height of helplessness

A visit to Tiruvannamalai always begets stories of the Gurus and their gopis.

The non-believers who are pulled in by the Mountain against their conscious choice, are continuously aghast at the goings on. It's fun to hear them talk.

Sample this from an English school teacher, who now runs a restaurant, Manna Cafe, in Tiru.

'If I put you in a corner, and make you sit down, and pray to you, waving lights in your face, you will start glowing in a week.'

'Yes, I suppose so. But what is your point?' I ask.

'This fellow, Nithyananda, must be secretly amused by all the women going ga-ga after him, falling at his feet.'

'Why?' I ask.

'Because he is a nice fellow. I saw him in town the other day. He has a nice smile.'

'Doesn't he?' I smile.

'Aw, shut up!'

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And this German fellow who has now become a guru of sorts, giving talks informally.

'Its nice to sit with you.' I say to him.

'Yes, I am always sitting with myself.' he replies. We all laugh.

'Did you hear of how Yogi Ram Surat Kumar left his body?' he says, after a while.

'Wasn't he in coma?'

'He was Unplugged!'

'Oh! By whom?'

'By his disciples!'

'No!'

'Yes. They waited till Maha Shivaratri! They put a spring under his arm and the spring went up and down as the devotees came to get his blessings. The poor fellow was in coma, giving blessings to his devotees by a spring! And on Maha Shivaratri they Unplugged him!'

'Disciples are heartless!', says the almost guru, revealing his deepest fears?

'Its the height of helplessness, isn't it?'

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'We are not going to Tiru again!' wails my hubby. (About a week before we end up in Tiru).

'It's always Tiru, Tiru, Tiru! You are demented! You cant see any other place in the whole world. God made lots of other nice places to go to. He didn't make only the Mountain. The kid needs more exposure, I need a change, I need a break from Tiru.'

'Ok, ok. Calm down. Here, have a glass of water.'

He drinks water.

'Mountain se mera sir pak chuka hai.' (My head is cooked by the Mountain).

'Ok. So where do you want to go?'

'You agree?' he is incredulous. 'Yipee!'

'Where do you want to go?' I ask.

'We can go to Gokarna beach. It's a cool place.'

'Sure. But Christmas is peak time. Make a booking first.'

'Ok. ' A few calls later, he gives me the deal. ' Swiming pool, fifteen hundred per person, per day, so it will be three point five k for three days. Perfect.'

'Fifteen hundred per person? We are three of us. So that is three point five into three k. And swiming pool? In December? Who swims? You want to learn swiming?'

'Ok, I will make more enquiries. I have to go out now. I will call you.'

In half an hour, he calls.

'We will go to Tiru only.' he says.

sound bytes from Tiruvannamali

I wish I had a camera when I went to Tiru for the weekend. Actually, I did have a camera when I went to Tiru.

Here are the pictures:

Walking barefoot with thousands of devotees around the mountain, the grace flowing continuously in the form of water from a big water tanker ahead, washing and cooling the road.

Swami Nithyananda doing a namaste to the Mountain. Tilt down to Swamiji's feet. No, he wasn't barefoot.

A tired devotee sitting on a cement on Pradakshina road bench with eyes closed.

Devotees lying on plain mud, fast asleep by the roadside, exhausted from the dancing and singing and walking miles barefoot.

A big open space just in front of the rear most end of the mountain (more about this later), people getting plastic chairs to plonk themselves, reserving their spaces hours ahead of the master's talk.

Reporter-devotee too tired to sit under the sun. She goes to the book stall and settles on a chair with a book.

An hour later, reporter-devotee finishes entire book, and when she thinks noone is watching, walks away from stall with chair and joins the masses.

Two hours later, Nithyananda swami makes entry. Crowds go wild. Old ladies fall off plastic chairs (on which they were standing).

Devotee looks at mountains rear end and wonders if the mountains beauty is stone deep. (There are too many trees from this angle, and devotee does not feel the familiar 'oh so beautiful my mountain'). So much for the greening movement.

