I felt a deep sense of relief when our van turned onto the grounds of the Suddhananda Ashram, and I knew I had arrived safely at my destination  – halfway around the world from my home in California.. In contrast to what I had just observed on our drive, from the airport the ashram seemed peaceful and almost luxurious..

Our baggage was quickly unloaded, and I was directed to my lodgings. I pulled my suitcase along a tree-lined, dirt path past small pink-brick buildings until I came to a place where three independent single-story brick structures faced each other in an informal circle.. My home-away-from-home was on the right – a flat-roofed, L-shaped building with a concrete porch fronting three apartments.. Mine was at the end of the short leg.. I discovered from the signs posted on the doors that Amrita, a physician from Florida whom I had met at a previous retreat in Mt. Shasta, was to be my neighbor in the middle, and Karen, a fellow devotee from the Monterey Peninsula, in the other end unit. I was happy to have people I knew nearby..

I unlocked the wooden door with an old-fashioned key and entered a sparsely furnished room with two twin beds and a bathroom.  The beds had thin leaden mattresses over a plywood base, one flat lifeless pillow per bed and thin blue and gray striped coverlets. The floor was dusty and dotted with insect carcasses. The bathroom had an open shower with two large crusty plastic buckets overturned on its plain unpolished tile floor, a small white porcelain sink with a mirror over it and smelly flush toilet. Toilet tissue could not be flushed and had to be placed in a paper bag and disposed of in the trash can outside my dwelling.  I had been forewarned that there was no hot water. The room wasn’t dirty, neither was it exactly up to my standards of cleanliness..

Most health information I had received back home about visiting India was somewhat alarming to say the least. Based on cautionary warnings from the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA), I was concerned about -- among other things -- mosquitoes that could carry dengue fever, so I slathered on insect repellent and put on netting that goes over the head and face for protection while I unpacked. On the advice of the VNA, I had taken the precaution of spraying all my clothing with a particular type of insect repellent before I left home.. In retrospect, my initial fears and precautions seem amusing.  I was so out of my element!

Within a day, however, I abandoned the mosquito netting altogether. There were no mosquitoes in my room and no way for them to get in so long as I took care not to leave the front door open. I did, however, continue to apply insect repellent when I went outdoors, for the open-air dining area was another matter, where water for washing dishes and standing buckets of leftover food scraps attracted lots of mosquitoes..

I unpacked my belongings, arranging my clothing on built-in shelves in an alcove outside the bathroom, spread my thin inflatable sleeping pad over the mattress on the bed nearest a small built-in table and made up the bed with the sheets I had brought along.. For the first time in about 30 hours I laid down for a rest. After a short while I realized it was fruitless.. I was much too excited, so I decided to explore my surroundings instead. But first I needed a shower.  Somewhere along the line I had been informed that there was not hot water, so this was only the first of what would be the fastest showers on record for me..  It was, shall we say, an invigorating experience..

At this point, I was in the grips of fear. I was feeling alone and unsafe and questioning why I had undertaken this journey. The interesting thing about a pilgrimage like this is that you set out seeking to expand your spiritual awareness, but first you get to experience whatever is in your own consciousness that gets in the way.of that. In my case, it laid bare an underlying insecurity and mistrust. I was afraid of doing anything wrong, that if I made a mistake the consequences would be dire.. I've been on a spiritual path long enough to recognize that this was an opportunity to break through some old outworn conditioning, so I just took some time to sit with the feelings and they began to subside.

Clean and refreshed, although mentally foggy, I went outside and encountered my neighbor, Amrita. We greeted each other affectionately, and she offered to show me around as she had been at the ashram before.. We ambled along dirt and gravel paths past several small boxy pink-brick buildings tucked beneath mangoes, jacarandas, hibiscus and other flowering shrubs and trees whose varieties. I did not recognize..

She took me down a palm-shrouded dirt road that led to a handsome but neglected Colonial style two-story stucco house with a flat red-tiled roof. We went up a flight of external stairs to the rooftop where I got my first extended glimpse of Arunachala, the holy mountain that annually attracts hundreds of thousands of spiritual pilgrims from around the world. This rooftop would become a daily refuge for me and others from our group, who would come to bask in the beautiful, clear energy of this remarkable mountain, the incarnation of Shiva (the Absolute).

