I have come to Tiruvannamalai, in Tamil Nadu, India. I was last here five years ago, when I gave my first open satsang series – once a day for five or six weeks, sitting on a rooftop terrace with a view of the mountain Arunachala.
I went back to visit the building and it brought back memories of those days, sitting with seekers, sharing presence and feeling the intensity and sincerity of their search. Now the building has lost its appeal. Other buildings have sprouted up in front of it, impeding the view. The building itself has a semi-derelict feel, with rubble lying around where parts have been demolished. The old entrance has been walled off and the newer entrance sealed off with corrugated iron. Now the owners come and go across the rubble, without any proper entrance at all. The place is lost to the world.
Seeing all that, I can’t help suspecting that there are times when my heart is similarly lost to the world. It is so easy for me to seal off the doorways, to retreat into myself. During those times, anyone looking at me would also see a rather desolate rubble field, not inviting in any way.
Times of retreat are needed though, as long as those doors open again when the time is right. This morning, walking along the street, the coconut seller smiled and our eyes met for a moment. It wasn’t a smile that was trying to sell a coconut. It wasn’t a smile of sexual attraction. It was a smile of being. And in that simple moment of resonance, the doorways were suddenly wide open again, the corrugated iron melted away, the rubble vanished. Life is beautiful!
