Ramana Ashram Visit #3

[Guest guest]

To my surprise and annoyance, who do I see on the ashram grounds but Kumar Iyer,

the young fellow whom I met in Madras. He told me that came here often and that

he wanted to see me again - I felt a bit suspicious, but he is harmless, and

offered me to show me around the area.

 

One of the most important forms of worship (or sadhana, depending upon your

point of view) is 'pradakshina', which essentially is circumambulating a holy

site, such as Arunachala mountain. In the Ramana Maharshi samadhi site hall, it

is a common practice to encircle the samadhi altar, which is an area of around

50 by 50 feet. People circumambulate 3 times or more, while priests are doing

pujas or attending to the altar area. I did my first of many pradakshina around

the hall.

 

Kumar asked me if I wanted to do a circumambulation of Arunachala mountain that

night. I hesitatingly said yes, wondering if I could handle the walk at night.

And usually one does pradakshina barefoot, but this tenderfoot could not handle

that. Kumar told me that it was most auspicious to first go to the large

Arunachleswara temple before circumambulation. This is a huge temple upon which

the town of Tiruvannamalai is built around, comprising of approximately ten

acres. It has 9 towers of varying sizes, the tallest, being the main gate, is a

least 7 stories or more. Each tower is magnificently carved with various gods

and goddesses of India. The back of the temple is the base of Arunachala

mountain, which towers over the city.

 

There are actually two routes to circumambulate Arunachala mountain - one is the

main route, which consists of walking down several roads that circle the

mountain. However, over the years, Thirumvannamalai has experienced a urban

sprawl like many cities in India and the world, and can be a very noisy and

annoying place. So many people take the roads at night to minimize the loud and

obnoxious local busses, pissing out streams of diesel smoke, crazy taxi and

autorickshaw drivers. It can certainly cut into the experience, so night time is

best to do the pradakshina. There is also an inner route for circumambulation,

but the final quarter of this route dumps you in downtown Thiru, which is much,

much larger than what I had expected.

 

Right across the street from the ashram was a sign for the Ram Surat Kumar

ashram. Ram Surat Kumar was a sadhu for many years in Thiru, then he began to

generate a following, which included the American teacher Lee Lozowicz, and now

he is greatly revered in the area. There was a 4-6PM satsang that night preceded

by a darshan of him, as he is driven from his house nearby to his new ashram

site. Kumar and I walked down the streets, and he seemed to know a lot of

people, until we arrived at the road leading to his ashram. We were just in time

to see Kumar's Ambassador taxi come by. He was in the back seat looking up at

the sky as he passed by me. There was no experience that occurred for me, and

basically I felt that I was there for retreat at Ramana ashram - this particular

teacher was not someone I had much interest in right at that point. We also

looked into another famous teacher in town, Nana Guru, but he was out of town in

his other ashram in the neighboring state in India.

 

We were to do the main road route for the evening, but not before a stop for

chai at a small restaurant across the street from the ashram. This restaurant,

which is basically a large circular thatched patio, is run by a German man who

apparently has 4 wives from four different states of India. I don't know if

that's true, and didn't know polygamy was allowed in India.