Friday afternoon we left Vellore to drive to Tiruvannamalai. The driver suddenly pulled over, grabbed a small suitcase and approached a man who was standing there smiling. After a few minutes they came back. The man was his father, the village was his home, and he was dropping off and picking up his laundry.
We arrived at a very large ashram, Sri Ramana. First we removed our shoes went into the office five at a time and presented our passports to be recorded. They said the airline had called to say my suitcase would be there the next morning. We got keys and went to our complex of rooms, the best yet: cold showers, flushing toilets, shelves, sheets, less rocky pillows, a ceiling fan, a tiny enclosed area to hang laundry, and outlets that worked except from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., the scheduled outage. We were whisked away to the ashram. In one of the rooms worship was taking place, antiphonal singing, the men and the women, a simple and beautiful song. Most people were sitting on the floor, but up front there was a shrine where we later learned the founder, Sri Ramana Maharishi, was interred. A parade of people was slowly circumambulating this shrine, an assortment of Indians, blonde westerners wearing white pajama-like clothing of all sorts, carrying canvas Sri Ramana Maharishi bags, looking spiritual. Some of us sat outside watching and listening. A wandering Indian ascetic approached us, wordlessly touched our feet and his face repeatedly, then lay prone on the pavement before us, did a quick up-dog, and repeated the whole thing again. He then went on to another group to do the same. I asked a man where was a restroom. He didn’t seem to understand, so I tried “bathroom,” “toilet,” “W.C.,” and “water closet.” He said, “I understand English perfectly, but I don’t understand you.” A redheaded western woman poked me, drew her hand over her mouth (indicating that she didn’t speak, I gathered), and then pointed. I walked around and found nothing resembling a restroom and no one else seemed to know anything about such things. There was something dreamlike about the whole sequence.
We lined up for dinner. When the dinner bell rang they opened the doors and we processed into a large room where there were rows of plate-sized leaf collections fastened together with short toothpicks, each held down by a metal cup of water. We were directed to sit in these rows crosslegged on the floor (there were a few benches and tables for elderly). Half-naked Brahmins came down the rows with buckets from which they slopped (and I do mean slopped, some of it bouncing off the leaf plate) first rice, then sambar (yellow), then a chutney the color of (but not the taste of) sweet potatoes, then something milky and sweet. Sometimes a kettle of cold water came by. We mixed the food with our fingers and picked it up in balls and ate quickly and quietly, folded our leaves in half, and left, washing our hands on the way out.
By the time my suitcase arrived the next morning, most of the group had gone on a hike up the holy mountain to the cave where Sri Ramana had meditated 7 years straight, and the other one where he meditated 17 years. (His mother hiked up and down the mountain to bring his meals and laundry. That made me feel very good about Jesse, who comes down from his attic room for meals and does his own laundry. I am not quite understanding ashram holiness, but later perhaps I will.)
I wanted very much to perform nesting rituals, but after a quick shower and change of clothing, I went with Nelson and Jane Ann to another nearby ashram dedicated to another guru, Yogi Ramsuratkumar. There were two temples there. The first had large portraits of holy men and women in a line all around the wall like icons to contemplate. Some were contemporary or near contemporary photos; others were historical figures such as Gandhi, Buddha, and Jesus. A role call of saints, including Yogi Ramsuratkumar himself.
In the other temple, where he was honored with a statue and also interred, women were chanting his name. One would sing it four times, another would repeat the melody, then the first would resume. It never stopped for a second while we were there. A woman was weaving flowers into the chains of a golden swingset-like altar. Another was writing Yogi Ramsuratkumar over and over again in a ledger book. A two-foot long plaster cast of his feet was on display, and a poster on the wall displayed a photo of his real feet, along with photos of him at every stage of his life. I was as baffled as a Hindu would be in a church, I am sure. It seemed like a pretty good gig. I am sure he must have done some charitable deeds during his lifetime, or at least had given people hope or enlightenment. One thing that surprised me about the ashram we stayed at was that though there were many opportunities to participate in various worship events and there was a meditatiom room, there didn’t seem to be a time or personnel for teaching. There were definitely rules and expectations—the second evening we had to get permission from the president of the ashram to eat off campus as a group, and some rules were posted about dress, intention, and comportment on the temple exterior. Many, many westerners were there, some of them coming on motorcycles or bikes, wearing curtas or saris or flowing white robes of various sorts, looking appropriately contemplative, humble, and enculturated.
Father Joe commented on the lost westerners that had rejected their own traditions and traveled across the world to live here. His take was that there are parallels to be seen between Christianity and Hinduism that are instructive to discover. I agree. Many faiths have their holy people, acting as spiritual leaders and intermediaries of the divine. To me it seems odd for the intermediaries to be recently dead, but Jesus was also once recently dead. What runs across many faiths is the need for deity to be one, yet somehow multiple, and for intermediaries between the human and the divine.
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