Rainy Days during Deepam Festival

So far 2010 Arunachala Deepam has been beset by heavy rains. Below a couple of very nice 'rainy' photographs taken during this year's Festival at one of the Arunachaleswarar Temple tanks.

Deepam Festival Preparations

Tomorrow at dusk at 6.05 p.m. (November 21, 2010) the Deepam cauldron will be lit on top of Arunachala. Below is a pictorial vignette of some of the Temple preparations preceding the Deepam Festival.

Street Processions

Below a pictorial snapshot of the first few days of 2010 Arunachala Deepam. Most days there are processions in both the morning and evening. To see the Festival schedule click on this link here.

Just to get the party going, a beautifully adorned Ruku, the lovely lady Arunachaleswarar Temple elephant.








Priests and workers in all the Arunachaleswarar Temple shrines are busier than usual maintaining puja implements.








Even though Deepam Festival is going forward nicely, there are still roadworks underway on outlying streets, in preparation for the huge crowds expected for Bharani Deepam on Sunday, November 21.






Certain towns in India were created as a consequence of the presence of a Temple. In the case of Arunachaleswarar Temple, Tiruvannamalai initially grew around it in support of the slow development of the massive 26 acre Temple compound. Originally streets surrounding Arunachaleswarar Temple were inhabited by priests, artisans, labourers and tradespeople, all working in the creation and maintenance of the Temple.

Nowadays, the surrounding streets are no longer defined by class, caste and ocupation, however the relevance of processions through town, still play an essential role in maintaining a living relationship with ordinary folk going about their business throughout the day and Temple life.

All the following photographs are of processions that have occurred in this 2010 Deepam Festival, and are all taken OUTSIDE Arunachaleswarar Temple. The photographs are of the Gods circumbulating and giving their darshan around the 26 acre perimeter of the Temple. The radhams (chariots and floats) of the Gods, stop constantly to accept offerings from pilgrims and townfolk.

Arunachala Deepam Origins and History

To read more about the traditions and mythology of Deepam as is celebrated at Arunachala, please visit the following earlier postings on Arunachala Grace.


http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/2008/12/arunachala-deepam-festival.html

http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/2008/12/bharani-deepam-2008.html



Festival of Light

Part 1
http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/2008/11/karthigai-deepam-south-india.html


Part 2
http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/2008/12/deepam-festival-part-two.html


Part 3
http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/2008/12/deepam-festival-part-three.html


Part 4
http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com/2008/12/festival-of-light.html

Deepam Goddess

Deepam as celebrated at Arunachala, is traditionally connected with the Hill and Arunachaleswarar Temple, and the only other Arunachala Temple that ‘officially’ participates in the Deepam Festival Functions is the Durga Amman Koil..

Even though the flag hoisting at Arunachaleswarar Temple, which denotes the beginning of the Festival, took place this year on December 12th, the Festival, as always, was preceded by three days of functions dedicated to the Goddess Durga. Right click here, to see the full schedule of this year’s Festival.






The reason for this is believed to be because of the Goddess and the demon Mahisha:

read ‘The Fight with Mahishasura’:







In the Mahishasura legend, before fighting with the demon, the Goddess appointed four noble Bhairavis (celestial damsels) to keep watch on all four sides of Arunagiri. Ordering, that:

"Admit only those who have come to worship Arunachala and are tired, hungry and thirsty. Others should not enter. She then appointed strong men to guard the boundaries of Arunachala and continued Her penace at Her ashram."
[The Glory of Arunachala]

In accordance with the mythology of Arunachala, Durga is recognised as a Guardian of Arunachala and thus a precursor of the Deepam Festival is always a celebration of this aspect of the Goddess.

Vegetable Market, Thiruvoodal Street

On my way home from Sannidhi Street yesterday morning, decided to take a short cut through Tiruvoodal vegetable market. However the shortcut saved no time, as once in the market with its outlying provision stores, I started checking out the lovely, fresh green leaves and vegetables and ended up laden with delicious mint and wholegrain golden wheat. Definitely one of the best places in town.

To those visiting Tiruvannamalai, the vegetable market it a great place just to watch the world go by.


