Tiruvannamalai

I've been living in Tiruvannamalai for about 3 weeks now. I wasn't expecting to stay so long, but liked it so much I extended my stay. I came here to visit my friend Devi who was on Gina's tour with me earlier in India. I knew nothing about Tiru, just happened to be in the area and stopped by. This has been the most intense and amazing place I've been so far. I've been having a great time here, as well as feeling at home and kind of moving in.


I met Devi and her friend Yordi (from Amsterdam) when I arrived, and we had a great time together. They were going to see this spiritual teacher, Mark Hans, and I also started attending. Meditation in the morning and teaching/discussion in the afternoon. I lucked out and found Mark to be an excellent guide. I really developed my meditation practice with his help.


Tiru is next to a very holy mountain, Mt. Arunchala, which has immense spiritual power. You can literally feel the mountain when you are here, especially when you are meditating. There is a huge Western spiritual teaching community sprouting up here because of the energy of the mountain, and it's also an important site for Hindus as well.



One of India's most famous holy men, Sri Ramana Maharshi, came here and is said to have experienced enlightenment on the mountain early in the 20th Century. He lived in a couple of different caves on the mountain for years, and these are now holy sites that you can visit and meditate in. He founded a huge ashram that continues to be an important spiritual center. Ramana's body is interred in a shrine in one of the ashram's rooms and people come from around the world to circle it and pray in front of it.



Mt. Arunchala is a major pilgrimage destination, and I was lucky enough to be here for the most holy day of the year here, Deepam. The mountain is the legendary site where the god Shiva showed his dominance over Vishnu and Brahma by turning into a tower of flame or something. So every year they set the top of the mountain on fire with huge vats of burning ghee, and over 1.5 million people come to walk the 10 km or so around the mountain. You wouldn't believe how many people there are. The road around the mountain is just a river of people, so thick that's is a big challenge just to cross it. We woke up at 2am and did the walk under the full moon. People were piled everywhere on the side of the road and around the main temple in town sleeping off their walk.


Things just kind of happen in this town. I soon found myself with this sweet room in a big house for about $4/night, kind of out in the countryside. The houses are all painted these crazy bright colors and look a little bit like doll houses or something. Rented a scooter for a while to get around but got tired of that and moved up to a motorcycle, which is so nice! Getting used to driving on the crazy Indian streets and being part of this chaotic flow.



We spent Christmas over at Mark's house, and had a surprisingly complete proper English dinner, including flaming pudding. Instead of turkey we cooked a chicken, as that was the biggest thing we could fit in the toaster-oven like cooker that Mark has. Mark's friends from England, David and Paul, showed up with a ton of decorations and supplies, so it was a bit like being home. Not what I envisioned for Christmas over here!

Well I'm off to Bangkok tomorrow night to meet my friend Cindy, and we'll continue directly on to Cambodia (I extended my stay here by a week and missed the elephant park volunteer work that we had been planning). I'll probably be less connected for a while and not post often for the next few weeks.