Travel Day 986 – Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
After spending almost a week in Tiruvannamalai and getting to know all the foreigners in town, today the whole town had a very different feeling about it and the reason was no-one less than Amma…
Arunachala walk to Ramana Caves
Amma was currently on her South-India tour and while I found myself still in that area, Amma was passing by on her tour giving darshan in Pondicherry today. So the whole group of my new-found friends in town and even my travel companion from the past two weeks left in the early morning hours to get a hug from Amma. For a brief moment I actually considered joining them, but since I was already scheduled to see Amma in Chennai in a few days, I rather stayed behind to enjoy an empty Tiruvannamalai…
As it turned out, my assumption had actually been correct and when I was out and about in the early morning hours, I seemed to be the only foreign face in town. The Ramana Ashram was also nice and empty when I was doing my rounds and when I started walking up to the caves, no-one else appeared to be on the path besides me. It was almost a bit spooky, but on the other hand everything seemed much more enjoyable and I finally felt able to concentrate on the experience itself…
Entrance to Virupaksha Cave
Only now I came to realize how much distraction there was all the time in Tiruvannamalai. Not that there was much to in town, but because everyone knew each other and everyone liked to equally talk spiritual as gossip, the whole place normally appeared to me as some sort of a real life soap opera. There was actually a lot of drama going on in this place and all the likes, dislikes, romantic relationships, hatreds, or just the spreading of the personal sickness had all vanished today with the departure of all Westerners…
I actually felt that I had to thank Amma for providing me with the chance of experiencing Tiruvannamalai with a very different energy in complete calmness. And I used my time to walk up to the caves in the morning and sit there for a while. Unfortunately the lover cave Virupakasha was so extremely hot and tight that I had to escape rather quickly and sit outside for a while. The second cave, Skandashram, was a bit more airy and so I could enjoy the experience for quite a bit longer…
Building of Skandashram Cave
But overall I was quite surprised again how well maintained and how well set up these places were. Instead of being a simple cave where Ramana lived for 17 years and for 7 years, nowadays there were entire buildings with again a little photo gallery of Ramana. But in the end, the barefoot walk up and down the stony path became the main focus of my attention and the hot stones gave the perfect chance to practice single-minded concentration while slowly doing the long walk in the heat…
So naturally this became my most enjoyable day in Tiruvannamalai and instead of leaving tomorrow morning, as originally planned, I decided to stay a bit longer… : )
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