Gestern bin ich etwas in meinem Geiste gefolgt, das ich schwer beschreiben kann. Alltagssprachlich würde ich vielleicht sagen, ich bin meiner Intuition gefolgt. Es ist aber etwas komplexer. Ich bin wieder nach Tiruvannamalai drove. It was the last day of the Karthigai Deepam Brahmotsavam festivals.
So on December 6, 2022, a fire was started on this mountain, as it has been for 2500 years. There is, of course, a story about this from ancient times. Brahman, the universal self, has divided itself into Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver) and Shiva (destroyer) were divided. Vishnu and Brahma argued about who was the greatest. Shiva appeared as fire and asked Vishnu and Brahma where the end and the beginning of the lingam was. Vishnu transformed himself into a wild boar and dug, but did not find the beginning, Brahma transformed himself into a swan, flew up and did not find the end. However, Brahma took a flower that had been in free fall for 40,000 years when it fell from the top of the lingam as proof that he was at the end. Shiva saw through this and made sure that Brahma was no longer worshipped and that the flower must not be used for praying.
The gods of Hinduism are so complex that they defy any brief characterization. For Shiva alone, there are Shiva Purana 1008 names, each meaning a property.
The procession
The mountain in Tiruvannamalai is a natural phenomenon of the Lingam of Lord Shiva. The lingams in Indian temples are a kind of altar. The statues of gods and lingams are real manifestations of the gods. The mountain in Tiruvannamalai is the largest lingam and the most powerful Shiva temple in India.
Some 100,000 people come to this festival, some say a million. A million people circling a mountain? That's what I wanted to see... However, I have noticed in the past few weeks that my relationship to Hindu spirituality has changed and deepened.
My studies of Upanishads and the Vedic texts has given me a new perspective on philosophy, which in turn has given me a different view of spirituality and ultimately a different way of being in the world. I see the world differently, I experience it differently, I understand it differently, I think differently and I experience differently. So to say that I simply follow my intuition is too simplistic. Intuition is there, but not only. Ultimately, I was there, that's what can be said. What brought me there cannot be said. And this unspeakability of what drives us is overwhelming. Experiencing it in collective ecstasy is obvious.
On the 16-kilometer trail, the mantras rang out through the loudspeakers during my 4-hour walk around the mountain Om Namah Shivaya resp. OM Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya - non-stop. We walked past a few other temples, I stopped at some of them and paid tribute to the gods - sometimes just with a gesture as we walked past.
What has that done to me, I ask myself? It brought me closer to the experience of what makes us human. I was in a tight crowd with a lot of people and heard them shouting and singing, always smiling and full of devotion. They were all dressed up. 'What do you think of my people', a young Indian asked me. 'I love them,' I said.
That night I dreamt of the fires in Varanasi. These fires were lit by Shiva and have been burning for 3000 years. Those who are burnt here leave the cycle of rebirth. The ashes are carried away in the Ganges.
