Melukote and Conference

Wise words from Gandhiji.

Last Friday was the new moon, so there was no practice. A group of us went on a trip to a wonderful day trip to a town about 50 km away called Melukote.  This town is an important pilgrimage site in India. There are several important temples and a spring high atop a rocky hill where Rama and Sita sat to rest.  It was a wonderful day. Normally, Melukote is extremely busy with visitors and pilgrims, but we arrived early in the day and it was also a regular work day for most people.  Melukote is a small town in the hills. You travel up a narrow and winding road to get there. It reminded me a little bit of Dharamsala way up in the Himalayas, but the elevation is not nearly as high.  Our first visit was to the main temple in the town, the Cheluvanarayana Swamy temple.  The deity is a form of Vishnu. There were several pujas going on in the temple, and there were priests wandering throughout the temple playing harmonium, drums, and trumpet. With the incense, the fire from the oil lamps, the chanting of the priests, and the music from the instruments, there was a palpable energy in the temple. The rituals seem to work up to a frenzy, there is lots of tension or fervor in the air, and then a bell is struck and it is over.  There are many cisterns in Melukote. These are basins or pond that are used to collect water, and they probably do religious rituals by them as well.  After visiting the temple in town, it was time to climb the hill to pay our respects in the Yoga Narasimha temple (another avatar of Vishnu, this time with a lion's head). You reach the temple by climbing narrow, steep stairs. The temple sits about a mile above sea level. There are lots of monkeys and goats on the path to the temple, and the monkeys will definitely try to steal your bag. Many people take an offering of fruit to the temple, and the monkeys know this. They will steal your bag if you are not constantly vigilant.  They seem to respond to a loud and firm "No!" and move out of the way. I must admit that some of them are fairly large and scary.  That many of them also carry a type of herpes virus that can be fatal to humans is also disconcerting. Monkeys aside, we all made it safely to the top of the hill, paid our respects to Yoga Narasimha, and then made our way back down the hill for lunch. We stopped at a well-known pilgrimage restaurant where the specialty is tamarind rice (puliogare). I ate two huge plates of the delicious rice. I was so ravenous by the time that we arrived at the restaurant that I did not even take a photo of the delicious food. They offered us a tour of the restaurant and allowed us into the kitchen and the prep rooms. It was very clean, but the idea of health or sanitation codes most definitely does not exist in India. There was not a refrigerator in sight. All of the food preparation is done on the floor.  Everything is prepared over open flames. It is all quite a marvel to behold and provides a shocking contrast to our American obsession (not necessarily a bad one) with cleanliness. In my non-scientific assessment, I do not think that our American kitchens and restaurants are any cleaner than this type of restaurant in India, they just sparkle more and look cleaner. Having sated ourselves with tamarind rice, we visited a the spring called Dhanuskoti.  Again, we had to climb up to the top of a steep hill. The spring itself was not particularly impressive, but it does have significance in that it never runs dry. Apparently, Rama and Sita stopped here to rest during their travels. Sita was thirsty so Rama shot an arrow through the rock and water poured out for Sita to drink.  The water did not look refreshing during our visit--there were lots of frogs in the stagnant water. (There was also a cute lizard nearby).  There was a small temple near the spring and mute woman was there to look after the area and the little temple. Some of us chanted by the spring, and then we headed back to Mysore. It was a fantastic day trip. It was a pleasure to be in the country, and many times throughout the day, I marvelled to myself about how fantastic it was to be so far away from home and from everything that was familiar.

The view from the spring.

The Karnataka countryside. Lots of agriculture.

The spring where Rama and Sita rested. Look closely for the frogs,

Lizard at the spring.

Friends at the spring.

With Rama and Sita at the spring.

A view of the Yoga Narasimha temple from a distance.

Entrance to the Yoga Narasimha temple.

Almost to the top!

Lord Yoga Narasimha.

A mama monkey and her newborn.

On the way up!

It is perched precariously on the top of the hill.

The Cheluvanarayana Swamy temple in the town.

A priest getting water for puja.

Lots of movies are filmed here,

Another view of the hilltop temple.

My friend Michael and I.

Last Saturday, Sharath gave his usual Saturday conference, Everyone assumed that he would not give one, but he decided to do so late in the week. He said that the conference would be short so that the people leaving this month could get a photo with him.  The conference ended up not being so short at all. He took questions from the students in the shala and he spoke for about 90 minutes. I will not transcribe what Sharath said, but the essential message for me was that yoga helps us to filter out all of the noise and confusion in the world. We should not add more confusion and chaos into our lives. We do not need to supplement our ashtanga practice with lots of other techniques or practices--the ashtanga practice itself is more than adequate. Additionally, we should be of maximum service to our fellow humans. Seva is extremely important, if not essential to following a yogic path. The asanas are important, but they are not the end goal of yoga. They are just tools. Our devotion to our practice is more important that how well we perform asanas.

A happy photo with Sharath.