Just one of Phil's ideas!!!!!!!!!

We left Tiru on the evening of the 24 June, just before leaving we were approached by a sadhu whilst we were drinking our last cup of chai before going for our taxi. We had seen him wandering around before and he always looked as if he was after a quick buck, approaching westerners etc, he was dressed in saffron robes, wore half a dozen malas and carried the Vel or spear of Muruga/Subramanyam….he also wore white Nike trainers!!!
He said to us “You are leaving today, going by car to airport (we had no luggage or signs that we were going), , he told Jess to be careful in airport…don’t be looking here and there and get distracted, stay focussed. He told me…Ah you have a book of Ramana in your bag( again I had no bag with me at the time but yes I did have such a book in my bag), his picture is on the cover…he will look after you.”
He also said you have been in India for 7 months( bloody hell this is spooky…we were in India for 7 months, nepal for 2 ). He kept looking off into space, nodding as if he was talking to someone and then he would reply to us again…..charlatan or not he was pretty accurate….An interesting end to our stay in Tiru.
It had been a good idea to lengthen our stay in Tiru, and change dates of our flight as when we arrived in Delhi on the 25th it was scorching!!!!!!W e made it over to Majnu ja tilla and went rapidly to our room at Himalaya House. Dripping with sweat it was a matter of having as many bucket baths of cold water as we could to keep cool. We are tending to stay in our room a lot with fan full blast and making use of the free wi-fi here…so little venturing out.
The rains have started to hit Delhi and any day now it will be full blown monsoon, and everybody seems to be excited about this. When the rains come they appear from nowhere and people sing and dance in the streets. Yesterday we did pluck up courage and go down to Connaught Place via the metro( great air con). We had to go to the Jet airline office to confirm our change of flight and pay some extra money and then we wandered around for a while, paying a visit to janpath market and buying gifts etc and eating in our favourite restaurant Saravana Bhavan, the great South Indian place where they serve the best Masala Dosas in town plus superb coffee as well as yummy icecreams…..
According to the newspaper the actual temperature in Delhi has gone down to 34% which is less that the 39% of Tiru but the humidity is around 95% which is what is causing us the problem. We have heard that a mini heat wave is taking place in the UK so we should feel at home there when we arrive on the 29th….

So Thank You India for making us welcome
Thank you for driving us crazy at times
thank you for keeping us well fed
thank you for keeping us healthy
thank you for teaching us so many lessons
thank you for making us laugh
thank you for making us cry
thank you for healing our wounds
thank you for freeing our demons
thank you for letting us appreciate what we have
thank you showing us how to let go.

Here's to the next time....SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arunachala, the silent witness of all
Hill of light please illuminate my mind
Arunachala, the compassionate one
Hill of love please awaken my heart
Arunachala, guru teacher of mine
Hill of fire, burn up this ego so strong.

Spending time in Tiru has been the most beautiful and inspiring part of our trip.
We have travelled many miles, met many great beings, sat with many and discussed truth, compassion and love but it is here at the feet of the silent Guru Arunachala that we have found peace.
We have had to travel further inward than we imagined on this trip and we have had to shed more luggage than we thought to arrive at this place of peace.
When you arrive at an airport you are given a label which entitles you to travel and then you can discard the label. When you travel inward we sometimes collect the labels of Buddhist, Hindu etc etc but have great difficulty letting them go.
When we sit in silence, there is no label, there is no guru, there is no student there is only the presence of the ONE.
To all the beings whom we have travelled with on this journey both seen and unseen we wish to offer our gratitude and thanks.
Now we sit alone in the cave of our heart having removed all labels and tags content to just BE.

