Tiruvannamalai: Skanda Ashram & National Highway 45

The last of a short series of pieces on a trip I made a couple of years ago to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu, South India, 2019. The write ups are in dairy form, sometimes with double entries for a single date due to notes taken at the time either in my Yuva notebook or on the memo pad of my Samsung phone.

22/2

Got up today at 6.18 and by 6.45 I was enjoying a large glass of chai at the Ramana Maharshi Coffee & Fresh Fruit Juice Stand opposite to Ramanasramam on the main road. There were just a couple of other people there sitting on the plastic chairs by the side of the road, no doubt slowly getting themselves together for another day in India. For me there was no conversation because after I’d finished my chai I took a walk up the holy hill of Arunachala to Skandasramam where I arrived by 7.25 to find it pretty empty and that was probably because the gate was still closed. A lone attendant informed me that it would open at 8.15 which meant it was just a question of waiting if I wanted to go inside the cave. There were hazy views of the temple town below as I sat down and enjoyed the feeling of being in a relaxed state of mind, glad to have made the effort to walk up there.

Since there was just the two of us I had a conversation with the attendant about the Giri Pradakshina which he told me brings in 2 to 3 lakhs of people to Tiruvannamalai each month on full moon day, with a lakh being 100,000, meaning in other words that the town got pretty busy. The full moon in April this year would bring in even more people due to it being a bigger one than usual, bigger moon that is, which might mean up to a million pilgrims, quite a lot in anyone’s book. The most popular time for Giri Pradakshina is during Karthikai which falls in December when between 2-3 million people come to Tiruvannamalai for the 10 day festival. It culminates with a beacon being lit on top of Arunachala where 3500 kilos of ghee gets burnt in a huge cauldron, taken up the holy hill by priests and volunteers from the Arunachaleshwar Temple which lies at the bottom of it and in the centre of town. The other big occasion in the religious calendar of Tiruvannamalai is at the beginning of March and it is called Sivaratri, a festival which is popular throughout the whole of South India, marking as it does, among other things, the start of the hot season.

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Tiruvannamalai: Disintegration & The Excellent Cafe

This is the third of a short series of pieces on a trip I made a couple of years ago to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu, South India, 2019. The write ups are in dairy form, sometimes with double entries for a single date due to notes taken at the time either in my Yuva notebook or on the memo pad of my Samsung phone.

Breakfast this morning 21/2 was a coffee from the drinks stand opposite Ramanasramam plus a banana I had bought the day before and which I ate standing by the roadside with a glass of hot sweet coffee in my hand whilst watching life go by on the main road. When I’d finished I took a walk across it to the ashram where after a little while I ended up in the Ashram Book Depot and bought a few books. It was as if I suddenly realised it was going to be my only chance to buy some quality Ramana Maharshi reading material on this trip, so it was important for me to chose some titles from the selection on offer in the Depot, especially because in the wider world quality Ramana Maharshi books could be pretty hard to find. These are the ones I came away with –

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Tiruvannamalai: Giri Pradikshina Around Mount Arunachala

This is the second of a short series of pieces on a trip I made a couple of years ago to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu, South India, 2019. The write ups are in dairy form, sometimes with double entries for a single date due to notes taken at the time either in my Yuva notebook or on the memo pad of my Samsung phone.

On that first evening of my stay at the Arunachala Ramana Home I walked out mid-evening and did the Girivalapathai or Giri Pradikshina, the circumambulation of Arunachala, because it just so happened to be the night of a full moon. The Girivalapathai around the holy hill Arunachala was 14 km in length, taking 3 hours and clocking up a pretty impressive 21,000 steps on my mobile phone step counter, and which saw me setting off from the Arunachala Ramana Home at 8 pm before getting back by 11 pm or just after. It was simply something I had to do. In my projected plans for the trip to Tiruvannamalai it had always been in the back of my mind to do it this year and I guess it was one of the reasons why I’d arrived in town a few days before my booking at Ramanasramam begun. Just needed a kick start to get me out the door so to speak, because after the rigours of the day with all my shifting from place to place I was beginning to feel a little bit lazy, but when that kick start came along it meant I was soon up and running. Well, not exactly running but at least walking very fast.