Another two hours later, stage comes to life. Swamiji's school headmaster is garlanded, etc. Talk begins. The topic is, 'The Bliss that is Arunachala.' The language is Tamil. There is no translation.

Suddenly, two words pop out from the Tamil as meaningful. Spiritual Incubator. Followed by the bliss factory. Arunachala.

Ye, dosti

This Tiru trip Pavan made a friend.

Hansraj, age eleven. I have known and loved him when he was a baby. In fact, I was so crazy after him that I asked his father, Peter, if I could adopt Hans.

'Manufacture your own!' he said.

So when my present met my past, it took just three trips for the two to seal the friendship.


What matched? Their energy levels, their naughty quotients, their laughing capacities, and the mountain's grandfatherly ambiance.

They even named each other. Hans is Honey and Tukru is Pavan Bhalu bhaiya.

'You two look so sweet together. I might just eat you alive.' I threatened them.

'We will still be friends.' said Bhalu, loyalty incarnate.

'Ai, can we stay in Tiru only?' he asked,

'Do you like Tiru for the mountain or because of Hans?' I asked him.

'Han. Honey. And Mountain.'


During a lazy afternoon, I was chilling out in the room at Sheshadri Ashram, and the two of them were chasing each other around the place. (Sheshadri Ashram is a few feet away from Ramana Ashram. Sheshadri was a weird saint who threw stones at his devotees and they were cured, so thay made an ashram for him. Sheshadri used to call Ramana his younger brother.)

Suddenly Hans came inside the room with some rice wrapped in a big round leaf.

'Prasad.' He said, giving me some, and ran out of the room as he saw Pavan through the window.

'That was yummy. Can I have some more? Hans! Pavan! Come here. Get me some more prasad. No, I want one full leaf full. I am hungry.'

After ten minutes all three of us were sitting on the floor of the room, each eating delicious rice from three different leaves. It had a rare subtle flavor, without the execive spices so common in Tamil Nadu.

'This is so good. Where did you get this from?' I asked them.

'This is the prasad the ashram gives everyday to the sadhus who sit outside. Its very tasty, so I always take it.' replied Hans.

Btw, Hans lives on the other side of the road from the ashram, on the first floor of one of the best restaurants in Tiru, run by his parents.


Both of them tried hard to convince me to stay longer in Tiru. As it is, leaving the mountain is never an easy job for anyone, not even the bus driver.

So I relented a day and that gave them a power over me, or so they thought. Separating two new friends, I was exhausted by the time we finally got into the bus, and my revengeful nature surfaced.

As the bus pulled out, I teased the poor bhalu,

'You want to stop the bus and go back to Hans?'

And, for the first time in his little life of seven years, I saw silent tears appear in his eyes.

Give her a bangle,

she doesn't have enough!

This is my favorite kali temple on Pradakshina road.

this womam needs help,

so please save her, do.

the lilies in the fields, they toil not...

I met old friends at Tiru who don't even look at the Mountain. They sit in tea shops, smoke bidis and grow their hair longer each year. Some of them are born overseas, a few don't even remember their 'native place'.

One such friend just came back to India with a fresh passport, a first time visa. He had overstayed his visa expiry date last time by three and a half years, until the Iskon fellowship hauled him out. Two years later, he is back in Tiru, with a new identity.
'First time to India?' the custom lady asked him, smiling.
'Yeah, first time.' he smiled back.

'What do you do all day in Tiru? What is your spiritual practice?'
'We cross the street, to sit in the tea shop across the road.'

What gives a bum, the supreme confidence to be a bum?

Two stories come to my mind:

1. As told by Shree Ramakrishna :

At the time of Jesus, there were two sisters called Mary and Martha. Jesus Christ went to their house with his devotees. At the sight of him, Mary was ecstatic with Happiness. It reminds me of a song by Gauranga:

My eyes sank in the sea of God's heavenly beauty

And did not come back to me again,

Down went my mind, as well, forgetting how to swim.

The other sister, all by herself, ran around arranging food for Jesus. Mary just sat at his feet, blissed out. (Maybe she washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, but this is another story.)

