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.

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Journey to Ramanasramam: From Crisis To Renewal

Third 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.

Breakfast on my second day was the first meal I had taken in the ashram dining hall. Instead of doing the sensible thing and sitting at one of the wooden tables available to those whose knees were not that bendy, I went and sat on the hard granite floor. Pure ego made me do this because I wanted to look and feel like all the other ashram inmates, or at least the vast majority of them, despite the fact that as far as sitting with my legs crossed is concerned, my knees are completely and utterly shot to pieces and have been for years. Somewhat inevitably I was unable to cross my legs, only tuck them under my meditation stool which I had brought with me and the pain from doing that was intense, very bad indeed. I had to contort myself into a very strange position, the only one which enabled me to pick up my food from the banana leaf and put it in my mouth without spilling the whole damn lot over my clothes. This contortion of my body meant having to seriously twist my stomach, something which I knew was not going to be good for my digestion, not good at all. Under considerable pressure to keep it all together, I gave myself a lot of unnecessary stress over it and did not enjoy my breakfast at all. I was sweating over my physical posture the whole damn time, trying to make it work but failing, which was a pity because the food served was both tasty and delicious.

Took a walk to the ashram office after breakfast to see if it was possible for me to stay on for an extra two days after my allotted time there. The night before I figured that my travel schedule would allow me to do this and since I felt that I was now settling into life at the ashram, it seemed like it would be a great thing to do. This was despite the almost constant nighttime disturbances of my mind those lorries caused and daytime ones which came from trying to sit on the floor of the dining hall at meal times. I was to be disappointed however, because the man in the office almost laughed and told me there was no chance of me being able to stay any longer than what I had booked for. Fact of the matter was the ashram was more or less completely full all year round, which was why it had been necessary for me to write to them a couple of months in advance. I walked away pretending not to be hacked off about it, but in truth I was more than a little bit gutted because I’d already got it into my head that I would be able to stay there two days extra, falling victim to what had turned out to be little more than deluded expectation.

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Journey to Ramanasramam: Settling In & Finding My Feet

Second 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.

Shifted across to the ashram the following morning without too much grief. The Hotel Ramakrishna had been a good place to stay, the double room I’d booked was a decent price, not over the top, whilst the friendly staff and excellent restaurant meant I would have no hesitation in going there again if that was ever on the agenda. The auto rickshaw ride across town cost me 60 rupees which was probably a bit too pricey, but since I was standing outside the Ramakrishna with a rather heavy rucksack slung over my shoulder and no other form of transport in sight, there was only so much time I could spend in attempting to cut the best possible deal. Naturally enough I booked myself in at the ashram office without any problem and after the formalities were completed I was taken to my room, which was perfectly fine, also being located in a quiet part of the ashram. It came with a small attached bathroom, about which I was warned not to waste water because it was now on the cusp of the hot and dry season when such things began to get scarce. Fair enough, saw the point, I also saw there was a framed picture of Ramana Maharshi gazing serenely out at me from the middle of the cabinet opposite my bed. Nice one! This was good, it made me feel that I would be able to sit there and meditate in my room without any problem. After sorting through the usual stuff which goes with travelling in India, precious things such as books to read, notebooks to write in, music to listen to, clothes to wear, toiletries, torch, mosquito spray, I was ready to take a walk down to the meditation hall.

Sat there in the meditation hall, sat on my meditation stool for over an hour, where it was much less busy than the evening before when I had first stuck my head through the door. Happy to report that it was good sitting on the meditation stool which I had brought along with me, having stored it at the bottom of my rucksack before I’d hit the road from the settlement. I was taking in the silence of the hall, its black floor so worn and shiny, the couch in the corner where Ramana Maharshi had sat and upon which now rested a huge oil painting portrait of him, making it feel as if he was still very much there. He always told people before he passed away, that his presence extended beyond his body and into the deeper dimensions of time and space. Just a question of faith as to whether you believed it or not.

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Journey to Ramanasramam: Getting There from Mysore

First 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.

On the road, back on the tracks. A cross country swing west to east. First from Bylakuppe Tibetan settlement to Mysore by car with my brother in law Sonam Tashi, then the Shatabdi Express train from Mysore to Chennai with one stop in Bangalore along the way, all in all a 10 hour ride. Mysore to Bangalore, done that part of the journey so many times before it doesn’t bear thinking about and the leg to Chennai I have done quite a few times as well. All back in the days when we used to fly from London to Chennai because there hadn’t been a direct flight to Bangalore, something which got rectified around 2004.

This time seemed better as the train was pretty new which meant it was actually possible to see through the windows and get a good view of the country, the plains country of southern Karnataka, followed by the plains country of northern Tamil Nadu. Nothing too much to write home about in terms of sights seen if truth be told, but quietly fascinating nonetheless. Rolling through the places out east along the way from the sandalwood city of Mysore to the garden city of Bangalore went something like this – Mandya, sugar town; Maddur, spice town; Channapatna, city of toys; Ramanagara, silk city. Stared out the window most of the time as the land passed on by and gradually faded into sunset, then when there was nothing more to see I sat there and read a book.

Train was full after Bangalore, packed to the rafters. An Indian couple sat in the seats behind me were relentlessly speaking English with their children, educating them mercilessly for the whole damn ride. Education, education, education; that was the name of the game, the only show in town as far as they were concerned, no dust bowl gazin’ for them that was for sure. It dawned on me that I would have absolutely nuthin’ to say to them if they spoke to me. They were neither good nor bad, just living out their destinies right on the button, pushing on all the way to the top if they could, for them and their children and for generations to come. Now, when was it exactly I fell off that particular tree?

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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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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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