located in Chennai to Puducherry route)
The practices and exploration in this retreat is spread out in a comfortable pace that allows for depth. We practice in a natural setting with nature and flowers.
Please find brochure enclosed that fully details the exploration we will be doing in this retreat. Click here.
Mind turned towards Light Online workshop | 9 Sundays | 7 to 8 am IST | Begins 17th August 2025 Facilitator: Arul Dev
All details are there in the brochure
It is meant for those who have a deeper aspiration to evolve and progress and are willing to do the Sadhana of the mind. The practices help in dealing with the common challenges of mind like noise & confusion in thoughts, entangled memories and internal chatter and slowly allows the mind to turn towards the domains of light and intuition, all the time.