So Martha complained to the Master, 'Lord, please judge for yourself. How wrong my sister is. She is sitting in your room and I am doing all these things by myself.'
Jesus said, 'Your sister is indeed blessed. She has developed the only thing needful in human life: love of God.'

2. Once Ramana was sitting peacefully on the Mountain, minding his own business when an earnest seeker came to him and said,

'You are so ripe, you must take diksha from my Guru. I will come back in the evening and we will go together.'

Ramana was wondering how to escape the diksha, initiation, when another earnest seeker stopped at Ramana's hut for some water. He was climbing up to the peak.

'May I keep my holy books here? I will pick them up on my way back.'

And this was how the Mountain loved Ramana, for in that bundle of books, he opened a book to a page with these lines,

'Anyone residing within thirty kilometers of Arunachala need not do any sadhana whatsoever. No japa, no tapa, no guru, no seva, nothing needs to be done, because the Mountain Does Everything!'

and provided him with self defense against the initiation.

This is the promise, this is the creative license, and this is the secret of the lazy seeker.

It doesn't end here. There is another promise.

'Those who are meant to get enlightened will be drawn to the Mountain. They will not be able to resist the pull of the mountain.'

When I first heard / read this, my pride swelled up, until I looked around at the bums gathered on the tea shops. Someone is a jail bird, another has obviously run away from a nut house, this one is a proud dope addict, and of course, on almost each trip I get hit by a homeless sadhu.
'Are you single?' he asks me, too lazy to think of a better line.
'Happily married.' I smile back, no offense taken.

Years ago, during my first steps on the path, I was hammered by the concept, 'Keep Good Company.' But good company is a narrow lane, I get claustrophobic. I like to take U turns, I like to skip, jump or sit on the road. And the earnest seekers, may God warn me should they hover near. Let the white collared devotees run to the ashrams to make it in time for the one hour meditation.

I prefer to sit with my friends, the chilled out cronies of Shiva.

The mountain out the window

The mountain that lives most of the time in my heart-mind-dreams, is now outside the window. Then what am I doing indoors?

I shall go out and repeat my mantra.

'Look at the mountain, Look at the mountain, Look at the maaunton!'

If I cant meet You, I'll edit You.

It's 10:39 pm, and nine minutes past my bedtime. I am kind of sleepy too, which is lucky. Then why am I not in bed?

For the video editing workshop that I am conducting these days, I was looking through some old tapes to find material for the students to edit a documentary. Generally, I fast forward. But then, I came across a Tiru 1, a Tiru 2, and a Tiru 3 (Tiru is short for Tiruvannamalai, which is the town where sits my beloved mountain). I lost track of time, space was just the small camera window.

I am transported to a time in last February, when Prayas and I had gone to Tiru. Roadside tea shops to chill, hippies and sadhus sitting together under the trees sharing the chillum, and the ox-cart pradakshina around the mountain.

If love is nothing but gravity, the feeling ought to be mutual, isn't it?
The moon seems to be circling the earth and causing waves, but will the earth let the moon go anywhere else? Just ask her. Nope, not even for a short visit to Venus. See? It's mutual, 50- 50. Or 100-100. In advaita, 100 is never divided.

Having proved my theorem, it is obvious that this is not a one-sided romance. There is no harm in being vulnerable, in fact, it might even prove beneficial to suffer, to pine, to breathe and to sigh.


Call me to you, or keep me longing, I am at your mercy, O, Arunachala.
I shall make you into a film and upload you soon, O, Arunachala.

Six hours to the mountain

Day before yesterday, my feet tingled big time. And the thought which inspired the nerves to go hyper was, boy, oh boy, I am six hours away from the mountain. Bangalore being five hours from Tiruvannamalai. My house being an hour from Bangalore bus station. And that means I live in a space that is six hours from my beloved Arunachala.
Then why oh why am I so concerned with getting the house in order, why do I keep changing the arrangement of the drawing room, why on earth am I waiting for the broadband connection, why don't I get on that bus on which the conductor hangs on the door and yells, Thrvnnamalaai, Thrvnnamalaai, Thrvnamalaai?
Is it time, or is it repetition that erodes vowels out of a word, and urgency out of devotion?

