The Place of A Thousand Names

by **Sarveswara** Sun May 24, 2009 2:42 am

The Place of A Thousand Names

Maybe it's in the place they call kundalini where all the feelings live. That place at the base of the spine that seems to be like a white dwarf star, somehow having imploded on itself to lock the feelings away. And maybe it's that place which drives people mad sometimes when it unlocks. And maybe we have imagined its existence.

It was a strange morning for reasons unknown to me. I awoke and had trouble breathing. I sat with a first cup of tea and put the struggling for breath down to the enormous heat of south India. Forty five degrees celsius every day and getting hotter. Ceilings like hotplates and buildings heating up to become hotboxes at night. Tables hot. Chairs hot. Glasses, cups and cutlery hot.

But it was maybe a different kind of heat that this place, this kundalini place at the base of the spine maybe, this heart, this body knew about early this morning. The mind like a pincushion with thoughts stuck in it, the white hot dwarf star of feelings locked away somewhere else, both knew something. And were puzzled.

The reverie was interrupted by a familiar beeping sound, a text message: "He is on his way back to Puttaparthi." The showering happened and the getting dressed, the strange need to be there and then walking into town.

There they were again, the small army of women throwing buckets of water across the hot roadway in the early morning. The clusters of sari-clad figures bent double with handfuls of white chalk, quickly marking white dots onto the damp tar and then doing their real work, their most indescribably beautiful work. Rangoli, coloured patterns of Indian beauty in magical, brilliant colours with exquisite scrollwork around the edges. All instantly appearing on the roadway like a carpet of floral stepping stones for his car to pass over - only once. The street in less than an hour decorated with coconut palm fronds and banana leaves and bracts of bouganvillea draped on string from one side of the street to the other.

And the crowds gathering.

Everybody dutifully staying behind the metal railings either side of the road.

I noticed one especially delightful rangoli pattern just down from the Ganesh Gate, other smaller ones seeming to lead to it. It was the last rangoli and by far to me the most beautiful. A brilliant blue centre with just the right red around its edges with white scrollwork finishing it. In the centre of the blue centre a little mound of brilliant yellow marigolds and a few bright red rose petals. But it wasn't enough, one of the ladies who'd made it had to rush out to it at the last minute and throw some loose marigold petals over the whole lot, not to cover it but to finish it. She laughed and ran back to the side of the road.

And then he was coming down the road. Rushing people at the top of the hill I could see cascading onto the road. It was different. There was a different kind of feeling and I had a pain in my chest and still the breathing was laboured. I don't know why.

Like a closing double wave, one from each side of the road, people spilled from the sides to meet in the middle. I watched as this occured. And suddenly found myself lifted up and propelled also into the middle of the road. There was no unkindness. There was no disrespect. There was no disregard. It was just Consciousness saying that this time for some reason we must do this. We must bury him in ourselves.

Down through this solid mass of people there appeared to be coming a small grey car with headlights on. It was covered in red roses and the windscreen was a waterfall of yellow petals. The people would have this car this time. The car gently stopped. It had to. The people seemed to be saying we will pass this car from hand to hand. There was suddenly a bursting vertical shower of marigold petals from the crowd followed by another, then another, and they fell like cascades of fireworks all over the car in brilliant yellow.

The crowd passed the car from hand to hand all the way down the road. The sacred, beautiful blue rangoli near the Ganesh Gate the car had successfully passed over. The car went round the corner at the bottom of the hill. Small fountains of flowers leapt up from the people as it did. And I found myself needing to get to the side of the road and hold onto the metal railing for some long moments. I didn't understand why. There was an unusual quaking going on in my body. A strange, huge vibrating where I was quaking up and down, as if some giant was trying to escape. It seemed to be occurring from head to foot. All through my body. And the breathing was somehow better.

I wondered if this massive upsurge of feeling came from that place they call kundalini at the base of the spine, the white hot dwarf star that stores so much. I wondered if it was my heart that was feeling, or my legs, or my stomach. I didn't think it mattered at all really. I recalled a friend who, after experiencing the massive blast of what some call Love coming from the little grey car, had to sit down hurriedly to experience for some time the tears streaming down her face.

When I felt able to I walked slowly down the road.

The huge wooden gates were now closed and he was inside. And just as I walked past the gates the bell started ringing loudly and in that moment my own tears came. I stopped for a moment. Puzzled.

And then I walked on.

It is now evening, way past the time of his return this morning at eleven thirty in the brilliant light of the day. There is however something I became aware of a little while ago as I sat sipping a sweet, steaming hot chai.

Maybe it comes from that place way deep down inside that is called so many different things. The place of a thousand names. Some just call it the heart.

As I sat sipping the chai a wind came up, tricking the dust to rise up in the evening light and making motorcycle headlight beams strike through it like swords. Little swirls and eddies happened all around me. They lifted up bits of paper and turned them into circles of horizontal butterflies at ground level near my feet. The dust made me and everyone else squint and ultimately made me decide to get up and move to another chai shop.

I had another sweet chai and in the soft growing darkness of the night people somehow knew that I needed to be left alone. So there I sat, the long hot day gone, his arrival well and truly completed in the morning an eternity before, and it was there when I became aware that in some place deep inside me something was happening. Something still expressing like the paper butterflies in the circles in the wind.

And I saw the surprise on my own face from the inside of me and in the darkness of the beautiful Indian summer night I became aware of what it was. Going out in all directions like the quaking of my own body, the bell was still ringing.

* * *

I hope you all enjoy this reading as much as I did. This piece of writing was written and emailed to me by my friend “Chris” who is a permanent resident at present in Prasanthi Nilayam. I could not resist but to share this piece of writing with all of you and those especially who know of Swami and Puttaparthi.

Chris brings us back home for the journey of Swami's arrival after His visit to Kodaikanal. How can I not be grateful to God for these beautiful words that are written from this Divine instrument? That I can be in the experience whilst in the distance of space and time; which is truly the illusion.

Thank you Chris - Thank you God.