Tiruvannamali, Ramana Maharshi's Town

4 January 2010, 1700 Tiruvannamali: We took a taxi yesterday from Pondicherry to Tiruvannamali (try saying that three times very fast).  After that experience, I think when I get back I am going to hire a really good video-game software developer and make a hit video game called, "Driving in India".  The object will be to drive from Pondicherry to Tiruvannamali in the shortest time possible without killing any people, cows, dogs or goats.  I think our driver will always hold the record, although we came very close to killing a baby goat and somewhat close to killing various dogs and people, which would have ruined his score.  "Very close" would be defined as an incident which leaves some hair or skin on your vehicle and causes sharp gasps from your passengers.  Merely sharp gasps qualifies as "close" but not "very close", and therefore does not award the player as many points.  "Go with the flow" is a principal nowhere quite as perfectly manifested as in Indian traffic flows.  You gotta experience it to believe it.

Whereas Pondicherry is Sri Aurobindo's town, Tiruvannamali is Sri Ramana Maharshi's town.  I guess you could call them the patron saints of their respective towns.  Street names, business names, the name of each town's patron saint is everywhere.  The Indians don't seem to separate business from religion, so that the names of Hindu gods and the names of saints are used to sell everything from clothing to financial services.  Ramana Maharshi is the Tiger Woods of Tiruvannamali, his image endorsing many products.

Isn't it interesting that in the non-Hispanic western cultures, nobody is named "Jesus", and the image of Jesus would never be used to sell laundry soap?  Yet here, nearly everybody's name and everybody's product has a religious meaning.  We in the west separate the "spiritual" and the "profane", but in India there does not seem to be such a separation.

The temple in the center of town covers 22 acres and is truly awesome.

Ramana Maharshi was a boy of 16, and was sitting alone in his father's living room one day, when he was suddenly gripped by an intense fear of death, for no apparent reason.  Instead of resisting the fear, he embraced it, even laying down and pretending to be a corpse.  While engaged in this experience, he intensely investigated the nature of self... "if my body dies, will I still exist, what will be left, etc."  And in this short time of just a few minutes, he realized the true nature of the Self, and from that moment forward his attention remained focused on the Self even in the midst of other activities.  From what I understand, he never did any spiritual practices.  I have to get a book and read up on him.

In Tiruvannamali, Catherine and I visited the amazing temple.  I stood in line to get the special darshan of some statue there.... when I finally got to the statue after crowding in a single file line that snaked back and forth for half an hour, I couldn't even tell what deity the statue represented, it was too far away and there was too much pandemonium (loud bells, chanting, etc).  I was in line behind a professional man and his wife.  He looked like a doctor or lawyer or government man or something... well dressed in western clothes.  He asked me if I was a devotee of Sri Ramana Maharshi.  I hate that sort of question, because it is the sort of question it would take me too long to answer, longer than the questioner would want to sit still for.  But I will explain it to you.  No one would ever ask me if I was a devotee of Sri (I mean Sir) Isaac Newton or Sri (Sir) Roger Bannister (who was the first one to run the 4 minute mile).  These people did something great.  They advanced humanity, as did Sri Ramana Maharshi.  I am grateful, and I wish to honor their contributions and learn what I can from them, but I think that it is probably some sort of perversion to worship them.  Perhaps it relieves us somehow of the responsibility of implementing Sri Ramana Maharshi's teachings.  It's the same with western religions.  Instead of acting like Jesus told me to act, if I go to church once a week I can call myself a Christian. 

So when somebody asks me if I am a devotee of this or that, I have to say, no, but I have studied their teachings and try to implement them.  It never seems to satisfy the questioner.

In the USA, one occasionally used to hear about a group of black people filing a lawsuit against a restaurant because the waiters had a pattern of serving all the white people first.  I doubt if it happens much any more, now that we have a black president.  We (a group of white foreigners) had a similar experience in our hotel last night.  As soon as the native Indians came in, our waiters were yanked back to serve them and they had their whole dinner while we waited and waited and waited.  It was not just bad service, it was racial discrimination.  The Indians got great service.  The waiters were friendly, but it was the floor manager who was mandating and directing the discrimination.  I can sure sympathize with those black plaintiffs in the USA.... Rosa Parks and her compatriots, who just decided not to take it any more.  Of course, we just sat there and took it, remaining polite to the end.