ASHRAM DAYS

I have been here now for two and a half days and the experience is terrific. Sadly, my time staying on the grounds of the Ashram comes to an end tomorrow, so I will have to move out to a hotel for the time that remains. A shame, but there we are.

I haven't spent all my time in the Ashram and have ventured down into the town. Like all the other towns I have visited, Tiruvannamalai is a hot, congested, chaotic place, but not without its charms. Its an off-the-beaten track location which, although it sees plenty of pilgrims, doesn't see many out and out tourists, so its an Indian town with no spectators. It has an energy of its own and so far, I like it. I popped into a roadside shop to get some new shirts (my old ones were falling apart and turning permanently brown). It was a Tibetan shop and the guy inside was really nice. The shirts were very cheap (200 Rupees, barely a few pounds). I refused to look like a cliche and got three very simple white ones with long arms to keep those pesky gnats off. But the encounter was a nice one...

Tiruvannamalai throws the atmosphere of the Ashram into stark relief and makes you ask the question of what is more 'real', the Ashram or the town? The answer comes back "Both". There are two perspectives on life here, the chaos and darkness of the struggle to get by and the calm and peace of discovering the place of stillness. Does the chaos mean the stillness is false? Does the fact that RM spent most of his time not leaving the Ashram or Mountain mean his teachings were false? Surely not. Until the whole world has the peace of an Ashram, Ashrams of this kind will be needed. The chaos of the town would be all the worse with out the opportunity of peace nearby. Would the darkness be any the less if the spot of light were taken away? You decide. We live in a part of the world where the silent places are getting harder to find... I wish I knew more places like this in the UK I could go to. The nearest equivalent was a the Abbe des Premontaires in Pont A Mousson in France I went to last year as part of a theatre festival. It would be great to have such retreats in the UK and I am sure there are many. I remembered how I had toyed with the idea of setting one up for two weeks of the year somewhere in Cornwall. Somewhere people could relax, talk, contemplate etc without any hassle. Any takers?

The doors of the Ashram seem to be open to all. The road its on is lined with other Ashrams and little Temples, with orange-clad Sadhus walking up and down doing their thing. As I said before, they look as whacked out and emaciated as the Untouchables and beggars one sees everywhere. Some look positively bonkers. There is far more spirituality in the Ashram among the ordinary people. More and more I think that the Spirit isn't found in the Priesthoods anywhere any more, its to be found in individuals and ordinary folk. Perhaps it has always been thus. I read by chance a phrase from the Dhammapada today which read:

"If a man cannot find a companion who is superior or even his equal, he should resolutely follow a solitary path; for no good can come from companionship with a fool."

I guess it has always been thus. The Sadhus look as lost as anyone else, and ask you for money as much as anyone else. How could one learn from such as that?

Today was a quiet day of more contemplation. I decided to stay pretty much around the Ashram except for a brief visit into town. I will see plenty of that from tomorrow onwards! I moved around, rested, read some books, especially some of the words of 'the Mother' who had been behind Auroville. A highly impressive woman with a great integrity and clarity of mind. At one point I reentered the Meditation Room and was struck anew by the atmosphere there. It was even more like the 'negative silence' I had encountered at the Aurobindo Ashram. The mental energy and stillness of the different people there cast a profound, indefinable spell over the room and one felt one was entering a meditative state without even having to do anything (a bit like passive smoking perhaps?). I sat there drinking in the vibe and watching the people around me about their meditations. I had never seen such intensity before. I understood for the first time perhaps what meditation was about. These people were somewhere else. Their bodies were switched off and their Consciousnesses were elsewhere. It was very powerful to behold.

I became aware during the day through reading about RM that much of his teaching involved absolute silence during which time he would emanate energy to those around him. Only if they could not receive it would he talk or answer questions. This may sound like poppycock to most but sitting there in the silence in that room where he had been it made perfect sense to me. In the corner of the room was the couch where he used to recline with a full-length portrait of him. The sense of that Silence That Speaks was very real.

I even finally cracked Meditation myself! I have never really been able to meditate, like most Westerners I know, who either only do it superficially or confess to me in private that they have no idea how it works. I have always got bored, or my mind wandered off or, if I was on my own,. was dogged by the idea that I was doing it wrong. Perhaps I was always expecting some monumental thing to happen and it never did. Who knows? But it always seemed silly to me and people who took it seriously always seemed to take themselves too seriously so I was very Dawkinsian about it. But sitting there with all these people in a deep state of Consciousness I felt all sorts of ideas and thoughts coming up into my Mind. I was thinking upon the simplicity of RM's teachings and the idea that everything was Brahman, the One, above even the Gods and into my mind came the image of the Trimurti, that is the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva - Creation, Preservation and Destruction, all three Principles at play in the Universe - all of which are transcended and become One in Brahman, and suddenly it hit me that that was the purpose of the Lotus Position, to create in the human form a harmony of these forces, the body thus becoming a symbol of the Unity and Cycle of All.

I decided to try something, closed my eyes and sat crosslegged and then imagined the Trimurti in my body - Brahma, Creation, on my head, Vishnu in my right hand and Siva in my left. I imagined lines tracing all three and began circulating my mind around them as I breathed. Something clicked and it happened. The experience everyone talks about - Light, exhiliration, energy, calm, release. After a while of this I opened my eyes and almost cried with joy at the sensation. Who knows? Perhaps it was the location and the communal feel of being there with all those people, but it was very special and I will try it again. I guess its like everything else. It works when you find your own way.

It feels right to be here for this quiet time of contemplation and rest. By the end of each day, the depth of the experience intensifies. I watched as the Vedas were sung once more and then hymns were given by two groups of men and women. When that was over a group of Indian pilgrims spontaneously began singing in praise of the Bagwan (RM) and everyone watched as the singing spread. It was very simple and very affecting. Throughout all of it people just sat around, some meditating, some just absorbing the atmosphere. Again, there was no dogma, no doctrine, no forms, no God or Goddess to worship, just everyone in their place doing their thing, drawing from it what they wanted. Very in keeping with RM...

So I move out of here tomorrow and into a hotel. I am here until April 1st (ha!) when I will be heading up to Bangalore where I will meet up with Julia and Michael from the school in the Sai Baba settlement at Whitefield before heading on to Puttapharty after that and so on as described.

To the future!

POSTSCRIPT

While I have you, I thought I would include Ramana Maharshi's description of his 'near death experience' which caused him to attain the Selfhood he preached. If you remember I mentioned it in the context of my own Dark Night Of The Soul back at the School. It makes a bit of sense of what he was about and also what I was talking about back then... Its quite long, which is why I have included it as a PS. Its written on the wall inside the shrine dedicated to him. There's a black statue of the man himself which someone has thoughfully put a clean pair of pants on (the same ones as in the pictures perhaps?). Anyway here it is. Make of it what you will. Hoodoo or hooray? You decide. :

"It was in 1896, about 6 weeks before I left Madurai for good (to go to Tiruvannamalai - Arunachala) that this great change in my life took place. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle's house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: 'Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.' And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word 'I' nor any word could be uttered. 'Well then,' I said to myself, 'this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burn and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.' All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I. From that moment onwards, the I or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time. Other thought might come and go like the various notes of music, but the I continued like the fundamental sruti [that which is heard] note which underlies and blends with all other notes."