Yesterday morning we first had a fire ritual. I love these rapidly changing forms of the flames and the thrilling energy the mantrams and offerings create in combination with the fire – and of course the aligned attention:
After breakfast three busses took us 105 Westerners out along the beach road to the Planetary Healing center. I had already visited it at the beginning of the seminar. Now it was not just a visit, but our morning lecture with Sri Kumar around the beautifully garlanded Maitreya Statue.
All the electronic devices had to be installed – and then electricity. It was on and off – but for the micros they had a big car battery. It was not so easy for me to follow the lecture with the crows crowing and the other noises around – and my bad ears. So I sat as close as I could on the ground typing my notes:
“The center was inaugurated in January 1995 when the groups from the east and west were together. The healing center is conceived with the energy of number 7, it is also the number of the sun whose other number is number 1. The center is conceived with dimensions of number 10. 7 times 7 is the diameter of the circle of the healing centre, 7 times 7 is the height of the pyramid, upon the pyramid the dome of 7 feet is erected. Within the healing center 7 circles are prepared from the center to the circumference, and circular meditations are contemplated through the sacred word OM. The center is surrounded by water and is therefore unaffected by the surrounded energy and is linked to the ether. If one sits in the healing center and invokes OM the vertical line which is established from above downward can be experienced in our cerebro-spinal column. In the center of the circular healing center we have set up a 7 feet high pillar. The three divine aspects on the surface, on the top of which a global stone which is an agate… which was brought from South America, from Iguazu, and it means all that is in India and America. Ever since the center is maintained, he is also living here and taking care, his family is near, the lady decided to live here. It is a peaceful place and it is visited regularly and we make a regular visit in January. During the day here after lunch you may go round and experience the place and get also into the healing centre, invoke OM 21 times and stay in meditation for a desirable period. That is how everything formed of the healing centre….”
The center was designed by Sri Kumar on proposal of a gentleman now living there with his wife and maintaining the place as a service activity.
After lecture we assembled in the Healing Centre for 21 OM and meditation. I was one of the last ones, first I mailed my notes to the mailing list – thanks to the web connection of Jayadev
A thrilling experience – group meditation in the Healing Centre
Afterwards our Indian brothers had already prepared a beautiful lunch under the trees at the Buddha statue – all brought here from the Retreat Centre – and we only had to enjoy it. Later, after a good siesta (and me using the internet-drive from Jayadev for writing until the battery was down) we went to Ramadri, also called Hamsavanam, the place, where the Swan (of the inner pulsation) lives.
Ravishankar at the entrance of Ramadri
A beautiful mandala on the floor at the entrance
Hanuman is the servant of Sri Rama (cf. the great epics Ramayana), the divine incarnation in Lemurian times.
There is a huge Hanuman statue on the ground, the beginning of the development of the site, erecting in 2000. Since then it has grown a lot. Now there is also a Mithila school for free school for children of poor families from the neighbor villages, financed and organised by the Circle of Good Will, India. The children were coming to present us a rose.
Later we went on for the feeding of the cows. Cow service is regarded as a sacred activity, and they keep the cows also to provide free milk / meals to the children. The cows were very keen on the bananas – and I jokingly said, now they get banana milk.
Sri Kumar later explained that the place is also called the Ocimum Sanctum, and ocimum is the Latin name for Tulsi or Tulasi, the Holy Basil. On all the little stupas and elsewhere there grow many, many little bushes of Tulsi – and friends from Africa and Germany had asked me to bring some Tusi seeds – a friend in Germany had managed to grow at home the Tulsi plant and others got interested. It is a very holy plant in India and you find it at nearly every temple.
In Ramadri they have now 364 such little stupas with tulsi on the top – and under it there is each time a stone box containing 1000 booklets with 10.000 times written Sri Ram in it. Ram is the seed sound of cosmic fire, burning all impurities and expressing the fire of divine will. Writing the name is a strong spiritual discipline. There were nine such boxes now being installed with a little ritual conducted by couples of the group:
I later went around the site to visit all the little shrines – a miniature pilgrimage. I particularly love the shrine of the 9 planets – statues of the planetary spirits and of Rahu and Ketu, the north and south node, which can cover the influences of the other planets and thus create difficulties, so they are considered important by spiritual astrology.
Statue of Lord Shiva under a banyan tree – there is a lovely little “Ganga” (Ganges) in the tuft of his hair. – of course I had to ring the bell – the vibrations purifying the surroundings.
Statue of the divine mother – where I left the rose I got from the children
Later we sat in the little amphitheater with a grand view over the ocean and the horizon merging with the sky. Sri Kumar and Kumari presented some gifts to the couples who had done the rituals. Then we had a short but fantastic evening meditation with some bats flying around and Venus rising behind the mountain. Afterwards we got some packets with rice and sweets as “prasad” (gift after a ritual), then the busses brought us back through the night to Visakhapatnam.