Above are pictures of a recording session in Chennai after my friend Sanjay bought some speakers from this amazing artist/musician. I asked if I could record a song, and he said yes. It's a rough cut, but it's my song all the same! Wow, serendipity happens again.
Below those pics are some photos of the friends from Seattle I am staying with in Tiruvannamalai: Sanjay, my neighbor from Wallingford, Gonga (with the white beard), and his wife, Tara.
I have reached a place where I could stay for a long time. I can only stay for four days now, then I am going to do a week of volunteer work with victims from a fire in another state, but then I think I will return again afterwards to soak up some of the amazing vibes of this place. I am staying for free with friends from Seattle who live here semi-permanantly. My neighbor, Sanjay, from Wallingford, introduced me to his friends Gonga and Tara who have started a temple here called Universal Fellowship of Light: All Saints Temple. This temple consists of one large room with photographs of many saints from all over India, as well as a spare bedroom/bathroom in the back. I am staying in that bedroom.
It's funny, because I thought I was coming to India for spiritual reasons. I thought I would meet some amazing yogis or medicine people, maybe learn from them or work with them. But mostly my trip has been about endurance, acceptance, patience, and about my relationship with myself. India is a hard place to travel in. It's tiring. It accosts you from all sides with offers to buy things, with poverty, with loudly bleeping buses and rickshaws, with children asking for money and pens, and with stares from men and women who are not ashamed to zap you with their eyes for many minutes without breaking their gaze. It's been amazing and tiring at the same time.
In south India, since I flew here from Delhi on Feb 14, I have spent all my time in Kerela, at beaches, soaking up the sun and the waves, at Amma's ashram singing devotional songs, in the mountains where they grow tea and spices, and at fishing towns eating my fill of fresh fish and prawns. I have been missing home, even though my time has been full of fun touristic activities. There comes a time, in the traveler's circuit, when visiting tourist places becomes more exhausting than fulfilling. I think I have reached that point, at least in India.
Then I came to Tiruvannamalai. I don't know, but something about the energy of this place is what I have been searching for all this time in India. I feel like I am arriving here too late, like I should have come directly here and not wasted so much time on the beach, etc etc. And staying with a friend, an American, a neighbor, for God's sakes, from Seattle, is comforting to say the least. Walking into the "All Saints Temple," I felt intuitively that I AM meeting these saints, finally. After all of this exhausting travel, I am finally connecting with why I came to India: for spiritual knowledge and illumination.
The mountain and the land itself are filling me with the calmest energy I've felt in my whole time in India. The sense of calm is also making me realize how tired I feel. I am excited and warmed by the homecoming that I sense, connected to the mountain itself, the energy of this place, and to seeing my friends from Seattle. The mountain's name is "Arunachala." It is known to be the actual abode of Lord Shiva, and many say it is the most sacred mountain in all of India. Pilgrims flock here every full moon to circumnavigate it. Many saints and yogis have and continue to make their lives here, meditating in hidden caves in the mountain or giving teachings in the nearby town. A guru who is famous in the West, called Ramana Maharishi, lived here in caves for many years, and now his ashram is also here. A verse in the Arunachala Mahatmyam, (taken from Wikipedia) translated from Sanskrit into Tamil by Sri Ramana Maharshi says:
"Arunachala is truly the holy place. Of all holy places it is the most sacred! Know that it is the heart of the world. It is truly Siva himself! It is his heart-abode, a secret kshetra. In that place the Lord ever abides the hill of light named Arunachala."[5]
Ramana Maharishi used to walk every day around Arunachala as a meditation, and says that "If you go round this hill it will give you its grace even you don't want it." It may sound cheesy, but I really feel that this is a sacred place. I don't just believe what everybody else is saying, I can FEEL the sacredness in my bones and in my blood. It feels like connecting my umbilical cord again with the universal, undying, infinite source of light.
Tomorrow morning, I am going with Sanjay, Gonga, and Tara to walk around the mountain. We plan to leave at 5 am to avoid the heat, and take the "inner path," the path that goes through nature and follows closely to the mountain. We wil walk slowly, in silence, "like pregnant women," as they say around here.
I finish this post with a heart that is open and waiting for grace. I know that grace is there, love is there, it's just coming slowly and gently into my tired body, like a dove settling into its nest after a long flight.
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