Seeing the many wisdom books at the stands at the Guru Pooja celebrations here – all the books of the World Teacher Trust and many theosophical titles – I was tempted again to buy books, but stopped myself: In the past I had read more than I could digest. There is still a thrill when seeing books on profound occult wisdom themes, but I try to have a quick look inside to listen, or better feel, whether this or that book is important for me to read, and mostly there isn’t any green light saying “go ahead”. So I put the book back to the others.

With certain books there is a magnetism deeply attracting me, and I even have translated a number of such books into German and I like giving such books for free to interested seekers. But when there isn’t this resonance, the book will certainly remain in the bookshelf at home, only taking away some space and collecting dust. So sometimes I’m happy when there is an occasion to pass such a book on to someone who is eager to read it.

Every year I saw an incident repeating: An old village lady with crutches forces her way through the many participants to the dais and tries to get to Sri Kumar, who is guiding and directing the festivities. This time she came again and reclaimed access to him in a loud voice. Some helpless helpers talked to her, but she continued, until another helper took her, lifted her up and placed her some meters aside. Sri Kumar then came from the dais to her, listened a while, spoke some sentences and gave her his blessing. She gave him some fruit and then silently sat calmly at the ladies’ side. Later she took her crutches and went back again.

She must have some kind of a deep  devotion, even if her way of expressing it might be irritating to on-lookers.

Technology has become an unquestioned part of the ceremonies here: Cameramen build up their tripods plus big cameras directly in front of the dais, while the jumble of cables is running along the floors. Of course, since years big loudspeakers belong to the necessary equipment to transport the voice through space. Here you partly see very old-fashioned loud-speakers. But now also the latest beamer technology with screens is helping to transport the view to the rear lines, and on a side-table there are laptops for registration and online-transmission of the functions and the lectures from this remote village to groups in other parts of the country. They asked me if we should give also access to the Western groups, since the main language used here is Telugu, I said it wouldn’t be of much use.

Here, though we don’t understand what is being said, it is very fascinating to participate: The ambiance is very uplifting, and hearing the melodious flow of the voices and being in this serene atmosphere lets the mind “chill out” and get into subtler planes. A deep inner rest settles, and even occasionally falling asleep helps increasing the experience.

Trying to capture the thrill of the spiritually charged ambiance

Cameramen in front of the dais during a talk of Sri Kumar

Small and big photographing the fire ritual…

… while others are registering the sound, sitting in front of a canvas with a waterfall

When walking through the village where the Guru Pooja celebrations took place, we repeatedly saw a naked man crawling through the dust of the street – a mentally disabled person. In Western countries they would have taken him away and placed him in a mental hospital or some home – with professional care, but away from his familiar surrounding.

Here nobody seemed to take note of him, it was totally normal: He was playing with the dust or some sticks, while chicken were running around of him and cows eating from the garbage bin. People were sitting in front of their doors, chatting or pursuing some activity. The motor rickshaws passed around the man like around a street dog, and he seemed not to take notice of them, living in his own world. Worlds within worlds.

Four days ago we went to the Simhachalam temple beautifully located on the hill above the village where the Guru Pooja festival took place. Through rows of shops and beggars we entered the temple, went through the outer and inner parts into the innermost, where in a dark room there is a huge lingam – an oval shaped stone representing the power of divine will – covered with yellow and orange cloths. The group stood around the silver shrine, in which a priest conducted a little ceremony for us: He waved some camphor light around the lingam and offered the light to us, as a sign of inner purification through fire. He gave some flowers and water to each one of us.

We then went around the temple, the walls of which are covered with sculptures with numerous lion-figures (Simhachalam means Lion temple, the temple of the Lion of the Heart, where the sign of Leo is located) and scenes from the 10 avataras of Lord Vishnu. When leaving the temple, some sweets were distributed as “prasad” – gift after a ceremony.

Afterwards we went down the stairs into the valley. The way runs along huge banyan trees with their air-roots hanging all around, little shrines and statues, and the air was filled with some rhythmic Indian music – a beautiful scenery.

Beggars on the way to the temple, waiting for pilgrims

In front of Simhachalam temple

The seat of the Lion in the inner court of the temple

The Narasimha-Avatar of Lord Vishnu – the Man-Lion, symbol of opening the heart centre

The way down to the valley

At the moment I’m sitting in a little village about 35 km outside Visakhapatnam, in Simhachalam, an old temple village, where for 3 days the Guru Pooja celebrations of the World Teacher Trust are being helt, in honour of the great Masters of Wisdom. Ever since 1962 these celebrations have been done here, and people from different states of India as well as our group of about 35 Westerners are attending. There are approx.3-4.000 people around, participating in the rituals or listening to the talks of our spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar.

Today’s topic was “Spiritual Fusion of East and West”. All Western members were invited this morning for the group meditation to come to the stage, in front of the large open air hall (there is a huge space between two rows of houses, which is covered by a long palaquin). Afterwards there was a lecture – in Telugu, like most of the lectures here. Though I don’t understand anything, I enjoy being in this atmosphere charged with spiritual energies. It is very relaxing for the mind – and sometimes I also fell comfortably asleep on the chair 🙂

After breakfast there was a water ritual in honour of the divine aspect of Will, expressed here in form of a lingam- an oval shaped stone. Water was poured over the lingam and afterwards it was decorated with flowers, accompanied by the rhythmic chanting of mantric songs. A very uplifting energy charged the atmosphere, while the ceremony went on for about 1.5 hours.

Afterwards there was the presentation of new publications. I was asked to come unto the stage, together with Dr. Kumar and Navaneetam. Navaneetam was presenting the different books – again mostly in Telugu. Then the people who had worked with the publication of the different books came to the stage and unveiled the parcel with the fresh publications. In all there were 16 different publications, mainly in Telugu, but some in English, and one even in German, my mother tongue.