The mountain itself is not visually noteworthy compared to peaks say in the Rockies or the Cascades.. It is not tall; in fact, one can hike to the summit and back in an afternoon. From the vantage point of the ashram, the ridge line sweeps up to a small promontory on the left-hand side then dips back down in an arc before swooping up to the summit – somewhat like uneven humps on a camel. But despite its humble appearance, there is no denying that this mountain emanates something quite indescribable..

I found a plastic chair and sat, drinking in the unbelievable peace and tranquility. This is what I had come for, this sense of being in the presence of the ineffable.. Every time on this journey I would find myself faltering, I would return to this rooftop and gaze in silence at the holy mountain and feel my burdens drop away.  This would be only the first of numerous experiences that cannot be explained except to attribute them to the special powers of this extraordinary place where I would find myself for the next 3½ weeks.

Coming next: Getting My Sea Legs






 

After seeing my luggage safely ensconced atop one of the two vans that would take us to the Suddhananda Ashram, I boarded and found a single seat by a window. There were 7 or 8 of us squeezed in and around baggage and other paraphernalia. The van was owned and driven by a Tiruvannamalai businessman who had provided this service before for Deva’s groups, so there was a sense of confidence that we were in good hands..

Since this was the first time we had really had any opportunity to be together, we chatted a little and shared nuts and dried fruits we had brought along as snacks.. Suddenly, I realized how tired I was, and since I couldn’t see much of anything anyway, I laid my head back and rested for a while.. I say “rested” euphemistically since the ride was hardly smooth.. We seemed to travel in fits and starts as the van would pick up speed and move at a good clip for a while then suddenly slow down to a crawl and inch along bumpily.. Peering out the front windshield I could see by the headlights that the road looked badly rutted, in fact, as though it weren’t a road at all. I later was told these were places that had washed out in monsoon rains and had not yet been repaired..

We rode along in this erratic fashion for over an hour, then the van slowed down and stopped alongside a brightly lit roadside concession stand.. I stumbled out of the van and looked around in an exhausted daze.. It looked like a scene out of a movie.. Garish lights illuminated a bare-bones open-air structure that housed rough-hewn counters and steaming metal vats filled with chai, which was scooped out and poured theatrically in a long brown waterfall from a ladle held up high by an Indian “barista” into individual metal cups sans handles.. Even in the pitch black of this early morning hour (sometime after 4 a.m.), the place was filled with people.. Those in the group who had been on this pilgrimage before marched right up to a wooden counter and ordered.. I carefully observed the protocol, then followed suit, ordering a single shot of chai and some packaged biscuits (cookies), which I paid for with rupees that Jill had loaned me.. The steaming hot chai, milky brown and slightly viscous, was a godsend.. I cupped the hot metal cup in my hand and inhaled the spicy fragrance before taking a welcome sip.. It was more intensely flavored than the chai I was accustomed to in the states and gave me an instant lift. The caffeine would begin to work its magic soon after we boarded the van, which was good timing since dawn was breaking and I didn’t want to miss a thing.

.As the darkness faded and a soft rosy light began to illuminate the landscape, I got my first glimpse of the countryside.. Tall palms stood like statues above flat terrain of red-brown earth dotted with shrubs and littered with trash.. Women in traditional colorful India saris were outside makeshift dwellings – thatched huts and rudimentary structures fashioned of sticks, tin, cloth and/or cardboard -- sweeping the dirt in front of their doorways.. Outside many of the front doors were beautiful lotus-like symmetrical shapes fashioned from white sand trickled onto the dirt.  

Although it the sky was still bathed in the pink light of dawn, I was amazed at how many people were already out and about. A number of women were en route to a central water source, balancing metal jugs on their heads.. Cows, their bones showing through their hides, were tethered outside of shanties.. Skinnier dogs – all mid-sized, short-haired and looking like they came from the same mother -- sniffed about, obviously seeking some morsels of sustenance..

By now we are joined on the highway by trucks, buses, cars and motor-scooters carrying entire families, including infants.. Nobody seems to be obeying any formal rules of the road..
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We passed through small villages, then finally as the sky turned blue, we reached the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai. Colorful stalls and more substantial concrete or stucco buildings lined the two-lane road, some filled with goods for sale others appeared to be living spaces.. In a several-block-long section, sadhus (holy men) with their wild unkempt hair and bright orange robes, sat or reclined on blankets on the concrete sidewalk apparently oblivious to the cacophony all around them..

Finally we turned into a gated driveway and pulled up a tree-lined dirt road, stopping in front of some brick buildings.. At long-last, after more than 30 hours of travel, I had arrived at my destination.!

Next: Settling In