79 Traveling India 3

So many on the path to awakening are curious about traveling to India.  Many would like to go but are not sure how or what to do once there.  This four-part series is designed to give you a starting place.  We describe a bit of the spirit and culture of India.  What to expect and possibly where to start if you decide to travel to India.  Interesting even if you do not.   William has been to India 14 times averaging 12 weeks per visit.  He has also explored spirituality in Bhutan, Thailand, and Brazil.  He gives a general description of travel in India in parts 1 - 3 and practical tips for travel in part 4.  

These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.

www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.

Transcript

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Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. How are you doing today? I hope well. We were talking about India and we've had two podcasts already. It's a big subject and I'm going to leave out so many things I know, but I'm just trying to give you a flavor of India. In this podcast, I'm going to talk about some of the places I've been, and why, and what I experienced. My focal point in India has turned out to be a small village called Tiruvannamalai down south below Chennai. It's sort of straight south of Chennai is the French protectorate, Pond to Cherry. It's right on the coast. Chennai is also on the coast across from Sri Lanka. You would fly into Chennai to get to Tiruvannamalai and then get a taxi to Tiruvannamalai, which is somewhere sort of if there was a triangle between Chennai and Pond to Cherry down south and then out directly perpendicular to Pond to Cherry, two hours in would be Tiruvannamalai. So the reason why I like to go to Tiruvannamalai is because it's a spiritual center and there are so many awakened authentic gurus there and so many different ashrams. It's just, that's where the brain surgeons are. Now they're everywhere in India, and by brain surgeons, I mean the specialists in awakening. They're everywhere in India, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but there's a lot in Tiruvannamalai. It's such a powerful place and having been in Tiruvannamalai so many times now, I've met so many different people who have traveled like I have, and like me, they usually end up coming back to Tiruvannamalai and saying, wow, I had this great experience in this place, that place, and the other place, but in the end, the most powerful place is Tiruvannamalai. So that's where I'm coming back to. So that's my focal point, and by the way, that focal point is in that book that I told you about. It ends up being in Tiruvannamalai, that book, In Search of a Secret India by Paul Brunton. I would read that. He also goes all over India, so you get it both, but you'll get a flavor of what I'm talking about in Tiruvannamalai. The woman, Shiva Shakti, in the last podcast that just looks through your body, she's in Tiruvannamalai. Omama was in Tiruvannamalai, and it just goes on and on and on. I couldn't mention all the people. All of the sadhus, Tiruvannamalai, so many. I mean, they're all over India, but lots in Tiruvannamalai. Every full moon, you walk around the mountains. Tiruvannamalai is built around a mountain called Arunachala that is said to be the embodiment of Shiva, one aspect of the divine, and this is the fire aspect, this aspect of Shiva, and it burns away your blocks and problems. That's not always a pleasant experience, but it does accelerate your spiritual growth. Anyway, every full moon, you can walk around the mountain at night under the full moon, and it's supposed to be a major blessing. You just do your own work, blessing or not, but it's got to be a blessing. I mean, it's such a high place, why not have it be a blessing? And I do believe it is, but really, I found that what you do yourself, your spiritual practice, that's what's going to move you forward. And after being so long with my guru that I've talked about in other podcasts, and he said, go out on your own now, I moved from the umbrella and the experience of awakening through his energy onto awakening through my own energy and my own incarnation, and that required lots of work. It did require lots of work to stay with his energy, just to stay with it, but in the end, you have to do the work, however you look at it, and eventually you have to have your own awakening. Anyway, Theravanamalai is a very good place for this. If you go to Theravanamalai, I would recommend staying at the Ramana Ashram, and I'll talk about more of that in the next podcast. You can stay for, let's say a week, and then you can get a guest house for maybe $10 a night nearby. I mean, a five-minute walk, 10-minute walk to the ashram. But in Theravanamalai, both animate and inanimate objects are radiating, bringing you to your highest self, and then you help melt your