Right click on all photographs to view enlarged version

2010 Deepam

If you look through the archives of Arunachala Grace, you will find many posts and photographs of previous Deepams.

Will be posting photographs of 2010 Deepam, so check back regularly over these days of Deepam Festival.

For the time being am posting a short narrative on the Greatness and relevance of Deepam.



Greatness of Deepam Festival

Sage Gowthama said: “I shall describe to you the glory of that which liberates people from all sins and bestows all prosperity. In the mount of Karthika, on the day of the star Krittika during pradosha (i.e. thirteenth day country from the new moon/full moon) the fortunate ones who perform giripradakshina are not born again. All karmas are destroyed on performance of giripradakshina. ‘It is customary to circumambulate the Hill for a Mandela or forty days. One who is not able to do this may perform giripradakshina at least for eleven days. If even this is not possible, then one should go round the Hill on the day of Deepam. This is equivalent to performing crores of Yagnas. (one crore 10 million). He who worships the Deepam lit atop the Hill derives countless blessings. A person residing elsewhere may light lamps in front of any shrine of Siva, atop His temple towers or on the peaks of other hills and he will be blessed. Whatever may be the attitude of the devotee, the mere lighting of the lamp on this day with any type of oil available confers great merit on him.

He who has darshan of this light on Arunachala Hill acquires the merit of having performed great charity and of having bathed in the sacred rivers. Who can express in words the benefits enjoyed by the one who has darshan of the peak of Arunachala with the beacon light glowing?’

The Glory of Arunachala
[Skanda Upapuranam]




Deepam Festival – Another Legend:

Long ago, King Vajresan of Panchala who was childless, was blessed with a son after having darshan of the Arunachala Deepam in the month of Kartika. The son was named Shatrujith. The prince grew up to be lecherous man. He once eloped with the wife of a Vedic scholar and came to Tiruvannamalai and entered the Temple of Arunachaleswarar.

It was the day of the festival of the beacon. The paramour made a wick out of her sari and lit the lamp with castor oil. At that moment the Vedic scholar came there and in a fit of rage stabbed his wife and the prince. And in turn the prince killed him.

Since it was a gruesome murder committed in the sacred precincts of the Temple the three were about to be taken to hell by the messengers of Yama, lord of death. At that moment the messengers of Siva intervened and claimed the prince and the woman as their own and took them to the abode of Siva. Their blasphemous acts were condoned by Arunachala Himself because the wife made a wick and the prince helped her to light the lamp for the Supreme Lord.

But the Vedic scholar was puzzled, as he was held by the messengers of Yama. The prince, moved by the plight of the Vedic scholar, ordered the vessel used for lighting the Karthika lamp to release the scholar. Immediately the Vedic scholar was liberated. Thus all the three, despite their misdeeds, were taken to the abode of Siva, as the merit gained by the simple act of lighting a lamp on Kartika day in his Temple outweighed their devilish acts.

The Glory of Arunachala
[Skanda Upapuranam]

Karthigai Deepam Festival Schedule

This morning the Flag Hoisting Ceremony at Arunachaleswarar Temple marked the first day of 2010 Karthigai Deepam Festival. To those thinking of visiting Tiruvannamalai during the Festival, below is the full Festival Schedule.

Hope to post photographs from various days and functions of the Festival on Monday.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Festival: Sri Durgai Amman Utsavam

Evening: Vimana


Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Festival: Sri Pidari Utsavam

Evening: Simha Vahana


Thursday, November 11, 2010
Festival: Anughnai, Vigneshwara Poja, Vaasthu Shanthi Mrithsangrahanam

Evening: Sri Vinayagar Velli Mooshiga Vahana


Friday, November 12, 2010 -- Festival: 1st Day
Morning: Dwajaroghanam (Hosting of religious flag of the festival), Panchamoorthies Five Deities Silver Chariot

Evening: Panchamoorthies Mooshigam Mayil (Peacock), Silver Adihara Nandi (Bull), Hamsam and other Small Rishaba Chariots.


