Travel Day 985 – Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
Today was Sunday and it was Tamil New Year but for some reason everything felt really, really strange today…
Place of Ramana Evening Celebrations
After going to bed at 5am in the morning, we were really only able to sleep until about 9am and then due to a power cut it was getting so unbearably hot in the room that we rather decided to get up and do something. This something turned out to be a visit at the next door ashram of Shivashakti for a little meditation session. This place and the tiny lady were quite famous in the area and so every morning at 10am a bunch of people would show up for her so-called darshan…
In the end the session only lasted for about 15 minutes and during this time people meditated while the tiny lady would sneak around with tiny steps and look at people while they were just sitting there with their eyes closed. At first I peaked to see if she was doing something, but then when I opened my eyes again after 20 minutes, not only the Shivashakti lady was gone, but also all the other people around me. So I was left to leave as well, not quite sure what to make out of this experience…
Ramana Maharshi Departure House
After some breakfast, my friend and I walked around the Ramana Ashram again and we walked through all the little rooms with the photos, but both of us couldn’t really make a connection and felt rather amused or bewildered by his facial expressions and poses. It really seemed that Ramana liked himself to be portrayed in king like positions while either sitting on a throne with everyone bowing to him or of a tiger skin, including head, suggesting his superiority over nature…
While we both felt strange about this man, Ramana Maharshi, we ended up talking about his strange representation and miserable looks on the photos, but on the other hand we both had seen the same kind of miserable expression on many people who lived here in town as well. It almost seemed that certain people were attracted to this place in their misery and they decided to remain in their misery, but preferably in the company of others who would share their state of mind…
Time and Date of Ramana’s Departure
We didn’t quite get our head around the whole situation and we were much too tired to think it through, so we crashed again and rested during the afternoon until we had enough energy to go out for dinner. Here we learned by accident that today was the very departure day of Ramana Maharshi and that a little celebration was held to this effect. Obviously we had to join it and we sat and listened to the Arunachala singing, even if we didn’t feel any real connection to Ramana himself…
Once the ceremony was over, we ended up meeting a really nice local person who took up to his rooftop to enjoy the nightly views of Arunachala and to share some insights about Tiruvannamalai and life in general. Finally it had turned out to be an interesting day after all…
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