Our taxi ride to Tiru went smoothly enough, the driver was not hassling us for tips and we made it clear before setting off that the amount we were paying would be all inclusive of tolls, taxes etc etc,,,he agreed!and because of his good nature he had earned himself a hefty tip at the end of the trip( without asking).
We stopped for lunch and arrived in Tiru some 6 hours after setting off from Puttaparthi. I have said it before but I really do like the landscape here in Tamil Nadu, it feels very open and spacious and yet rugged and ancient.
We arrived at Ramana ashram and were given a room for 5 days as agreed upon in our email to the president of the ashram, this is the system here that you must apply in writing before arrival.
Our room was near the post office, some 100 yds from the ashram down a side road and exactly where we wanted to be. Its clean, quiet and with great views of the mountain. There is no charge for staying here and 3 meals a day as well as afternoon tea are provided free, you are able to offer a donation before leaving if you wish. As soon as we arrived we both agreed that it was like coming home and we both wanted to extend our stay here a little longer. We are due to fly back to Delhi on 20th and fly home on 29th. With Delhi so hot at the moment we are both looking into changing our flight up to Delhi until around the 25th…we’ll see!!!!
We want to soak up the atmosphere in the ashram as much as we can and are attending the puja every morning at 6.45am before we have our breakfast, during the day we are spending time sitting in the various places within the ashram designated for meditation/contemplation.. The whole place is just soaked in spirituality and unspoilt by modern life. This part of India is very traditional so that fused with Ramana’s way of encouraging self enquiry lends itself to a very peaceful and powerful centre of TRUE spirituality. Rules are few, methods are few and the simple non method based process of resting in one’s own true nature is encouraged strongly here.
Yesterday we walked up to skanda ashram on the hill after breakfast where at 8am the swami opens the door to allow visitors in and sings a beautiful chant to the guru and then allows us to sit in silence. We then descended to virupaksha cave for more silent meditation. These are two places where Ramana lived whilst here, in total for around 20 plus years.
Today it is the full moon day and a traditional day for circumambulating the hill. Many thousands are here to do this along the road, barefoot and in silence. Alongside the road are stalls selling tea and snacks also pilgrim paraphernalia….It is auspicious that on the two occasions we have come here on this trip it has been full moon. We decided today to go by auto rickshaw to the Samadhi(tomb) of the great female saint we met here on our previous trip. As mentioned in an earlier blog she has now left her body. We spent some time sitting by her tomb and feeling the presence of Ma. We discovered that today was her birthday and we were given a photo of her to treasure and although her presence lives on in our hearts the photo is a lovely memory of one of the most beautiful souls that we have ever met.
Our meal times here are always interesting, sitting on the floor, served on a banana leaf and eaten with your fingers( the one exception being Jess who has a bright shiny spoon I bought for her in Puttaparthi)…the meals are delicious as long as you like rice…rice with sambhar( thin dal), rice with veg, rice with yogurt and a sloppy sweet to finish off the meal. Our friend Jo would have died before eating here…its hellish I can here her say!!!!!But it’s really not..its yummy!!!!!!The south Indian coffee we are served up is just the best ever!!!!! And we have started a trend now of bringing a packet of biscuits to afternoon tea at 4pm which others have now copied and are sharing them with others. A new tradition for the ashram I think………………………………...........
Jess is currently reading a book about Ramana by a major Chadwick, one of the first western devotees here. He had come to Tiru in 1935 after reading Paul Brunton’s well known book, “ A search in secret India”. In the book by Chadwick he describes a conversation that he has with Ramana in which Ramana describes Arunachala hill as the top of the spiritual axis of the earth and he said that there must be another axis at exactly the other side of the globe. So certain was Ramana of this that he made Chadwick bring an atlas and see if this was so. The atlas shows the exact point ame in the sea about a hundred miles off Peru. Ramana seemed doubtful of this. Chadwick pointed out that there may be a hill or island at this spot under the sea but still Ramana was doubtful. Some years later after Ramana had left his body an Englishman came to the ashram and told Chadwick about Machu Pichu and although not directly opposite because the earth is not an exact sphere and maaps are not so accurate it is quite possible that this is what Ramana was referring to. Arunachala is the symbol of Shiva and represents the element Fire whereas machu Pichu is I believe associated with female energy and thus shakti.