Saturday, November 13, 2010 -- Festival: 2nd Day
Morning: Sri Vinayagar, Sri Chandrasekara Vimana's (Chariots) and Suryapirai Vahanam

Evening: Panchamoorthies Silver Indra Vimana (Chariots)


Sunday, November 14, 2010 -- Festival: 3rd Day
Morning: Sri Vinyagar, Sri Chandrasekara Vimana’s, Boodha Vahana and 1008 Sangabhishekam

Evening: Panchamoorthies, Simha Vahana (Lion Chariot), Velli Anna Vahana


Monday, November 15, 2010 -- Festival: 4th Day
Morning: Sri Vinayagar, Sri Chandrasekara and Naga Vimana’s

Evening:Panchamoorthies, Velli Karpagha Viruksham (Auspicious tree which will fulfill your wishes), Velli Kamadhenu Vahana and other Velli Vahana’s


Tuesday, November 16, 2010 -- Festival: 5th Day
Morning: Sri Vinayagar, Sri Chandrasekara, Mushigam, Kannadi Rishaba Vahana’s

Evening: Panchamoorthies, Velli Mushigam, Velli Mayil, Velli Big Rishaba Vahana’s


Wednesday, November 17, 2010 -- Festival: 6th Day
Morning: Sri Vinayagar, Sri Chandrasekara, Mushigam, Velli Yanai, 63 Nayanmar’s Vimana’s

Evening: Panchamoorthies in Silver Chariot, Indira Vimana and other Silver Vimana’s


Thursday, November 18, 2010 -- Festival: 7th Day
Morning: Panchamoorthies in Maha Radha’s (Big wooden Chariots)

Evening: Panchamoorthies Reaching Aasthana Mandab in Chariot’s


Friday, November 19, 2010 -- Festival: 8th Day
Morning: Sri Vinayagar, Sri Chandrasekara Silver Chariot

Evening: Panchamoorthies start with Horse Vahanams. Pichandavar in Golden Meru


Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- Festival: 9th Day
Morning: Sri Vinayagar, Sri Chandrasekara Glass Vimanam

Evening: Panchamoorthies Kailasa Vahanam, Kamadenu - Cow of plenty Raveneswaram Vahanam etc


Sunday, November 21, 2010 -- Festival: 10th Day
Morning 4'o clock: Bharani Deepam in the Temple and Theerthavaari in Brahma Theertham

Evening 6'o clock: Maha Deepam on the top of the holy mountain.
Night: Panchamoorthies, Golden Rishaba Vahana’s


Monday, November 22, 2010
Festival: Theppam (Holy Boating)
Evening: At 7.00 PM Sri Chandrasekarar Theppam And Giri Pradakshanam by Sri Chandrashekara with Sri Abithakujalambal


Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Festival: Theppam (Holy Boating)
Evening: At 7.00 PM Sri Parashakthi Amman Theppam


Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Festival: Theppam (Holy Boating)
Evening: At 7.00 PM Sri Subramania Boating Festival


Thursday, November 25, 2010
Evening: Sri Chandikeswarar Festival, Sri Chandikeswarar Utsavam, Rishaba Vahanam (Silver Bull)

Deepavali Blessings from the Goddess at Arunachala

WISHING ALL, GRACE AND LIGHT DURING
THIS JOYOUS FESTIVAL

Lord Arunachaleswarar and Goddess Unamulai

Goddess Shrine at Arunachaleswarar Temple

Goddess Rajarajeshwari,
Shrine on Girivalam Roadway

Goddess Rajarajeshwari

Goddess Durga Amman Temple

Goddess Periyar Karuamman Temple

Pavala Kundru Temple, Arunachala Hill Spur

Goddess Pachaiamman Temple,
South East Arunachala

Sylvia Wright Tiruvannamalai

In line with earlier posts appearing on Arunachala Grace on Westerners living at Tiruvannamalai, the following narrative is the story of Sylvia Wright, a Health Care Professional, currently residing at Tiruvannamalai. Sylvia Wright is the Founder and Director of Rangammal Hospital. The following narrative originally appeared in a U.K. publication.



Sylvia Wright was living the comfortable life of someone at the top of their profession when she decided to give up everything to help strangers on the other side of the world.

