Where is Kailas?

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Q.  I wish to go to Kailas.

M. One can see these places only if destined. Not otherwise. After seeing all, there will still remain more - if not in this hemisphere, maybe in the other. Knowledge implies ignorance of what lies beyond what is known. Knowledge is always limited.

After sometime Bhagavan continued:

Appar was decrepit and old and yet began to travel to Kailas. Another old man appeared on the way and tried to dissuade him from the attempt, saying that it was too difficult to reach there. Appar was however obdurate and said that he would risk his life in the attempt. The stranger asked him to dip himself in a tank close by. Appar did so and found Kailas then and there.

Where did all this happen? In Tiruvayyar, nine miles from Tanjore. Where is Kailas then? Is it within the mind  or outside it? If Tiruvayyar be  truly Kailas, it must appear to others as well. But Appar alone found it so.

Similarly it is said of other places of pilgrimage in the South, that they are the abodes of Siva, and devotees found them so. This was true from their standpoint. Everything is within. There is nothing without.