The first few days of living outside the Sri Ramanasramam at our new apartment felt a bit like I’d been pushed out of the nest or kicked out of heaven and rudely thrown back into regular life despite my wishes. Immediately on reconnecting to my clients I learned that two of my projects had gone into a bit of a crisis mode that’ll keep me working heavily at the computer through most of December, cutting back drastically on my available time for meditation, self-inquiry, blogging, and exploring Tiruvannamalai. And nice and new as our apartment is, a new construction site …
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india
Matthew and I have been staying at ashram housing since we arrived in Tiruvannamalai. It’s in high demand, and is by donation, so you can only stay a limited stretch; we’ve been allowed a week, which is pretty good, partly because we’ve also both volunteered to help with the website a little while we’re here. We’re given three meals a day (plus tea, of course). We have a little room, sparse and bare, with two fairly hard single beds and a small desk, in the most desirable section of ashram housing; private, closest to the mountain, furthest from the street. …
And now India is happening! The second you step outside here, BOOM, it’s full-on. Bali was refined and polite, like a gentle stream trickling through the forest, but India is immediately a rushing river full of all the extremes of life, filth and transcendence all swirling together. The flights on Air Asia were just shy of abysmal. I don’t expect a free meal on such a cheap flight, but charging for water is inhuman; even cattle in transport get free water occasionally. Not being able to put your seats back is pretty unpleasant on a four-hour flight (we were in …