'We don't have seasons like this in India, we just have hot, hotter and hottest," says Sylvia Wright, smiling as she surveys the blossom trees, budding branches and colourful blooms of an English spring. "So being back here and seeing the flowers coming out is beautiful. I still think of it as home and I know people think I might come back for good. But just as I didn't really plan it when I went out there, I'm not really planning to come back."

Sylvia Wright, Rangammal Hospital

Twenty-eight years ago, Sylvia Wright was living a short distance from here in Adel. A senior lecturer training future nurses at Leeds Metropolitan University, she lived a comfortable life with a wide circle of friends. But slowly the feeling began to gnaw at her that she could, and should, be doing more. "My father's family were farmers and had a lovely place in East Keswick," she recalls, in an accent that still marks her out as a native of Yorkshire. "I thought, I can live here and not do any harm to anybody. But then you think, Well, you won't do any good either, will you?"

The idea to do something extraordinary had taken root some years earlier, when she worked with immigrants arriving from Pakistan and other parts of Asia. Sylvia became fascinated by their culture and, when they spoke of the wonders she could work among the poor and sick in their own countries, she started to consider a very drastic change of career. "I began to feel that my life here was a very comfortable life and so for at least a few years I would go and try to help people less fortunate than myself. I sold my house and car, as well as the property in East Keswick, and went to India. People thought it was very strange and that I was quite mad. And, at times, I suppose I thought I was maybe a bit mad myself. My brother, in particular, used to get very exasperated. He used to say to me, 'Why can't you just be normal like everyone else?' Everybody had a view about it, and it was totally different from mine. But once I'd made up my mind to do it, that was it."

Sylvia headed to Tiruvannamalai in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, about a four-hour drive from Chennai, formerly Madras. It is a sacred city that attracts pilgrims from all over the world and Sylvia knew of an order of nuns with a small hospital there. "First of all I wrote to Mother Theresa, because she was the only name I knew and I thought she would be able to guide me. But she suggested that I enter the order and I decided that wasn't for me, so I went to this place in Tamil Nadu and found that it was mostly a rural area and the people were living in these desperately poor villages. At that time it hadn't really rained for four years, so people were not able to work in the fields. It was a very sad place and I thought I could do something to help them. The idea was to stay five years, then I'd come back and would be young enough to take up my career again, but of course it didn't quite work out like that."

Rangammal Hospital Dispensary

Sylvia began working in six villages, training local people in preventive medicine and how to detect the first signs of disease. But soon she was getting a lot of questions from curious officials who wondered who this woman was and what exactly she was doing there. "They were used to white people going out there to convert people to a particular religion and assumed I was doing the same," she says. "When they realised I wasn't doing that they decided I must be a spy. "I told them, 'What is there to spy on in Tiruvannamalai? A few cows?' "Fortunately the British High Commission got involved and gradually the officials came to realise I was just trying to do something to help the people."

She would visit the villages daily, seeing up to 400 patients a day, until the villagers asked if she had thought of setting up a small hospital. "And that's how it all started," she says. "And from there it just grew and grew." By 2002 the small hospital with room for barely a dozen patients had become a 200-bed building with 13 wards, an intensive care unit and two operating theatres. Today, the hospital treats around 8,000 patients a year, as well as 80,000 outpatients. A school for the region's many deaf children was opened in 1996, followed by a vocational training centre, clinics for health matters ranging from cardiac conditions to Aids and a centre for training local nurses.

Unsurprisingly, the money Sylvia had taken with her quickly ran out, so she was indebted to a group of friends back in Leeds who, from very early on, sent what they could to help fund her work. That eventually became the Sylvia Wright Trust, which is now a registered charity and this year provided nearly £400,000 to support her efforts. "I didn't have a five-year plan or anything like that," she smiles. "I would make it up as I went along really, much to people's horror. I used to write home and they would think, 'What's she doing now?' "But each thing has been in response to what appeared to be a need and people asking if I could do something. And there is always something saying to me, 'This is not enough. You can do more'."