Now it has to be said the vast majority of pilgrims on the circuit were walkin’ barefoot around the holy hill and if I had realised that was the way it was done before I began, I might well have joined them and not worn my pair of New Balance trainers. Instead of having to watch my step it felt like I was walking on air; so soft, so comfortable, so springy they were, those shoes, with it probably taking me a good hour to fully realise what was going on and that I was odd man out. By then it was too late for me to turn round and go back to the start again, and I also didn’t have a bag with me so I could hardly carry them, but that was OK, because after all wasn’t it a fact I odd man out anyway, considering that nearly everyone else doing the holy circuit were south Indians in the form of Tamils? Well yeah, on one level maybe I was, but on another, not really.

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Tiruvannamalai: Outside the Ashram

This is the first of a short series of pieces on a trip I made a couple of years ago to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu, South India, 2019. The write ups are in dairy form, sometimes with double entries for a single date due to notes taken at the time either in my Yuva notebook or on the memo pad of my Samsung phone.

On one level this fourth visit of mine to Tiruvannamalai saw me miss my target in failing to stay in Ramanasramam despite the fact I’d booked a room there. Guess it was a case of arriving in town too early and then subsequently running out of steam, which I think was mainly down to the heat and a difficult first couple of days upon entry. On another level however it was a trip which was more than worthwhile by way of visiting Athithi Ashram for the first time, where I enjoyed sitting in the company of Swami Hamsananda for the duration of his daily satsangs which took place each morning from 9.30 onwards in the ashram meditation hall. A devotee of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi who had lived in Tiruvannamalai for over the last 40 years, Swami Hamsananda opened me up to bhakti – devotion and surrender – to that Other Power by way of having total faith in Bhagavan.

A week or so before I left for Tiruvannamalai I had a long conversation in the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe with my old friend Anita who had just returned after staying there for a couple of months. We had both made a trip to Tiruvannamalai together in 2017, when we had stayed for a few days in Ramanasramam before heading further down south to the ancient temple city of Madurai located in the heart of Tamil Nadu. This was in order to visit the birth place of Ramana Maharshi which was located in the village of Tiruchuzhi and to visit the place of his self-realisation which was in the city of Madurai itself. During the course of our talk Anita wrote down the following on a piece of paper and handed it to me –

Swami Hamsananda
Athithi Ashram
11 G/1 Manakula Vinayagar Street
Sri Ramanasramam PO
Tiruvannamalai 606 603

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Bob Dylan Live: London Hammersmith Apollo 24th November 2003

This one is a write up of the third of three shows I saw Bob play back in 2003. Whilst the first two were run of the mill arena shows, one in Birmingham and one in Sheffield, this one was always going to be special – a return to the legendary Hammersmith Apollo in West London. Sure enough, Bob didn’t disappoint, pulling some stone cold nuggets from out the bag, including a song which he hadn’t played in 26 years. Nice one!

So it was now a case of two down one to go as far as my three Bob shows for 2003 were concerned. There was a whole two days in between the NEC show which I had taken Khangla Metok to on the Friday and the Hammersmith Apollo show on the Monday. That was a long weekend to get through in other words, a very long weekend indeed when I knew that Bob was in town and playing places like the Shepherds Bush Empire which would no doubt be packed to the rafters and full of adoring fans. This time I was going to see Bob with Dunc Hutson one of my partners in crime at Wisdom Books, the small distribution company specialising in books on Buddhism, which I helped run as well as being co-director of, not that such a thing added up to anything more than a hill of beans. Dunc had come to see Bob with me once before, the first of the two London Docklands Arena shows in May 2002, and at the time he had been suitably impressed with what he had witnessed. He must have because when I told him a couple of months ago that Bob would be back in London in November, he jumped at the chance to come along with me and see him again. Therefore on the Monday I finished early at Wisdom and arranged to meet Dunc at my place in the late afternoon in order for him to park his car before we took the tube down to Hammersmith from Woodford.

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Bob Dylan Live: Five Never Ending Tour Shows 2013 – 2019

Following on from my overview of Bob shows from the 1990s and also shows in the period 2005 – 2009, this post covers me seeing Bob Dylan live at the Tempodrom, Berlin on two dates in 2013, the Royal Albert Hall in London 2015, the Cardiff Interantional Arena 2017 and finally Hyde Park, London 2019.

