The Long Walk

 

The next morning I rode my bike up to breakfast but I left it at the top of the road because the side street is dirt and really rough with lots of pot holes and mud. I thought I would be able to ride it on our expedition that day. But everyone else was walking, so I had to walk.

We walked so far! We walked around the mountain and back for two and a half hours. Oh, my poor painful feet!

The first part along the busy road was horrible, noisy and smelly. Then we got to the nice bit that was blocked off to traffic. It was cool under the giant trees with bright temples along the way. It wasn't very crowded because the festival hadn't officially started yet. 

All the Indian people wore their best clothes and bare feet. A lady gestured at my feet to say I shouldn't be wearing shoes. There was no way I would walk on that dirty road in bare feet, besides my feet were so sore. I wondered what they would do if they cut their foot, they would be sure to get an infection. There is so much rubbish in India, laying around everywhere, it is so dirty.

The lady, her husband and daughter sort of became my walking companions, we would fall behind each other, then catch up and smile at each other again. We got to a blue temple. I wasn't quite sure what to do. I was standing near the exit watching and the lady came up and gave me a blessing, dabbing sacred ash on my forehead. So I took my shoes off and went in. A couple in my group were there. We all put some money in the offering tray and the Brahmin priest gave us a blessing of a necklace made from string with a nut on it, a small packet of sacred ash and dabbed my forehead with ash again. 

We were very popular on our walk. There weren't many white foreigners there. Everyone wanted photographs with us. They were very polite about it, and I suppose when you think about it, I was taking lots of photographs of them too. They loved that.

The orange men are called Sadu, holy men (beggars realy) but they are given rice, fuit and milk by the ashrams

When we eventually got back to the corner, Fran and myself decided to stop walking and get a rickshaw into town. I was so grateful.

I went shopping for some presents and clothes I needed to wear. I eventually found what I wanted, some embroidered tops and Indian pants in a shop where I was served by a lovely (and handsome) young man from Kashmir. We had chai tea had a chat. He was talking about opening his own shop. I told him I was sure he would. And since then he has! He gave me a Ganesha statue as a gift. Pujan thought he must have wanted to marry me. But it was just a kind gesture. (N.B. Actually we are still friends years later, I helped him as best I could to get through Covid and he managed to keep his new shop open.)

Our group met up again at a restaurant called the Dreaming Tree for dinner. 

The Great Deepam Festival at Arunachala 2019

 

4th December - 12th December 2019

The city of Tiruvannamalai has grown up around a Holy Mountain called Aranachala where, in ledgend, Shiva manifested as a collumn of fire to eliminate the ego. The ancient Arunachalesvara Temple is dedicated to Shiva and specifically to the element of fire, or the God Agni. The history of the temple dated back 1000 years. The juge masonry pylons were built in the 9th Century. The temple has had gifts added to it by ruling dynasties of later centuries.

My room in Tiruvannamalai had a small window with a rooster in the field outside and large ants crawling on the floor, I left them alone and they left me alone. The mattress was big & comfortable and they fixed the dribbling faucet in my shower before it fell off.  In Auroville I had bought essential oils and a burner, the scent of geranium and cinnamon still transports me there. I perched my little kettle on a rather precarious stack of boxes and books so the cord could reach the plug to make my essential coffee. I made it quite comfortable, decorated with scarves and the ganesh statues that appeared. The garden was pleasant and green and there was a yoga room on the top floor with a fantastic view of the mountain.

There was a great vegan cafe, Da Mantra, up the road, we could go to anytime to enjoy good fresh drinks and food in a relaxing open-air setting with wifi. We ate there a lot, for breakfast, some lunches and dinners.

We were staying in a town near the ashram of Ramana Maharshi, an Indian sage who became an enlightened being at a very young age and sat in a cave for all of his life. Many thousands of followers sought his teachings and millions still flock to his ashram every year.​ We climbed up the hill to visit his cave. It was pretty cool. 

We were very impressed by an industrious man who made us beautiful, freshly squeezed orange juice half way up our climb to Sri Ramana Maharishi's cave. He had carried a whole box of oranges and all his equipment all the way up the winding stone pathway - including a sling-shot to keep the monkeys away. He deserved a good tip.

There are other people with stalls along the path selling statues. They all say they made them. But I think they were lying. They pretend to be chiselling at stone making statues but all their statues are the same. I still brought one, of Patanjali (the sage the yoga sutras are attributed to) at the top of the trek to commemorate my climb. It's not really basalt, it's just painted, a little piece chipped off his nose, I'll dab a bit of black paint on it.

Pujan said Arunachala has a very high spiritual energy. A whole lot of stuff manifested that I had to deal with. It wasn't very pleasant, but you have to deal with stuff if you want to over come vrittis.

I had a terrible pain in my foot that lasted the next 3 years. Hopefully I have just had it fixed through a series of torture sessions at the physiotherapist.

I went into town in a rickshaw to get some better walking shoes. It was mad in the city! It was packed with people, it was raining and it was authentic. Most of the million people who were pouring into the city had bare feet. I have no idea where they all slept. They just kept coming, hundreds and thousands of them, for days and days and days. A huge, dark ocean of people walking, all in the same direction; clockwise around the mountain.

 

 

I'm Back!

I lost my account and I just found my way back in! Hooray! 

I've been following my inner self and it guided me to this most beautiful, calm and quiet place in the world to live. I think I arrived in Paradise. 

I'm going to upload my travels since Matrimandir and I'm going to share all my research on the Chakras, as I had to close my website I know the world is missing the research.

I'll do one each day, starting tomorrow. Leave comments if you wish, it's nice to be encouraged.