Sylvia says she has been helped in her work by her strong Catholic faith, which was one of the reasons for her going to India all those years ago. "Christianity has always intrigued me," she says. "What exactly does it mean? So I read what our Lord says and decided that what he described was the way I wanted to live, 'Go and sell all that you have, give it to the poor and follow me'. "I just thought that if I'm going to live then that's the way I want to do it. It hasn't always been easy, especially at the beginning, because it is a totally different culture and way of living. A couple of times I thought, I'm going, I can't do this anymore. Once I even got into the van and started off for Chennai, but about halfway there I turned round and came back again. Everybody's life has ups and downs, but basically I know this is my job, this is my duty and you get on with it."

Rangammal Hospital Chapel

Sylvia has never married, despite being tempted 'once or twice', and her time is now taken up by the heavy workload that comes with coordinating a staff of 400 and working with the Indian government to improve healthcare in the region. When she says that none of what she has done has been with the thought of personal reward in mind it is impossible not to believe her. Nevertheless, she does admit she enjoyed having a chat with the Queen, just the two of them, when she received her MBE. "The Queen came on an official visit to India and presented it to me personally. Of course, everyone said, 'Only you could have the Queen come to you rather than you go to her!' But for my OBE I came back because I thought I would like to have a look at Buckingham Palace and see what it was like."

Deaf School, Tiruvannamalai

Sylvia sees the forthcoming years as ones of consolidation, ensuring that the infrastructure her hard work has put in place can remain in place long after she has gone. As for her own plans, she is less sure. "I have always lived without planning and I think I will probably die in the same way," she says. "But whatever happens, I will take it in my stride."

[With thanks to the U.K. Yorkshire Evening Post]

Interview with David Godman

With the kind permission of David Godman, below is an abridged extract from an interview with him conducted by Rob Sacks. David Godman is regarded as the foremost living authority on the life and teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi and has written and edited a number of books in this respect.



“I was born in 1953 in Stoke-on-Trent, a British city of about 300,000, located about halfway between Birmingham and Manchester. My father was a schoolmaster and my mother was a physiotherapist who specialised in treating physically handicapped children. Both of my parents are dead. I have one sister who is a year older than me. She is a former professional mountaineer who now teaches mountain and wilderness skills and occasionally leads groups to exotic and inaccessible places. My younger sister, now 43, teaches in a college in England, although nowadays she apparently spends most of her time monitoring the competence of other teachers, which I assume doesn't make her very popular.

I was educated at local schools and in 1972 won a place at Oxford University, where I did very little academic work, but had an enormous amount of fun. Sometime in my second year there I found myself getting more and more interested in Eastern spiritual traditions. I seemed to have an insatiable hunger for knowledge about them that resulted in massive bookstore bills, which I couldn't really afford, but not much satisfaction. Then, one day, I took home a copy of Arthur Osborne's The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi in his Own Words. Reading Ramana's words for the first time completely silenced me. My mind stopped asking questions, and it abandoned its search for spiritual information. It somehow knew that it had found what it was looking for.

I have to explain this properly. It wasn't that I had found a new set of ideas that I believed in. It was more of an experience in which I was pulled into a state of silence. In that silent space I knew directly and intuitively what Ramana's words were hinting and pointing at. Because this state itself was the answer to all my questions, and any other questions I might come up with, the interest in finding solutions anywhere else dropped away. I suppose I must have read the book in an afternoon, but by the time I put it down it had completely transformed the way I viewed myself and the world.

The experiences I was having made me understand how invalid were the academic techniques of acquiring and evaluating knowledge. I could see that the whole of academia was based on some sort of reductionism: separating something big into its little component parts, and then deriving conclusions about how the "big something" really worked. It's a reasonable approach for comprehending mechanical things, such as a car engine, but I understood - and knew by direct experience - that it was a futile way of gaining an understanding of oneself and the world we appear to be in. When I went through my academic textbooks after having these experiences, there was such a massive resistance both to their contents and to the assumptions that lay behind them, I knew I could no longer even read them, much less study them in order to pass exams. It wasn't an intellectual judgement on their irrelevance, it was more of a visceral disgust that physically prevented me from reading more than a few lines.