It was to be just over two years later when I next saw Bob by way of going to two shows in Germany on October 24^th & October 26^th 2013 at the Tempodrom in Berlin. Just so happened that I was over there paying a visit to my old friend Thomas Deilecke. The tickets had been bought well in advance of my visit and I guess they were the main reason why was I was making the trip over there, not solely of course, because it was great meeting up once again with Thomas, but Bob was most definitely in my sights, no doubt about that. He was actually playing an unbroken three night stint at the Tempodrom, a concert hall in the middle of Berlin built in the fashion and shape of a circus tent, and we had tickets for the first night and the third.

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Bob Dylan Live: Seven Never Ending Tour Shows 2005 – 2011

Following on from my brief overview of Bob shows which I went to in the 1990s, this post covers me going to see Bob Dylan play live at on three occasions at the Brixton Academy in 2005, once at Wenbley Arena in 2007, once at the London Roundhouse in 2009 and finally a brace of shows at the Cardiff International Arena in 2009 and 2011.

In writing about Bob Dylan Live post 2006 mention first has to be made of the three Brixton Academy shows I saw Bob play in November 2005. For some reason I did not write these up at the time so they didn’t make it into Carnival Of Jesters, my 2000 – 2006 live show write ups, although of course they should have. It is an anomaly which now nearly fifteen years later I can’t really explain, other than to say it was probably the case that work at Wisdom Books must have been pretty stressful at the time. This would no doubt have made the prospect of writing up reports on those three shows beyond my capabilities, which is strange because I know that I really enjoyed them. Needless to say it is way too far down the line now for me to remember them in any great detail, beyond running through the set lists which I have recently had to refer back to.

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Athithi Ashram: Later Days

Final part of a short series of pieces on a trip I made to the holy South Indian pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu where I stayed at the Athithi Ashram which is run by devotees of the great twentieth century spiritual master Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. The resident teacher of Athithi Ashram is Swami Hamsananda, with whom it is possible to sit and meditate each morning as well as engage in conversation about the life of Bhagavan, meditation, and the spiritual paths of bhakti (devotion) and Jnana (self-enquiry) in the form of asking the question – Who Am I?

What is described below is intended to complement those themes found within Journey To Ramanasramam.

Yesterday 18/2 finally saw me make the climb up the hill to Virupaksha Cave. Been to Skandasramam Cave a couple of times before – more than a couple in fact – but so far never made it to Virupaksha. This was a trip I had been planning to do but I had been too locked into my daily morning routine at Athithi Ashram to so far make it happen. Yesterday was different however in that there was no 6.30 cup of sweet coffee in the ashram and no climb up the stairs to the meditation hall to join Swami Hamsananda for morning prayers. Instead I left the ashram at around 6.30 and headed for the Ramana Fresh Coffee & Juice Stand on the main road outside Ramanasramam where I had a glass of coffee for 40 rupees which was a little on the sweet side as they really ladled in the sugar, but I guess I was a bit slow off the mark in tellin’ them when to stop.

After I’d drunk my glass of coffee I was ready for the walk up Arunachala which meant first crossing the main road and walking through the grounds of Ramanasramam so as to go through the gate at the back of it and take the path to Skandasramam and Virupaksha Cave which lay beyond. I put my New Balance trainers on after I’d got to the other side of the ashram and immediately saw a couple with a child, Russians by the sound of them, who were walking barefoot and then seriously wondered if I shouldn’t also be doing the same. Something made me keep my shoes on – laziness, reluctance, ignorance, call it what you will – but as I passed them and began the initial steep ascent it bugged me that I wasn’t doing the walk quite right, because Arunachala to the faithful is a temple in itself and in a temple you always walk barefoot. It was not as if it was the first time I was going up the hill either, having done it in 2012, 2016 and 2019 when I went to Skandasramam, so I really should have known better.

So yes, there I was, feeling bad for not goin’ barefoot like a pilgrim would, but I guess my pair of New Balance trainers felt so damn comfy and gave me so much spring that I couldn’t take them off. Funny thing is they were the same pair of New Balances I had used last year when I did the Giri Pradikshina – the walk around the holy hill – where again the vast majority of people doing the circuit with me on that night of the full moon were walkin’ barefoot. Just like last year there was no intention on my part to cause offence, I’d just assumed it was done in shoes, simple ignorance more like, something which if truth be told, I have in abundance. Well anyway, soon I was poundin’ up the path with my New Balances on and leaving those barefoot possible Russians with their little kid standin’ in the dust trails behind me.

