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Welcome to this blog about my activities here in Tiruvannmalai in 2011.
Here you can see a friend who came to the AVS school here in the village to teach just one class to all the kids at once. His name is Suria Neelam, from France. We have been playing together with other friends last winter here.
He studied bamboo flute here in India for many years. and he has been teaching in several schools. |
I still like to walk around the 'Holy mountain' , Arunachala with my friends. Here is Haitia from Bask-country and Kyoko from Japan. We walk 2 hours in the nature and one hour on the road and come back to Ramana ashram. I like to do this several times a week. Always different friends join me. We eat and drik tea on the way, or go for a swim in the forest. That way it takes some times more than 4 hours to walk around Arunachala.
A hibiscus flower in our garden. I have started to water the gardens in our compound a lot more than before and now the result is visible. It's much greener and we have more happy trees and flowers.
A cleanup trip up to the top of the mountain. With a group of mainly locals we have been cleaning up the paths and nature on the mountain. We did twice this year and the Swami from Skanda ashram made breakfast for us. On our return Ramana ashram feeds us lunch.
An other flower in our gardens. I live in a compound about 3 kilometers from the mountain and 8 km from Ramana ashram and the town of Tiruvannamalai. This year I have been even more active in gardening than last year. Last year I did a lot of translating and writing. This year I did non. and was cooking a lot for gatherings with volunteers, friends and musicians in my house.
This was our last group of volunteers who climbed up the mountain to do a great clean up around the top of the mountain. It was a long hot morning but the result was good. In the centre is Shanti Kumar, in a green t-shirt, one of the driving forces in all the good projects here in Tiruvannamalai.
A recent foto of me with the father of a friend and a volunteer from The Netherlands. This was a the occasion of the ear pearcing ceremony of his grandson in Pollur , about 20 km from here. Later in this blog you can see more of this traditional earpearcing.
In Tiruvannamalai is also a great shiva-shakti temple. This a view from the the mountain. It is very exceptional in India to be allowed inside a hindu temple. This temple you can enter to the centre and even do your ritual. Until now they are very welcoming to every one. It will be because Ramana Maharishi started his spiritual life in this temple. And many people from different countries and religions have come to Tiruvannamalai to visit his grave and old ashram. Ramana meditated many years in this temple before he moved to the caves on the mountain and later to what is now Ramana ashram.
The view of Arunachala mountain from the roof of my house. From this side the mountaintop looks like the head of an elephant, with his trunk going to the left. The mountain represents shiva in the form of a colum of light, or consciousness. Once a year there is a big butterlamp burning on the top for a week.
A tipical village shrine under a tree.