David Godman, Tiruvannamalai June 2010

I dropped out in my final year at Oxford, went to Ireland with my Ramana books, and spent about six months reading Ramana's teachings and practicing his technique of self-inquiry. I had just inherited a small amount from my grandmother so I didn't need to work that year. I rented a small house in a rural area, grew my own food, and spent most of my time meditating. This was 1975. At the end of that year my landlady reclaimed her house and I went to Israel. I wanted to go somewhere sunny and warm for the winter, and then return to Ireland the following spring. I worked on a kibbutz on the Dead Sea and while I was there decided I could have a quick trip to India and Ramanasramam before I went back to Ireland. I figured out the costs and realised I couldn't afford it unless another 200 Pounds appeared from somewhere. I decided that if Bhagavan wanted me to go to India, he would send me the money. Within a week I received a letter from my grandmother's lawyer saying that he had just found some shares that she owned, and that my share of them would be 200 Pounds. I came to India, expecting to stay six weeks, and have been here more or less ever since.”


Questions:

RS: You said that you spent six months practicing self-inquiry based on your reading of Sri Ramana's books. Were you able to get a good understanding of the method from your reading? I ask because this seems to be difficult for most people. Did you need to modify your understanding later when you went to Sri Ramanasramam?

DG: I did find it hard to practise self-inquiry merely by reading books simply because I did not have access to much material. I had at that time only managed to find Arthur Osborne's three books on Ramana. Though they explained most aspects of the teachings quite well, I don't think that Osborne had a good understanding of self-inquiry. He seemed to think that concentrating on the heart center on the right side of the chest while doing self-inquiry was an integral part of the process. When I later read Bhagavan's answers in books such as ‘Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi’ and ‘Day by Day with Bhagavan’, I realized that he specifically advised against this particular practice. Overall, though, I got a good grounding from these books. I had a passion to follow the practice and a deep faith in Bhagavan. I think that this elicited grace from Bhagavan and kept me on the right path. If the attitude is right and if the practice is intense enough, it doesn't really matter what you do when you meditate. The purity of intent and purpose carries you to the right place.

RS: If someone wants to learn self-inquiry, what should they read?

DG: I don't know what book I would recommend to new people who want to start self-inquiry. ‘Be As You Are’ is certainly a good start since it was designed for Westerners who have had no previous exposure to Bhagavan and his teachings. There is also a book by Sadhu Om: ‘The Path of Sri Ramana Part One’. It is a little dogmatic in places but it covers all the basic points well. Self-inquiry is a bit like swimming or riding a bicycle. You don't learn it from books. You learn it by doing it again and again till you get it right.

Arunachala brought me here in the same way it brought Ramana here. And it has kept me here for most of the last 25 years. I have occasionally left to be with teachers in other places: Nisargadatta Maharaj in Bombay, Lakshmana Swamy in Andhra Pradesh, Papaji in Lucknow, but Arunachala has always brought me back here afterwards. It's my spiritual center of gravity. I can make an effort to be somewhere else if I feel I would spiritually benefit from it, but when I stop making that effort, the natural pull of Arunachala brings me back here again. It's the only place in the world that I feel truly at home.

Arunachala has been attracting people for well over 1,500 years. Ramana liked to quote a saint of about 500 years ago who wrote in one of his verses, "Arunachala, you draw to yourself all those who are rich in jnana tapas." Jnana tapas can be translated as the extreme efforts made by those who are in search of liberation.

There are dozens of teachers nowadays who tour the world touting their experiences and their teachings. Many of them trace their lineage back to Ramana Maharshi via Papaji. And where did Ramana Maharshi's power and authority come from? From Arunachala, his own Guru and God. He explicitly stated that it was the power of Arunachala that brought about his own Self-realization. He wrote poems extolling its greatness, and in the last 54 years of his life, he never moved more than a mile and a half away from its base. So, it is the power of Arunachala that is the true source of the power that now appears as "advaita messengers" all over the world.

For me, this is the world's great power spot. Arunachala has brought about the liberation of several advanced seekers in the past few centuries, and its radiant power remains even today as a beacon for those who want to find out who they really are.

If you ask people, ‘What are Sri Ramana’s teachings?’ who have become acquainted with his life and work, you might get several answers such as "advaita" or "self-inquiry." I don't think Sri Ramana's teachings were either a belief system or a philosophy, such as advaita, or a practice, such as self-inquiry.

