Journey to Ramanasramam: Out The Other Side

Fourth in a four part account of a trip to Ramanasramam, making my way across South India from the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe two hours west of Mysore in the state of Karnataka, to the city of Chennai on the east coast of Tamil Nadu before heading down the next day to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai.

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.

After my roadside coffee I decided to take the path up to the cave behind the ashram where Ramana Maharshi had stayed for 7 years from 1915 – 1922. Going by the name of Skandasramam it was a half hour walk which took me some way up Arunachala the holy hill, and it felt good to be walking because I needed to stretch out, take some exercise in the fresh morning air. Even though it was not yet 8 in the morning the weather was already hot, so the speedy pace I set myself soon brought me out in a little sweat with my heart moderately pounding. Might just be the case that I was getting out of condition! Struck lucky when I got to the cave however, as it was just before it was opened up by the ashram attendant and there were already a bunch of Westerners on the steps outside the entrance. I realised they were waiting to go inside to sit and meditate, so I took the opportunity to join them. Soon enough I was sitting inside the cave with my back against one of the walls, eyes closed and drinking in the atmosphere, which I have to say was very powerful. Sat there in blissful silence for a good 40 minutes in which it felt like my body had simply fallen away. It was unexpected, just like the best experiences always are, an inner bathing with no contrivance, punching me back to a state of no mind, no mental conversation, almost an out of body experience and under the circumstances most welcome.

An hour or so later I walked back down from the cave and sat a couple of times along the way to enjoy the views of Tiruvannamalai visible through the heat haze hanging over the plains below, with the towers of the Arunachaleshwar Temple standing in the middle of the urban sprawl like a scene from centuries past. At the bottom of the hill I stopped to talk with Siva, a young man who made his way up to the hill each day to sell his stone carvings. Bought one off him which was in the shape of Arunachala, with Ramana Maharshi’s face on one side carved into it and on the other the sacred syllable Om with rays of light emanating outwards in all directions from the centre. Loved it as soon as I saw it and paid him handsomely without putting too much energy into the haggle. Siva was pleased about that and blessed it before he wrapped it up in some newspaper to hand over to me. It felt good having walked up the hill to the cave where I had sat inside absorbed in a state of deep meditation and it felt good to have made my way back down again, so I planned in my mind to do the same thing the next morning.

Took a shower back at the ashram and then sat in my room to do my meditation. Felt powerful despite the heat, despite the aches and pains of my body, felt like clarity was finally coming on through after days of sweaty struggle. When it came to lunch I did not mess around this time, going straight to one of the tables and sitting down on a bench. It was so much better, so much less in the way of stress. Guess I really have to learn to accept the reality of situations, accept my own limitations and then behave in an appropriate manner. As it happened, I had a good conversation with one of my fellow diners now that I was out of the woods and not having to expend so much energy on finding ways to eat my food without spilling it all over me. It was
probably only the second or third time I’d really talked with anyone since I arrived, but it was most welcome and one which thankfully did not freak me out in the same way as that chat did the other day with my ashram neighbour.

Rested for a while after lunch with the 2011 re-mastered deluxe edition of Some Girls on my ipod, the late 70’s minor classic album by The Rolling Stones, playing through my headphones and which sounded pretty excellent under the circumstances with plenty of great riffs from Keef; try When The Whip Comes Down for starters. It was good to loosen up, good to chill, good to just simply relax. Soon I felt sleepy however, so I hauled myself up and did some exercises, stretching and light yoga, because I did not want to slip into a state of torpor and pay the price later, waking up disorientated in the mid afternoon. It did the trick as I was back in the meditation hall by 3 pm, meditating with clear mind despite the heat and my body with its aches and pains. All the same my 4 o’clock break for hot sweet tea in the dining hall was again most welcome, giving me the opportunity to once more sit back and rest against one of those dining hall pillars, to close my eyes with the late afternoon light shining on through the open windows, light tinged with the glow of south India. After the sweet tea I sat in the Main Temple where readings in English were given each day at 4.30 from works either by or on Ramana Maharshi. It felt good sitting there listening to the elderly Tamil gentleman clearly and precisely reading from a book placed on the small wooden table in front of him, sitting there whilst a bunch of others, both Westerners and Indians, listened intently to his words.

