After 30 years of longing to go to India, finally in March 2012 a friend and I travelled to India primarily to visit Ramana Marhashi's Ashram in Tiruvanamalai, Tamil Nadu, Southern India.
And....it was just like going home...whether I have see SO much of India over the years, or whether it was a past life remembering I don't know, but India was all the noise, chaos and colour that I had expected.
Wanting a soft landing, we went first to Mahabalipuram - a village on the East Coast reknown for it's Stone carvers - and needless to say I sent home to Australia a 120 kg statue of Dancing Ganesha. A superb piece of artwork, intricately carved and very stunning. The thing was, I refused to buy it initially, because of all kinds of restrictions, one: that I had no permanent place of address. However, as I find more and more, life is full of surprises most of them very much appreciated, and the night after I first met the Ganesha I had a dream. It was a particularly confronting dream. The vision was very black and smokey and probably what I imagine some of the darker rituals in Hinduism to be reflecting.
I saw a flaming chariot in the sky with lots of smoke and fire surrounding it's cloud travel and then quite suddenly Vishnu was full-on in my face with a dagger which he plunged into my chest. I awoke immediately still feeling the overwhelm of a strong psychic experience. The following days I was unable to refuse Ganesha into my 'home' and now he sits on a property/community/motel in Southern NSW attracting very much love and adoration from visitors.
From Mahabalipuram we went to Tiruvanamalai to Ramana Marhashi's Ashram.......what can be said about such an experience??! Beyond description. The silence and peace is transporting after leaving the busy streets with beggars, sadhu's with mobile phones, flower sellers, numerous other distractions. The granite hall holds thousands of echoes from the continuous chanting of Brahma monks - tearfully blissful! and I finally surrendered to the guru, though he is not in the body any longer. After 2 1/2 weeks of meditating in the main hall at the ashram, reading direct reports from his devotees and silence under an airconditioner in a hotel room - hardly arduous, but necessary with the heat and daily burning of rubbish in the streets - I prostrated myself fully on the stone floor of the ashram in absolute, sublime, luscious bliss and peace......
So Hum to all of it and maybe I'll write some more later.....