Then I was asked to speak a bit about the work I’m doing with electronic communication. I explained how several impulses I got from Sri Kumar had developed over the years in an astonishing way, such as the newsletter “The Lunar Messenger” or the activity of the last months with the lectures and powerpoint presentations on “Meditation – Experiment and Experience” (I have written about it in several previous blogposts…).

Now the afternoon pause is coming to a close, and you can already hear the sounds of a musical presentation. So I’ll come to a close for today.

Of course inner and outer purity don’t always agree. You can have a clean carpet with a lot of ugly things hidden below, and also reat inner purity can hide under a cover of seeming filth. It’s not always easy to distinguish both.

This afternoon I had a little walk down to the seaside at Visakhapatnam. Along the roads the open waste water channels were filled with garbage, and where they flew into the ocean, litter also decorated the greyish-black way of the waste waters, with the particular smell of rotten materials… Though in the early morning people are sweeping the nearby streets, all kinds of papers and plastics are decorating free spaces. Some dogs were searching their food in a garbage container, which was surrounded by rubbish. Of course at home in Switzerland, which is famous for cleanliness, the littering is getting more and more a problem of the cities, too.

On the other hand here in India you see little idols decorated with flowers at many corners. And on the rickshaws you find prayers or pictures of saints and gods, being an expression of spirituality present in everyday life. But where do outer and inner beauty and purity meet?

A garbage container with stray dogs opposite a little street altar

Yesterday afternoon I accompanied my wife and some other ladies on a shopping tour in the centre of Visakhapatnam. They wanted to buy some punjabis – ladies’ dresses. We took two motor rickshaws and started with our adventure.

We started in the biggest shopping mall – and we were not the only persons there: many Indian ladies wanted to get a new dress for the coming Pongal (New Year) festivities. Tissues in bright colours all over, mostly decorated with exquisite floral motives. How poor are the motives you find in a normal Swiss shop…

The full shops – and children playing hide-and-seek in between the clothes racks.

However, the sizes of the average Indian ladies aren’t the same than of European ones’… And so in spite of a lot of trying on, the result in the first shop was meagre. One of our ladies therefore preferred to buy a tissue and get a tailor do the job.The others continued with me to the next store, and then another one and another… Finally we found some dresses for all. My head reeled, and when we returned for evening meditation, it took only a few minutes that I fell asleep.

Our arrival at the WTT retreat centre in Visakhapatnam, India, happened to be on the day of Capricorn new moon – or, as it is counted in India, Sagittarius new moon. We were invited to join a water ritual at the World Teacher Temple: In the course of the ceremony water was poured over some lingams -egg-shaped stones symbolising the manifestation of divine will out of the space waters or cosmic ether -accompanied by rhythmic singing of mantrams. Later the lingams were decorated with flowers and with some cream of chalk. It was a very elevating and soul-stirring ambiance to experience the vibrations of the ritual on the veranda under a tree top, the night sky above. Sometimes a few persons from the paediatric hospital next door looked through the windows – a peaceful and totally normal scene hard to imagine in a European setting.

Decorated lingam at the end of the water ritual

After the ceremony was over, some delicious rice was distributed as a “Prasad”. Then we left with some Indian friends to the compound of Mithila East, where we participated in a New Moon meditation. At Mithila East there is a free school of the WTT for fishermen’s children plus a free homoeopathic dispensary and a vocational training centre.

The brother of our spiritual teacher explained to us the meditation structure: Visualising Mount Kailash, the spiritual centre located in Tibet, which is said to be the dwelling of Lord Shiva, the embodiment of divine will, with Lake Manasasarovar in the back, representing the quiet mind, keeping on looking at Mount Kailash and receiving the energy of the assembled Great Ones and distributing it to the surrounding, especially to people in need. The profound silence of the meditation elevated all to the sublimes spheres of the no-moon time. After the meditation three beautiful panorama photo posters of Mount Kailash were given to group members, and I received one for our group.

Tired, but filled with serene peace we returned back to the centre.

View of Mount Kailash, photo of a friend, summer 2005

It seems that the announced blogging pause isn’t that long, since in the retreat centre of the WTT where we are staying for the next time there is now a wireless access.

Sunday morning our trip to India started with a train ride to Zurich airport, where at the terminal already the stewardesses of Emirates Airlines with their typical head-dresses gave us a little oriental taste, though most of them probably weren’t Arabs…

Much more Arab, however, was the ambiance at Dubai Airport, with all the artificial palm trees, decorations and the dresses of the passengers.

But it was just a short stopover to the next destinations, Chennai (and in between we enjoyed looking some of the many films in the plane, for which I normally don’t take time…).

At Chennai Airport things had changed a lot since I was there 2 years ago: the hall of the international terminal had been redone – all in shining marble and white. The transport chains for the luggage were also new – though it seemed that the construction wasn’t that perfect: Since the luggage came a bit to fast down a slide, a person was sitting there controlling that the suitcases go on in the right way – a new job created?

Very new were the planes of the new Kingfisher Airlines, with a top service, much better than what I was used to at the national airline, though a bit we missed the typical “Indian” charme: Western music came out of the loudspeakers and here the stewardesses were dressed exactly like their colleagues in Europe – though in a bit spicy red.

Again a 1.5 hours jump and finally we landed in Visakhapatnam.

Murthy, the good spirit of the retreat centre, was already waiting there to pick us up with a Toyota fourwheeler, and now we had really arrived in India, with a the smells, the traffic rush, the sounding of horns and the many colours engulfing us from all sides.