As I was returning to my room from the reading at the Main Temple I met my ashram neighbour again on the hot open stretch of ground to the side of the dining hall. For some reason he no longer appeared to be as threatening to me as he had before. The first thing he told me was that he was leaving, because he had to get back to Chennai a day earlier than he had planned. Whilst I couldn’t say I was sorry to see him go, I suddenly felt warm towards him, feeling somewhat guilty over the fact I had done my best to stay out of his way since our first meeting, so as to avoid him knocking on my door. We talked for a while, having a very friendly conversation which ended with him imparting a mantra to me. He said it was a very powerful mantra and that I should recite it as often as I possibly could, stressing to me that the first word of the mantra was particularly important. I did not really know what to say, but I took the trouble to listen to his explanation of its meaning and to write it down since it was certainly important to him, so it touched me in an inexplicable way that he wanted me to have it as well, like it was some kind of gift.

Back in my room I got myself together to once more take a long walk into town. I was feeling good as far as my energy levels were concerned and I wanted to see the main complex of the Arunachaleshwar Temple in the middle of Tiruvannamalai. It was late afternoon by the time I left the ashram and I did not return until around 7 pm when it was dark, having seen all I wanted to see and also having also taken a bunch of shots with my camera along the way. The best thing about the walk was stopping off for fresh coffee at a place called Only Coffee which was just outside one of the temple gates. It lived up to its name, serving nothing else but fresh coffee which tasted fantastic and all for just 10 rupees a cup. As I sat there savouring my second cup, an Indian labourer washed himself down outside the shop next door. It seemed like he had been carrying whole bags of cement all day as he was covered from head to toe in fine grey dust and although he looked like he was well into middle age, his body was in fantastic shape with muscles well defined and not an ounce of fat on him. It made me realise that despite my meditation and frequent daily walks, I was completely off the pace when compared to him, and it was probably the case I had never once come close to working as hard as he did every single day of his life.

Sleep was difficult because of the heat. Too much tossing and turning beneath the ceiling fan, stripped down once again to only wearing my boxer shorts because it was so damn sticky. Just the way it goes I guess, every room in the ashram was no doubt the same, so we all had to put up with it. I had my ipod on for quite a while, listening to the Stones again in all their late 70’s gory glory, but eventually I got tired of them in the dead of night and just wanted to close my eyes and drift off. Never really got it together to haul myself out of bed and do some meditation, which I guess might have helped if I had. All the same by 4.45 in the morning I was back in the meditation hall, with it being a similar scene to a couple of days ago, only a few people there and a couple of those sleeping, shroud like figures with their bodies slumped against the wall. I soon settled into a state of concentration on my breathing and was able to sit for over an hour before the ashram slowly began to once again stir into life. Will I come back to the ashram, well, who knows? Is it a choice for me to make? Those with faith such as the Indian guy who’d been my neighbour, would simply say coming back or not is solely down to the grace of the guru, in this case Bhagavan, Siva, Arunachala; all one and the same.

After breakfast I walked up to Skandasramam again, sitting in silence in the same place where Ramana Maharshi had stayed for those 7 years in the early decades of the 20^th century. This time around I had no out of body experience or anything like that but I did make a connection which left me pondering over the fact that what is subjective can sometimes combine with what is supposedly the outside objective. It dawned on me as I sat there in the cave that the red flame image which I had been experiencing on and off in my meditations over the last few weeks, and in particular had been very strong when I was in a place called Honey Valley for a few days up in the hills of Coorg, was similar to the flaming peak of Arunachala. It is a fact the holy hill is often depicted in drawings and carvings with a red flame on top of it. On special days such as when there is a full moon or at the end of a religious festival, a fire beacon is lit which blazes from the summit as devotees perform circumambulation around the bottom of the hill throughout the course of the night. I therefore took it as a sign that it might well have been the case Arunachala had been calling me and that indeed was why I had made the journey to Tiruvannamalai. Deluded fantasy possibly, but maybe not! Maybe this was my time to be there and maybe I will never have that red flame vision ever again now that I had made it to the ashram and been up the holy hill. Who knows? No explanation for it really, but I felt as I sat there with my back against the wall of the cave, that it seemed to make perfect sense, which is all I have to go on at the end of the day, it being an inexplicable codification of my own experience.