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Athithi Ashram: Middle Days

Part of a short series of pieces on a trip I made to the holy South Indian pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu where I stayed at the Athithi Ashram which is run by devotees of the great twentieth century spiritual master Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. The resident teacher of Athithi Ashram is Swami Hamsananda, with whom it is possible to sit and meditate each morning as well as engage in conversation about the life of Bhagavan, meditation, and the spiritual paths of bhakti (devotion) and Jnana (self-enquiry) in the form of asking the question – Who Am I?

What is described below is intended to complement those themes found within Journey To Ramanasramam.

Today it was possible for me to have another morning conversation with swamiji and just like the day before it was just the two of us, one on one. I began by asking him whether it was correct to think that whatever happened in one’s life – positive or negative – was the grace of the guru and that if supposedly bad things came along you just had to accept them. His reply was something along the lines that I didn’t have to worry about all that. The main gist was just to be fully and firmly convinced that the power which was in Bhagavan is also inside each of us. It is very important to strongly believe this is so. If we do then there is no need for sadhana, the individual quest for enlightenment, as that is the responsibility of the guru. If the conviction that you and Ramana / Arunachala are one and the same is firmly embedded deep within the heart, there is nothing else you need to do. He will take care of it. It is beyond our control – way beyond – and lies within the remit of a higher power.

What we have to do is cultivate inner satsang, to commune with the Self which lies at the very core of our being. Pray to Bhagavan. Prayer is very important. Both on a spiritual and mundane level he will take care of our needs and as the relationship is very open he will take you exactly as you are, so that you only need to be yourself. Pray to him for the solution to problems, leave it aside in terms of trying to fix the problem yourself as you will only make things worse, so let go, it is not your job. You have gone as far as you can with it and if you persist in trying to find a solution it will only be the ego seeking to gratify its own needs. Leave it, pray to Bhagavan and let him sort it out. Firmly believe that Arunachala is within you. It is not necessary to visualize it, although that might be OK, but it is more a belief, a force, a feeling, a conviction which you must not under any circumstances let go of. There is absolutely no difference between us and Bhagavan, we are one and the same, we come from a single source and we are parts of the One Self which is everything.

These were some of the things which swamiji was saying to me.

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Bob Dylan Live: Ten Never Ending Tour Shows from the 1990s

Yes, that’s right, there were no less than 10 Bob shows in the 90s that I went to – 4 at the Hammersmith Apollo, London in 1993, 1 at The Fleadh, Finsbury Park, London in 1993, 2 at the Brixton Academy, London in 1995, 1 in Hyde Park, London in 1996, 1 at Wembley Arena in 1997 and last but not least 1 at the Cardiff International Arena which was also in 1997. What you can read below is a brief description of all of them, prefaced by an account of how Bob came into my life, or if we wanna go Biblical, how I found Bob.

Now I first got into Bob towards the end of 1992 thanks to Good As I’ve Been to You which I bought from a CD shop just off Walthamstow Market in North East London. Yes, Good As I’ve Been to You was my first ever Bob Dylan album, which in some way is kind of ironic since it is a work of traditional folk and blues covers with not a single original Bob Dylan song on it. Just saw it there in the CD racks of the shop and when I picked it up to take a closer look there was something about the photograph of Bob on the front cover which made me want to buy it there and then, immediately, on the spot. It is certainly the case that I hadn’t been intending to get it when I walked in but when I got to play it later that evening, after clocking off from another day of work, I was simply knocked out and from that point onwards have never looked back.

Bob’s voice was ragged and dirty from having been around the world a million times over and done pretty much everything you could hope to do as a top-tier 20^th century recording artist. When it came to popular music at that time, there were a handful of names which immediately came to mind for the majority of people and The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan would almost certainly have been among them. It was probably the case that in any given city throughout the Western world you would have been able to bet your bottom dollar that the vast majority of buskers out on the streets and in the parks would have been able to play at least one Bob Dylan song. Yet here he was on the cover of Good As I’ve Been to You looking pretty fed up, world weary and almost at the end of the line. Guess in some strange way it would be true to say my heart went out to him, it really did and pretty much from that moment onwards I was on his side, wanting to see him pick himself up again and get back to where he belonged.

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