Today, Fri 17 June we went down to the main temple in town, yesterday we bumped into our friend Raju the auto driver who used to take us to Radha Ma’s house. He promised to take us to the temple but this morning when we saw him he wasn’t well, he has an eye infection and asked his friend to take us.
We spent an hour or so wandering around this huge complex, which has such an ancient feel. Everything here seems very natural and pure. Pujas going on and no fear that your going to be told off for going the wrong way or doing the wrong thing.
We spent time at the Patala Linga cave where Ramana lived underground for some years and had to be removed after being bitten by rodents and insects. This place ( we didn’t see any rodents or insects by the way!!!!) is a powerhouse and we felt privileged to be there.
Tiruvannamalai in general and Ramana Ashram in particular are wonderful unspoilt places and somewhere we will definitely return to again and again.

Well a lot of traveling has been done in the last week...you'd think we would be winding down with just a few weeks to go but no not us!!!!. We spent a couple of days in Mcleod Ganj after leaving Bir, this was a nightmare...very hot , very crowded and very noisy. Maybe its the time of year when everyone comes up from the plains but it was heaving and car horns were in fine form. We were glad to leave and catch the overnight bus to Delhi.
In Delhi we bumped into our old friend Dawa, the yogi from Lama Wangdu's monastery in Kathmandu. We had a good chat with him over breakfast in Himalaya hotel and he is off to Tso Pema for a short visit.

We are now back in the South of India . It's a shame really because we never got to say goodbye to our good friend Jo from Scotland. We didn't bump into her again before leaving Mcleod. The last time we spoke to her she had been chatted up by some Indian shop owner who read her palm and told her that she was going to meet a nice Indian shop owner. She was all happy and like a teenager when she was telling us about him. We warned her to be careful and don't believe what the Indian men tell you. She said she was beginning to like India and it wasn't so Hellish after all although she still thinks the place is full of chancersl!!!

So here we are back in Puttaparti. The flight went well with no waiting or unpacking all our bags on the run way this time so that was a good start. I had pre-booked a taxi to take us the rest of the way. The Taxi ride took around 2 1/2 hours. All went well until we got there. As soon as we got out of the
Taxi the cheeky driver wanted a tip and started asking 'tip sir tip sir ' over and over again. We both found this VERY cheeky because we had already bought him
lunch on the way. In the end, because of his nagging for a tip, he got sod all.

After we got rid of the Taxi man, we were booked into the Ashram and were very pleased to find out that our room is only 130rRs a night ( 1 pound 20p ) The room is very
clean but also very basic. You can't complain at that price though. Last night was our first nights sleep there and it was really quiet but very hot.

As Jess was unpacking her clothes this morning, she came across a pair of Calvin Klein trousers. She thought that they must be mine and passed them over to me. ' No they don't
belong to me' l said. Jess couldn't believe it because they don't belong to her either. We have no idea where they came from but Jess tried them on and they fit her so now they are hers...which is just as well because all her trousers are wearing out!!!
It's funny really because you'd expect things to go missing out of your bags while traveling in India but instead trousers turn up in our bags. ha ha ha.
We haven't even put any laundry in to be washed because we've been doing all our own so the trousers couldn't have come to us by mistake through the laundry. Oh well!

We wandered around town the first day and it looked deserted and we wondered about the effect of Sathya Sai baba's passing on the town. But later that evening at bhajans and Vedic chant there were about 10,000 people present and a powerful atmosphere remains. This was a small number compared to when we were here last but still a substantial number for this time of year which is the quietest in the year. All major festivals have been put on hold until later in the year as the Memorial tomb is currently being built. Bhajans continue in the same area with a vacant chair and a giant size photo of Baba behind it.
A few shops have closed down but we have found as the days have gone on that it's pretty much life as normal, bearing in mind this is the hottest and quietest time of the year in Puttaparthi.When i went to have my hair cut the barber said to me..Baba has not gone anywhere he is in all our hearts.

...the last couple of days have seen people arriving and there is also The Summer Course on Indian Spirituality for students of the Sai colleges and the current crowd in Bhajans every evening is around 15000 with a wonderful atmosphere, everybody seems uplifted.
The first few days here were quite difficult for us, lots of emotions arising and some things difficult to deal with. We think this may have been due to the atmosphere in the ashram when we arrived. I spoke to one guy from South America who had been here a long time and he said that it was such a sudden shock when Swami passed and it is only now that people are getting over it. Lots of women in particular were very emotional and lots of tears were shed. But as we said above, this has now lifted and there is a definate sense of moving on and also joy in the air.
We leave by taxi tomorrow for Tiru and are looking forward to revisiting there but just hope it cools down a little!!!!!!