Meditated in my room again after my walk to the cave. I was tired from the heat and lack of sleep the night before, so I took it pretty easy and did not sit for long. Later I took a walk to the ashram bookshop and bought some Ramana Maharshi books along with a couple of photographs; spiritual souvenirs, mementos, all part of the deal these days I guess, or maybe they have always been part of the deal in some shape or form. In the final analysis, are they the only things I can take back with me? If so, then no matter, they are great books after all and produced to a high standard whilst sold at very reasonable prices, where making money is clearly not the object. After my lunch in the dining hall, sitting again at the table and not on the floor, everything pretty much fell into the same pattern as the previous days; a little rest on my bed in the early afternoon with a bit more Stones on the ipod, then some stretching exercises before taking a walk to the meditation hall with my meditation stool under my arm, ready for action. Felt strong enough this time to push on to a 324 which was a sit of around 1 ½ hours, quite a long one considering the heat, but concentration was good, with aches and pains of the body at a minimum.

Tea at 4 saw me in the ashram dining hall having a long chat with a Canadian guy called Francis who lived in Paris and who came out to India every year for a course of ayurvedic massage on his back. He always went to the same place in Kerala and like me this was his first time visiting the ashram, and where he was having a couple of weeks travelling through south India before heading back to Europe. I realised as we talked that we had things in common and his observations about the ashram were not too different from mine. We both discussed the levels of devotion on display and how for both of us, as relative outsiders, the actions of the devotees were one of the main issues to contend with. We realised it was important for us not to get too cynical about it, where having those kind of “My devotion is greater than yours” thoughts can ruin an experience so quickly, it being something which was clearly a challenge for both of us. We have just got to take it for what it is, let people do what they do and mind our own business, that for me seemed to be the best way to deal with it in order to keep the overall target in focus, the reason for why I came, and not to get diverted.

More hanging around the Main Temple followed in the late afternoon and I stayed to observe the daily pujas performed by the temple priests; the prayers, the chanting, the giving out of blessed food as prasad, devotees crowding around the scared flame to fan it over their faces. It was pretty amazing to my mind that this took place each and every day throughout the course of the year. There had to be some in built protection for the whole community by performing such actions, especially when the history of such rituals stretched back thousands of years. It made me reflect how utterly impoverished the West is on a spiritual level, how fragile our society has become, and how quickly it might get very nasty indeed if things ever took a turn for the worse. India had far more in the way of back up in that regard, although to define exactly what that protection was would be impossible, but nevertheless I felt it, believed it and saw it with my very own eyes.

Final morning I was up at 4.30 and in the meditation hall, determined to make the most of my stay with one last push, one last throw of the dice on the breath round, concentration on the in and the out. This time I took a deep bow in front of the Ramana Maharshi portrait on the couch as I made my way in for this final session, it was the first time I had done so and it felt good, more than appropriate. I sat for a 351 which took care of the next couple of hours, verging on a kind of bliss which seemed to make the whole trip worthwhile. At breakfast I had one last chat with Francis who then came to see my room because he was thinking of shifting for his last couple of nights at the ashram. He seemed to like the look of it, loved the Ramana Maharshi portrait on the wall opposite my bed, a picture which had been so good for me through the days and nights I had been there. He said he would go to the office to see if it was possible for him to move, due to the fact the room he was currently staying in was close to the main road and where he no doubt got a good blast of those lorries each night. We parted with a hug, quite an emotional one; compression of space and time in particular places can do things like that. It was only left for me to hand back the keys to my room at the ashram office and make a donation which I duly did, some 3,000 rupees, which in my mind was money well spent. Then as arranged, I went to the front of the ashram to wait in the car park and where at precisely 8 am a car for my ride to Bangalore rolled in through the main gates.

Moving on again now, ghost in the machine, edge of plains traveller; drifter, puff of smoke then I will be gone.