Full Moon Giri Pradakshana

My phone lit up at 4:00am with a message: I’m here. I hustled down the cement stairs of the two-story guest house run by a loving and protective Indian couple. The husband was already awake and waiting by the front gate. Using a heavy silver key, he unlocked the massive chain and swung open the metal door. Ram stood just beyond, wearing the same clothes from our supper six hours prior. Unusually tall at 6’4”, he sported ruffled black hair with a black beard—speckled with stray gray hairs. A polo shirt, trousers, and a cloth purse slung over his shoulder completed his fit.

“Hi,” Ram whispered.

“Hi,” I responded, and turned around to smile and wave at the husband for graciously letting me out in the middle of the night.

Without a word, Ram and I began walking along the dirt path toward the main road, officially participating in Giri Pradakshana. In Sanskrit, Pradakshana means walking around a holy place in a clockwise direction; Giri means hill. Thus, Giri Pradakshana means walking around Arunachala.

To circumambulate Arunachala brings blessings to the devotee. To circumambulate Arunachala on a full moon brings even more blessings and more crowds. Ram and I merged onto the main road, quickly swallowed up by throngs of devotees—many of whom traveled to Tiruvannamalai for the full moon pilgrimage. The devout walked barefooted as was the custom of the sage himself, Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. 

In reality, Full Moon Giri Pradakshana resembled a mash-up of holy devotees meet loud, Mardi Gras festival, with vendors selling fruit shakes, popsicles, Indian snacks, handbags, ayurvedic herbs and baby clothes! Firecrackers exploded, seated sadhus clanged cymbals and drums while chanting throughout the vigil.

The distance around Arunachala measures 14km, and it is suggested to repeat a mantra or the name of God while performing Pradakshana. Ram, however, kept up a stream of steady chatter on his three main topics: 

1. Desire for Women 
2. His Negative Qualities 
3. Saints of India 

I told him, “You keep telling me about all of your negative qualities, but I don’t see it! I only see innocence!” 

Ram replied, “It’s because you are pure.”  We fell into a rhythm; sometimes we’d speak, then fall silent. Sometimes Ram would quietly hum or sing a bhajan.

I encouraged him, “Feel free to sing louder,” but he said “No, I’m too shy” and kept his voice hushed.

We devotees united as a single organism, slowly circling Arunachala. Sandalwood incense saturated the air, people chanted, others lit candles. The moon shone down as if injecting us with extra power. Indeed, at some point, it felt as if I were being carried along, and no longer felt my feet on the ground.

Along our route, we passed a cow lying on a highway barrier. We passed people taking a break to sip hot coffee at a roadside stall. We watched the sky brighten as if an unseen hand turned the dimmer switch up, lifting the sun and coloring the sky peach. After three and a half hours, we reached the dirt road leading back to my guesthouse.

“See you at the cave,” Ram said.

“Yep, see you later,” I confirmed.

I had treated Ram to supper last night at Dreaming Tree. It was his first time there. Locals rarely if ever frequented touristy, over-priced restaurants—especially when Ram ate for free courtesy of the ashram. However, since he would soon depart for his guru’s ashram in a couple of days, I proposed a bon voyage send-off. Ram had previously lived in Los Angeles with his maternal aunt, sharing an apartment filled with cousins and other extended family. Thus, I assumed he would feel comfortable going to a western restaurant. The place was packed. I chose a low rattan couch covered with a futon cushion, with a matching low rattan table, so that people could either sit on the couch or on the floor. Ram and I elected to sit on the couch, side by side.

Tourists dressed in breezy cotton attire relaxed in the open air dining room. Trendy trance music piped over the speakers, the scent of savory dishes perfumed the air, round lamps oozed yellow lighting to emphasize the mood of balmy tropical paradise. Ram ordered a tofu-mushroom sandwich, and I ordered Moroccan eggs on a ragi pancake. When our dishes arrived, our server, an old Indian woman, set down forks and knives wrapped in white cotton napkins. I was starving: I unfurled my fork and knife set and shoveled eggs into my mouth in a heaping scoop. Ram, on the other hand, looked around the room, taking a visual inventory of our surroundings. After a pause, he slowly unrolled his fork and knife and speared one individual arugula leaf. In all of our meals taken together, I had never seen him nibble in a delicate manner. He admitted he ate like a filthy animal—yet it was I who was scarfing my meal in a most unladylike manner. I noticed that Ram held his fork and knife like a drummer holds his sticks. 

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“I always feel awkward when I have to use a fork and knife,” he admitted.

“You ordered a sandwich; use your hands!” I said.