blocks from there. From Theravanamalai, I've been to many places, Pondicherry, straight across, that's where Sri Aurobindo's ashram is. Very powerful, highly recommend that. Whether you stay there or not, just go there and sit next to his tomb. One of the early years that I was in India, I would go see gurus that had influenced me through their writings or their reputation, such as Ramesh Balsakar, who was the disciple of Nisargadatta. Nisargadatta has a book called I Am That, very powerful. Ramesh Balsakar was his translator. He also became awakened, and he wrote many books. I liked his book Pointers from Nisargadatta. I saw him, and he put me on the hot seat for days, where I could ask questions, or he could ask me questions, and we would go back and forth, and it was an amazing experience. India's like this. You just go, no charge. You just go. You can leave a donation. Don't ask for one, but you can. People are all very open-hearted. He has since passed away, so you can't see him. Leonard Cohen saw him as well, the same time I was, but draws lots of people from all over the world, these gurus. I also went to Puttaparthi and saw Sai Baba, the guy with the afro, and he could do all sorts of miracles. He has also passed away. People often just go to his ashram now, even though he's not there. I don't. I don't go to either place now, but I'm just giving you a sense that these places do exist. Now, these two have passed away, but there are gurus everywhere. I have friends that see what are called siddhas. These are powerful people that can do powers, and they teach you how to have powers. Now, I mostly am not interested in powers. Let me rephrase that. I am not interested at all. Having inner peace is the biggest happiness and power I'm interested in. These powers often do happen as a side effect as you experience inner peace, because everything flows through you so powerfully, but there are places you can go, and one of the things for your spiritual path is they teach you to purify and look for the signposts and experience various powers. There are these siddhas. I also used to go up to Andhra Pradesh, which is the next state up from where Tiruvannamalai is. Tiruvannamalai is in the state of Tamil Nadu. The state just north of it is Andhra Pradesh, and that's where you can go to the Oneness University. They have a huge temple there, also very powerful, called the Oneness Temple. They call it a lot of different things. Now, this is an unusual place, very powerful, and they often will charge big prices to go through different programs. Every program I've been through has been profound, and they have changed my life. Bhagavan, my guru, is no longer there. His son now runs it, but Bhagavan is somewhere else. I'm not even sure where. He's, I think, on the other side of India, and I don't know where. It's because he's told me to go out on my own, and it's just sort of how that works. That's another story, but he's my friend, and maybe I'll do other podcasts on that. So, I don't go to the Oneness Temple, and it's not a place I would start you off at. I don't know. Other people love it, but that's a whole big discussion, so I'll just leave that alone. Another place I've been up is in the northwest of India, is a state called Guterat, and the capital of Guterat is Ahmedabad, and in Ahmedabad is a place called the Golden City, or it might be called Samandar City, and it's a Jain community that is lovely. You can go there. You can stay there. They'll feed you. I think it's around ten dollars a day. They have a giant statue of your universal soul called Samandar Swami, and you just sort of sit and meditate, and look at that, and become one with that, and feel the inner. It's giant. It's like you go up. If you go touch Samandar Swami, I think you might come up. I don't even know that you come to his kneecap, but you're in an ashram, and he's right there, and there's not many people there, and you meditate, and the gardens are lovely, flowers and grass, and the food is great, and it's just a good place to meditate. Now, they believe in instant enlightenment, so periodically they will give a transmission, the guru that's there now. It was founded by a guru, Dada Bhagavan, and he has handed down this transmission, and you can go there again free, and they will give you the transmission if you're there when they're doing it. That's supposed to bring you to awakening, like my guru. They also had a transmission, the Oneness Diksha, the Oneness Blessing, that brings you to awakening, and it profoundly changed my life, and I've had both transmissions, but with both of these, I find that they're powerful. They open stuff up, but in the end, it's your incarnation. There's a reason for you being on this earth. You need to walk your own path and do your own work. Somebody can't just touch you on the head and awaken you, even if they think they can, and okay, I'll leave it