Gandhiji comes to the mountain

I dug out my copy of 'Living by the words of Bhagwan', by David Godman, a book where years ago I read about Gandhiji's visit to my favorite place, Tiruvannamalai.

Either it was some other book, or I missed looking at the very page that Gandhiji came to the mountain. The good part of any research activity, and that includes looking for your keys, is that you find many things you did not expect. And sometimes they are so interesting, so beautiful, so soothing, you forget what you were looking for.

'The Guru's grace,' says Ramana Maharashi, the sage of Tiruvannamali, 'befalls on him who, in his previous births, has gone to many holy places for long periods of time. By this virtue alone he develops faith in the Guru.'

Faith in the Guru happens when there is faith in the teaching. A teaching so simple, so straight, so quickly rejected by the intelligent, so quickly accepted by the devotees, so easily forgotten by the do-gooders, and so sadly misinterpreted by the fundamentalists.

Was it class three or four, that I had a subject called community living at school. In the book, there was one sentence that writ itself on my heart.

God is everywhere!

And so there was no arguing with Ramesh when he said,

All there is, is Consciousness

in other words,

Everything happens by the will of God.

Back to the book. An old man, about to die, scared to die, comes to Ramana .

Old man: I am a sinner! I am going to go to hell! Bhagwan, do something! I don't want to go to hell.

Ramana: I am there too.

Thus the leela goes on. God is everywhere but he (and she), seeks himself, over and over again, through the seekers.

Annamalai swami, on whom the book, 'Living by the words of Bhagwaan', is written, is a life long disciple of Ramana. Without any formal training in building, Annamalai built the Ramana ashram. Ramana designed the space, Annamalai swami gave shape to his dreams. His excuse to live in the proximity of his master, manifested itself in the making of a temple.

He remembers ( I remember), when Gandhiji visited Tiru. Ramanashram is situated on the outskirts of the town. So if there was any happening event in town, news would trickle to the ashram. Gandhiji is in town! He will be passing by the gate of the ashram in his jeep!

All the ashramites, accept Bhagawan, flock to the gate. Annnamalai swami crosses the road, to
get some breathing space, I guess. He sees Gandhiji sitting by the driver in the open jeep (probably doing his Pradakshina on four wheels).

Annamalai swami joins his hands in greeting. Gandhiji returns the gesture, his face breaking into that heart-winning smile of his. The jeep passes by. Annamalai feels an anticlimax.

'Why didn't Bapu come and meet you?' he later asks Ramana.

'Probably because God has other plans for him,' answers the wise one.

Where half my body resides

I say body because I dig not the meaning of soul. Like a kite, the soul keeps flying about trees and clouds. The body tells me the truth, it breathes deeper when it is whole, when it is one, when it is home.

Tiruvannamalai is the name of the town. Arunachala is the name of the mountain. Since I am an unconventional and yuppie spiritual seeker, I call them Tiru and mountain respectively.

'Look at the mountain, look at the mountain, look at the maa-un-ton!'

This is my secret chant and this is my secret mantra.

Mantras can get tiring sometimes, so I will just look.

This one is called Pradakshina Peek.

The mountain has a sixteen kilometer circumference made of tar road, or outer path. Lovers of the mountain walk this road often, keeping the mountain to your right, near your heart. (The spiritual heart is supposed to be on the right, the place where you thump your chest and say, this is me.)

Like a kaleidoscope, the mountain keeps changing its beautiful face while you walk around it, and this one is an all time favourite.

Tiru is an extremely slow paced town. Apart from the mountain, another time-stopper is the ancient, biggest - in - Asia, temple dedicated to Arunachaleshwar and many many other Gods.

It has four big gates, or Gopurams, out of which, three are kept open, and I never lost my footwear there. And how could I? Were the celestial cows not guarding and watching as constantly as they chewed?