I expected for him to revert back to his normal mode and take large, lustful bites from his sandwich. Instead, he gingerly lifted one half, conducted a visual inventory of the contents, and took a mouse-like nibble.

Ram said that when he lived with his aunt, he regularly cooked dahl and rice to take to work. Other than dahl and rice, he ate Indian food with his aunt’s family. I realized that I assumed Ram would be comfortable eating western food in a restaurant catering to western people because he had lived in Los Angeles, but this was not true.

Ram had been talking when he suddenly asked, “Ready to leave now?” He had such a sheepish, self-conscious, embarrassed expression on his face. 

I replied, “I’m digesting everything you’ve said; I’m just really listening.” 

This changed the atmosphere and his energy, because he scooted his bag away, sat cross-legged and faced me like he usually did when we ate lunch together.

I met Ram a month ago at Virupaksha cave, one of the main caves where Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi lived before building his ashram. As part of the Ramana Ashram staff, Ram’s title was Caretaker of the Cave, and his main duties consisted of shushing people, telling them to turn off their cell phones, and fighting off monkeys. Through a series of amazing coincidences, he learned from a mutual acquaintance that “a woman meditates here, and her teacher is Adyashanti.” Ram had recently met Adyashanti through the internet, and was keen to meet me. He was told only that “she usually has her hair in a bun” and that is how he located me. Shortly after introducing himself, he invited me to join him for lunch, explaining that it was provided by the ashram. Thus began my days of eating lunch with Ram in the cave.

It was wholesome ashram food, prepared in the kitchen fresh every day. A porter then hiked up in the midday heat with this towering, heavy, tiffin and hand-delivered lunch first to Skanda cave, then Virupaksha cave. Ram rolled out a mat for us, then carefully un-stacked each tiffin to serve me first. There were two kinds of rice, white and a turmeric-biryani rice; sambar (lentil stew), potatoes, some vegetable such as eggplant, and curd which he poured over everything. We ate out of giant steel plates; Ram using his hands while I used a spoon. We sat cross-legged in the dark, whispering like school kids while others meditated in the main section of the cave.

Testing Boundaries

The one-eyed beggar flirts with me. I noticed a couple of days ago that he touched my arm while putting out a hand. His touch was so feathery that I thought maybe his sleeve brushed against me, but on another occasion, I saw his hand on my arm. This is a no-no and he knows it. Indian conservative customs dictate that a man should not touch a woman who is not his wife, mother, daughter, relative. However, when it came to foreign women, Indian men tossed any conservatism out of the window and tested boundaries. This beggar tested me. One time I didn’t give him any money; the second time I did. I felt twisted in a moral pretzel: I knew I shouldn’t reward him for touching me, but he was a beggar with one eye…shouldn’t I help him?

Today, he found me in front of Ramana grocery store while I was on a call with a woman about renting her apartment. He put his hand on my arm, but this time left it there while gesturing and saying “Maa! Maa!” 

Groceries—including full water bottles—filled my shoulder bag. I held the phone under my chin while digging for change, simultaneously managing the weight of the bag, his hand on my arm, plus his shouting “Maa! Maa!” in my face. It all became so ridiculous that I winked as if to say, “Hold on sweetheart!”  

This caused him to bust up. He erupted in delight. When I hung up and gave him some change, he blew me a kiss and we both laughed. He blew me more kisses, then gestured for more money so he could drink alcohol. I shooed him away with a smile on my face, and he scampered away laughing.

Animals Take Over the Path

This morning on the hike up to Skanda cave, I noticed a dog suddenly sprint up and down the narrow mountain path while whining and barking. I realized he wanted to play with the monkeys who were chasing each other, swinging from tree-to-tree and wrestling in the branches. Then a couple of monkeys dropped onto the pathway. These black-faced monkeys played by grabbing and biting each other’s tails! Then the dog would dart past the monkeys as they lunged for him, but the dog dodged them (only just). All of this commotion brought us meditators to a halt as the animals had taken over the path. Then a different type of monkey—all brown—sat behind the black-faced monkeys and began to groom them. “Interesting,” I thought, “it doesn’t stick to its own kind.” As I passed, a brown monkey grabbed my skirt, presumably to groom me!

Cookie Meditation

Walking home from Raja’s shop, I munched on a chocolate cookie I had purchased at lunch time. A dog followed, but kept its distance. When I tossed a piece to the ground, it was skittish about coming too near, so I turned a bit so as not to stare, and only then it ate the cookie. I continued to stroll at a slow pace, periodically tossing pieces to the dog. I came to a stop outside Shiva Shakti Ashram where we stood next to each other, crunching our cookies. The crescent moon shimmered while a gentle breeze caressed like a silky scarf. A quiet night in the black sky.