Sri Ramana himself would say that his principal teaching was silence, by which he meant the wordless radiation of power and grace that he emanated all the time. The words he spoke, he said, were for the people who didn't understand these real teachings. Everything he said was therefore a kind of second-level teaching for people who were incapable of dissolving their sense of "I" in his powerful presence. You may understand his words, or at least think that you do, but if you think that these words constitute his teachings, then you have really misunderstood him.

I have come to the conclusion that Bhagavan brought me to Tiruvannamalai to write about him and his disciples. I have learned this the hard way. I went back to England twenty years ago, hoping to earn enough money to come back to India and not do any work here. Nobody was willing to hire me to do anything. I even flunked an interview for picking up litter in the London zoo. But as soon as I had the idea of writing a book about Bhagavan, everything fell into place. Though I had never written anything in my life, I was given a contract by a major publisher and sent back to India to write about him. That's how, ‘Be As You Are’ came into existence.

Whenever I do work on Bhagavan or his disciples, everything goes well. Whenever I try to do something else, so many problems come up, nothing ever gets accomplished or completed.

Having learned this from experience, I have now surrendered to this destiny. I enjoy the work, and many, many people seem to appreciate the books. I asked Papaji years ago whether writing all these books on Bhagavan was a distraction for the mind.

He replied, "Any association with Bhagavan is a blessing." I took that as an instruction to carry on with the work.”

To read more about David Godman and to view a list of his published works, please visit his website at:
http://www.davidgodman.org/

Self Help Groups

The previous post on Arunachala Grace referred to Shantimalai Trust’s founder Hugo Maier. In the hope of supplying information about this remarkable Trust’s involvement in the upliftment of many in the Tiruvannamalai area, I post below a narrative on Self Help Groups.

The story of Kasa, also below, is just one of the very many success stories that the Trust has been involved in. The photographs are of local women engaged in construction and road building in Tiruvannamalai; the type of work Kasa, of the story, would have been involved.

Self Help Groups

The women's wing of Shanthimalai Research & Development Trust [SRDT] with a vision to uplift households towards self sustenance through women self-help-groups (SHGs), now comprises 64 Panchayats covering 151 villages. About 825 groups, with a representation of 14,775 women have been supported in their attempts towards self sufficiency. In addition the ambit of SRDT through other service units, covers more than 300,000 people. Below the story of Kasa, one of the many inspirational examples of attaining self-sufficiency through the support of SRDT.



Story of Kasa

"Kasa" belongs to Valar Madhar Sangham. Kasa never had proper schooling and after an early marriage and children, the means of how to sustain and improve her life and that of her growing family, was unknown to her. At this time the thought of two meals a day was just a dream.

"As a couple we used to take road contract jobs and run to different States and used to stay for months together away from home. My children were cared and reared by mother-in-law. But as a mother I had sleepless nights due to separation from children. One night I brought up my idea of starting something of our own at home town to my husband. I convinced my husband to lead better life in home town as a native than as a migrant. We came back to village and took up some petty jobs. I joined the SHG. Learnt to put my signature and felt the change in me. Through self help groups, took a loan and brought a change in my social and economic status.

Three fruitful years rolled on and enabled us to mature economically. I availed loans for milch animal; to dig well for agriculture; and to construct a small house of our own. Having fulfilled my earlier dreams of erasing poverty I started to dream for my children's future. Today, I borrowed from groups for my children’s education. Migration and poverty is no more in my life. Contributing for overall development of my village is my next idea."

Previously the demands of local people were personalized. And their expectation was marginal subsistence in a life full of drudgery. The inception of groups and membership has slowly enabled participants not only to focus on their individual and familial goals but also to remain compassionate towards others and their community. "Women during interviews often say, 'we now should do something for our Panchayat (village community)'."


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"The poor do not need charity: they need inspiration. Charity only sends them a loaf of bread to keep them alive in their wretchedness, or gives them an entertainment to make them forget for an hour or two.

What tends to do away with poverty is not the getting of pictures of poverty into your mind, but getting pictures of wealth, abundance, and possibility into the minds of the poor.

Poverty can be done away with, not be increasing the number of the rich who think about poverty, but by increasing the number of poor people who purpose with faith to get rich."

[Wallace D. Wattles]