.For the past four days Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, well known teacher and also film director of “ The Cup” and “ Travellers and Magicians” has taught at Deer Park here in Bir. About 200 people attended the teachings on The Way of the Bodhisattva. I have attended Rinpoche’s teachings once before , in London a few years back and was aware of his unique and wonderful style of teaching, Jess had not attended his teachings before.
The four days just flew by with Rinpoche explaining in very simple ways how we can and should follow the path of the Bodhisattva. The teachings contained both sutra and tantric teaching but were suitable for all levels of practitioner as well as all schools of Buddhist practitioner.
Here are a few excerpts from the teaching.

There is only one problem we need to overcome-distraction
There is only one solution-mindfulness.

There are 4 mindfulness’s- body, feelings, mind, phenomena.
If we keep these 4 mindfulness’s then problem solved. Don’t just practice mindfulness on the meditation cushion, practice it everywhere.
From time to time drop everything and watch the body. Notice the thumb texting, feel the sensation of the skin against the phone keys. Etc
Vipassana is not just a meditation technique. Seeing appearance as emptiness is vipassana.
Mindfulness without wisdom is dangerous, it is a system and like all systems must eventually be given up. Here Rinpoche talked about mindfulness classes as taught in the west and how they seemed to lack the essential wisdom and were simply a technique.

It is absolutely not true that someone who has tasted a fraction of emptiness will not offer butter lamps, incense, water etc or do pujas in fact they will do more. It is the ones who have not tasted emptiness who refrain from making offerings etc thinking that they are not important.

Mindfulness doesn’t mean fixing it, changing it…we have this constant need to DO something, we cant just let it be as it is, we cant just relax. Without relaxing it is difficult to see the Truth, we panic, we have paranoia, we have wrong view etc.
We can learn to relax into Ordinary Mind, Naked Mind, This is the same as wisdom-The natural State.
Meditation without Wisdom is a burden, a chore, action without wisdom can be judgemental.

Following the teachings Rinpoche conducted a Refuge ceremony but warned those who had taken Refuge before not to come up and get their hair cut …he said I know who are and I will cut your hair in a very strange way if you come up!!!!!
Following this the Bodhisattva Vow was given in a very beautiful way with Rinpoche encouraging us to visualize the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas before us and for us to make imaginary offerings to them followed by the 7 branch prayer and then the Vow.
Finally a ngondro transmission was given .
Incredible few days and pretty much all the people there loved their time with Rinpoche, apart from our neighbour Jo from Scotland who knows nothing about Buddhism and said she was bored silly!!!!!her honesty is delightful. She did admit to Rinpoche being quite charismatic though and being a thoroughly nice fellow….so great merit for her in the future I think.
After 1 day’s rest we attended another teaching, this time by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche on the well known text “Words of my perfect Teacher”, this was just an introduction to the text and also a discussion about cultivating virtuous qualities and abandoning non virtuous qualities. Being in his presence is very special, he is relaxed and yet devotion to the Dharma oozes out of him. We are so lucky to have had this opportunity to meet with such teachers and develop the hearing wisdom which is one of the three wisdoms…hearing, contemplating and meditative wisdom.
Well our month is Bir is over, and what an amazing month it was. The people here are so warm and friendly, life here is so simple and practically nobody here is out to rip you off( if you don’t count 1-2 of the taxi drivers!!!!). We have made some good friends here and people in the shops and restaurants wave and say hello every time we go past.
The Deer Park is a rare jewel of a dharma centre, it provides the best teachers and teachings to all free of charge. You are treated well, looked after well and everything seems to run smoothly without any need for people trying to out do each other. No body is trying to take all the credit for things, nobody is trying to control others and manipulate others into doing things their way. It is a shining example of good teamwork, good management and everybody knowing what their role is. May it benefit many more beings who come here to stay.
BIR/DEER PARK WE’LL MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!