April 7, 2011

Dear Friends, In just over a month, I'll be making my first trip to India, a place I've longed to visit my whole life. From May 10 to June 11, I'll be on a spiritual pilgrimage, a journery to work on my poetry and spiritual memoir. A year or so ago, a spiritual teacher visited the Cache Valley Buddhist Sangha, where I practice meditation, and told us his life story. When I got home, I told my wife Jennifer about his story. The next morning, she said, "Why don't you go to India?" I said, "Okay, I will!" She will take our two boys, Aidan and Kellen, to Texas to stay with her parents while I'm gone. I feel immensely blessed. Though it will be hard to be away from my family so long. Yesterday I heard my Visa was approved and learned that Utah State University, where I teach, will be giving me some money to help fund the trip. I'll fly into Mumbai, where I'll stay for three days. There, I'll see a woman named Shakun, a disciple of my guru and teacher, Ma Indira Devi. I'll visit Shakun, see Mumbai, and try to adjust to the shock everyone says one experiences upon arriving -- the chaos of the big city, the poverty, the begging children, the sites and sounds. I'll then travel to Pune, where I'll stay at one of the flats of another devotee of Ma Indira Devi, Karishma. Over the last year, we have become good friends over email. She is helping me in innumerable ways. I'll spend ten days there, visiting Indira Devi's ashram every day. (I will write later about how Indira Devi became my guru, or, rather, about how I became her devotee.) After ten days in Pune, I'll travel across the continent to Chennai (formerly Madras) and then to Puducherry (formerly, Pondicherry), to stay at the ashram of Sri Aurobindo. Aurobindo was the guru of Indira Devi's guru, Sri Dilip Kumar Roy. So, this is my spiritual lineage. I also recently read Andrew Harvey's wonderful book about his former guru, Mother Meera. Its first chapters are set in the Aurobindo Ashram, so I'm excited to be staying there. The ashram has guest houses on the beach. After five days at the Aurobindo ashram, I'll make a relatively short journey to Tiruvannamalai, where I'll stay at the ashram of Sri Ramana Maharshi. This is a temple town, and one of the main pilgrimage sites in India. Above it, looms the mountain, Aurunachala, where Shiva was supposed to have first appeared on earth as a column of fire. Ramana Maharshi spent several decades meditating in a cave on the mountain, where he attained englightenment. Supposedly, if you climb the mountain or circumnavigate it, you will be assured of attaining liberation in this lifetime. Though in May it will be unbearably hot, I'll try to climb the mountain while I'm there. You can visit Ramana Maharshi's cave and meditate inside it. After my visit to Sri Ramana Maharshi's ashram, I'll return to Pune, to say "farewell" to my friends and then take a flight north to the Ajanta and Ellora caves. These two sets of caves are both located in great, wide walls of cliffs. In one of them, twenty six caves were turned into monasteries and temples, many dating from the second century BC. Some of the greatest Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain art, sculpture and architecture are found in these caves. After exploring the caves for a coupld days, I'll fly back to Mumbai, where I'll spend a last day in India. I already feel sad at the thought of leaving! Thanks for reading my post. Love and Namaste, Michael