Skandashramam

This piece was written during a trip made to Ramanasramam in the holy temple town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. It is specifically about a couple of walks made up to Skandasramam, the cave behind on the holy hill of Arunachala and where Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi stayed for 7 years from 1915 – 1922. Towards the end of the piece reference is made to the red flame vision described in my previous blog entry, Honey Valley.

First Walk

My early morning meditation began later than usual due to my late night struggles to get back on track, but still I was in the meditation hall by 6 am where I had a solid hour of sitting whilst feeling in a good state of recovery. Concentration good, body pacified, and back to the breath! Skipped breakfast because I wanted a couple more hours for my stomach to feel fully settled, so instead I went and had a large glass of coffee from the tea bar across the road to the ashram entrance. Cost me 20 rupees which was a bit of a rip off price, but it was good to sit there for a while and watch the early morning street life pass on by outside the ashram. I realised the sound of the lorries had not bothered me half as much the night before, maybe that was because I had other things on my mind, such as my twisted up guts. Probably would be the case that if I stayed round the ashram long enough, I would not even notice those lorries were there, because everything would eventually blend into one.

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Honey Valley

Extracted from a diary account of time spent in India. This piece was written during a short trip made to the Honey Valley Estate in the Coorg hills in Karnataka, not far from the town of Varajpet and region of Kakkabe. In certain parts it describes a flame vision which I had been experiencing in my meditation for a number of weeks and which was particularly noticeable up there in the hills. It turns the nature of this vision was resolved for me later in the trip when I went across to the Ramanasramam in the holy temple town of Tiruvannamalai which is in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India.

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Bob Dylan Live: Birmingham NEC 20th September 2000

This show is from September 2000 when I went on the road in the UK to attend 5 shows by Colombia recording artist Bob Dylan who by that point was over 10 years into his Never Ending Tour.

September finally came and with it, just a week before the shows were to begin, a full blown fuel crisis in the UK with protesting farmers and truckers blocking oil refineries and causing the whole fucking country to grind to a halt. Petrol stations completely ran out of fuel as the population indulged in scenes of panic buying, even to the point of clearing out the shelves of the supermarkets. Slam bangers baggin’ it. Pathetic wankers! Make no mistake, the situation had the potential to completely screw things up and for a few days I had visions of my shows going up in smoke with even Bob not being able to get about the country, let alone me in my Nissan Primera. For a while the situation seemed to be very bleak indeed but finally there was a breakthrough between the government and strikers for things to slowly get on the move again. Thanks to my dad and the fact that he was monitoring the news on an almost hourly basis, I had filled up my Nissan right before things had deteriorated and so had enough petrol to see me through, thus avoiding the horrendous queues which lined up outside the filing stations. By the end of the mini crisis I was able to top up my tank the day before my trip up to Birmingham with a minimum of fuss, feeling both relieved and excited, but also half looking over my shoulder just in case the whole thing erupted again.

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