open. Maybe somebody has been awakened. Maybe lots of people have been. I'm talking about my experience, so let's just say that you're hearing about my experience. That's all. So, since I go to Theravanamalai mostly, let's go back there and talk for a few more moments about it. As I mentioned, on every full moon, you can walk around the mountain, and there will be like hundreds of thousands of people that come from all over India to do this. It's a very powerful experience. Ramana lived in Theravanamalai, a very powerful awakened saint that I've talked about in other podcasts as well. You can climb the mountain, and it's only about a 30-minute walk, and you can be at his cave where he lived in silence. He wouldn't talk for maybe 10 years. He was just in silence in the cave. You can be in there, and you can meditate as long as you want in that cave. He has three caves on that mountain at least. Later, as it happens, his mother moved in with him from his hometown, because by that time, he had become a powerful guru. So, she moves in with him, and well, you know what it's like to with your mother. I suppose it gave him a deepening. Anyway, he gave that cave to his mother, and he moved down to another cave a little bit further down the mountain, and that's where he lived for some time. That is an extremely powerful cave. I think it's more powerful than the first one. The first one is called Skandar Ashram, and the second one is Vipakshana Ashram. Then, if you go past Vipakshana Cave, there's one called the Mango Cave, and that is not actually owned by the ashram, so it's not promoted by them, but it's also very powerful. It's privately owned, and you can go there, and there's no charge. You could leave a donation for the maintenance of the cave, and generally, you'll be the only one there at the Mango Cave. In between Vipakshana Cave and the Mango Cave, you'll pass a little temple. There are bigger temples, and it's about a 10-minute walk between the two caves, but you'll pass a little temple. I can't even remember who it's to. You'll see it, and whoa, that's a powerful temple. The swami may be close by and give you a blessing, and you could give him 10 rupees. That's worth about 20 cents, I think. He will give you a blessing, and oh my goodness, very powerful, chanting and so on and so forth, and you will feel it. India, again, is like this. It's everywhere, and I found that little temple because as I was walking to Mango Cave, the swami came out and asked if I wanted a blessing, and we talked. I said sure, and he gave me one, and you feel it or you don't, and I did. So, I would return there every time I walked to the Mango Cave. So, when you go by these little temples after a while, you realize, well, this one didn't do a whole lot for me, and this one did, and you'd let your heart be your guide. It's very intuitive and experiential. In Theravanamalai, they also have a giant Shiva temple. It's huge. I could say it's a quarter mile square, a quarter square mile, or I don't think it would be a half mile, but it's very big, and inside are lots of other temples, and there are these four giant pyramids to Shiva on each side of the temple, and they have giant festivals in there and all sorts of things going on during festival time. Otherwise, you can walk in and hardly anything is going on but you sit in some of these temples or places within the Shiva temple, and some are more powerful than others, and you just let your heart be your guide, your intuition. Just go to where you feel something. The very innermost place, I like to sit right outside the innermost sanctuary on the outside wall through the gate and just up against the backside of the inner temple, and I find that very powerful. Why? Because I've walked all over that temple and I find different powerful places. Now, lots of powerful places in that temple, but that's why you go to India. It's powerful. Again, Bhutan, a lot of that too, but India, it's very easily accessible. I'll tell you another thing that tells you a little bit about the Indian mindset. They're always seeming to have a law, and I alluded to this before with the policemen, but in reference to this temple, they would have a big sign. You could go into the temple, but when you got to the holy of holies, the middle place, there was a big sign, no foreigners and no non-Hindus allowed. They wanted it to be very respectful, sanctuary, very pure. They don't want tourists and sightseers and gum-chewing people with camera. They don't want any of that, and they are armed guards, soldiers, and they run your bags through a metal detector, x-ray machine, all of that stuff. So they have this sign, and here I am, a tall white guy, obviously not Indian, but I had the deepest sincerity. I was at India because this was my calling, and I would go from place to place and really soak it in. That's where I was on the inside. Now, how do they know that? But