Around the Sacred Mountain
Sunday, October 26, 2003

Our whole group is up before dawn this morning. A young woman with short black hair and a blue sari stands in the shadows by a pile of coconuts. She grips a heavy curved sickle with her right hand and swings. One edge of the coconut in her left hand falls away cleanly. She will serve the milk inside the shell with a straw for a rupee or two.

We look for the bullock carts that Kavitha has arranged for the morning. We are going to walk all the way around the sacred mountain before it gets too hot. That's 11 kilometers, and the bullock carts are insurance against tired feet and blisters. Circumambulating Shiva's mountain, Arunachala, is a popular devotional practice for pilgrims to Tiruvannamalai. Riding part of the way apparently does not decrease its efficacy.

Traffic on the road is light this early in the morning once we turn off the main highway. The air is mild and damp. The road is paved. I'm grateful for the early start and the exercise. Most of us are walking so far. We stop at a small shrine by the road. A priest wearing an orange cloth from waist to feet and a swath of white on his forehead offers each of us a bit of white powder from a little cup. Carolyn thinks it is ash. After a short discussion among ourselves about it, I'm surprised to hear the priest speak up in broken English. He tells us the powder is ash from cow dung, for which Indians have found many practical uses. Spiritually, he explains, this sacred ash reminds us that life is short and that we all will soon enough end up as dust and ash. Realizing that, he tells us, should make clear the insignificance of this life compared to what will come in the next. In his words I hear an echo of the Catholic Ash Wednesday admonition: Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.

Back on the road we chat, walk or ride as needed, stop for breakfast at a little tea stand, visit small temples and shops by the road. Balu interprets the shrines and roadside statues for us. He has joined us for the day from Auroville. He is a young Tamil Aurovillian who has visited the Roskes' Hummingbird community in New Mexico.

I'm surprised that the walk around the mountain is not more focused and devotional. It feels more like a simple outing or sightseeing than a pilgrim walk to me. Our drivers whack the bullocks to keep them moving at a fast clip. I see no rebellion flicker in their sad, patient eyes. Cars zoom by us importantly. Houses and shops and larger building of uncertain function dot the green countryside. The fields and woods along the road are the only public restrooms.

The sun has cranked up the air temperature by the time we circle back to Tiru. We are all riding by now. Cornelia directs our drivers toward the big temple of Shiva, Arunachaleswar, that we saw from the side of the mountain yesterday. We leave our sandals and other gear on the carts and walk gingerly on hot pea-sized gravel toward the big gate. A man with white hair and a long white shirt dogs our steps insisting to be our guide inside the temple. We pass huge outer courtyards, large pools of water, inner courtyards, and buildings that I can't identify. A big elephant takes coins from bystanders and rewards their offerings with a blessing caress on the head with her trunk.

Late in the afternoon, after lunch and a nap, we ride our bus a few blocks to a two-story house in a field. Kavitha and Cornelia have arranged for us to join a weekly gathering of devotees, who come together to chant and sing bhajans (devotional songs). They were worried that American tourists might be rowdy or otherwise dilute the atmosphere of the gathering, but Cornelia reassured them that we would fit in.

Europeans, Indians, Asians of Korean or Chinese heritage, and Americans crowd into a smallish living room. Another international gathering. At one end of the room people wait with drums, guitar, sitar, flute, tambourine. The mood is quiet, intense. A tall European with a quiet but authoritative manner launches the gathering with a soaring, calling flute solo. He leads us through some of the chants in the music book the group has printed. Occasionally he puts in a devotional poem from Mirabai or Tagore. I recognize a few of the chants. Some are in English, most in Sanskrit. The chanting is full, passionate, rhythmic, sincere. Some people go out on the porch and dance to the insistent rhythm. I sit back enjoying the beauty of the sound and the unity of our voices, but something in me keeps waiting for something - that special psychic presence that is tangible in the most deeply touching devotional chanting.

Sri Aurobindo reserved the work "psychic being" for the soul, the divine spark that grows from life to life in an individual until it is ready to step to the front and organize the whole being around itself. When it comes to the front of the personality, it brings a calm sweetness and grace to everything it touches.