when I show up to that sign, they take my stuff, they x-ray it and all that, and straight through. Never got stopped once, even though the sign clearly said I couldn't come in. They always just waved me through. I talked to other foreigners, and often they didn't get through. Some never got through. India's like that. They have rules, but they see with their heart, and so they are very kind. They are very intuitive, and the highest thing in India is spirituality, and they love somebody who loves spirituality. They love somebody like that. When I go to India, often a taxi driver or a rickshaw driver, they might say, who is your favorite god? And whoever you say, they will smile, and they just say, oh, very good, very good, they love that. Or you can ask them, who's your favorite god? And they will tell you, and it could be Jesus, it could be Ganesh, it could be who knows who, they could be Muslim, it could be anything, but they just love the divine. It lights them up, and then the other thing they'll ask you is, good sir, how do you like India? And I just tell them the truth. I love India. It's my favorite country. I love India, and oh my goodness, it looks like they have become the happiest person on earth. They are beaming and smiling. Very good, very good. You love India. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Where are you from, good sir? I'm from the United States. Oh, thank you. You love India. Have you been here before? Yes, 13 times. Oh, 13 times, oh my goodness. That's India. The food, it's wonderful. Mostly, it's vegetarian. There are cows walking around in the streets. You have to work at it if you're trying to get meat, but it's wonderful food. You eat with your hands. You eat with your right hand because your left hand is used for your toiletry. Indian-style toilets, that's what freaks everybody out. Freaks me out. A hole in the ground with two footprints. You get the idea, but most places do have western toilets, so don't let that be a problem for you. It's very rare to be stuck only with that option of an Indian toilet. However, oddly enough, I'll tell you, I eventually ended up where all I had was an Indian toilet. I've been so many times, so you know sooner or later that's going to happen. It happened for a long stretch. I came to perhaps prefer that kind of toilet. It's much more hygienic. You just have to get through your freaky stuff to get that far along. Really, India by that time has pushed every button you have. If there's a button over that, I guess it's going to find it, and that's what you're going to have to deal with. It turns out, as every other button, when it melts away, it turns out that it's just fine. All is good. Generally, there is a western toilet, so don't let that worry you. When you go, yes, everybody eats with their hands, but if you needed utensils, you can usually ask for some, and they will give you some. If you go, oh, I just can't eat with my hands, they'll give you a utensil. If you really have to have a plate instead of a banana leaf, they'll give you a plate. They can scratch up a plate. Coconuts down in Tiruvannamalai, they've got big mounds of coconuts at the side of the road. You can go get a fresh coconut for maybe $0.20, $0.30, and they'll whack off the top of the coconut and stick a straw in it, and you sip out all the coconut milk. Then they'll chop the coconut in half and scoop out the meat and put that in an open coconut shell and give that to you, and then you eat that too. If you want a coconut mainly with water and no meat, when they ask you what kind of coconut you want, you say you want one for drinking, and if you want it to have both, you say drinking and eating, and if you mainly just want the meat and not the water, you just say for eating. Chai, you can get a glass of chai for about $0.20 on the side of the road. They've got all these chai shops. It's safe. You drink water. You'll drink bottled water. They have it everywhere you buy water. Very safe. Never drink the tap water, but the chai, they boil the water, so it's all safe, and most restaurants in a place like Tiruvannamalai where you have a lot of tourists, a lot of Europeans and things like that, they cook in a very hygienic way because they don't want everybody getting sick, so even though it's a third world country, the food is very clean and good as long as you go to good known restaurants. Don't eat street food and stuff like that in general. Coconuts are fine, of course, or chai or coffee and things like that. Ask other people that are there, and they'll guide you to good restaurants. As I said, they're very inexpensive. Well, okay, let me do another podcast right now on the travel aspects. We kind of got into a little just now in my enthusiasm, but let me do the next podcast on that, and we'll get a little more deeply in these do's and don'ts. Okay, look forward to talking to you soon. Take care. Bye.