Shantivanam means forest of peace , it’s a Christian ashram that sits by the river Cauvery. Before you get to the river you will see a funeral pyre , beyond that, the forest , beyond that all of India. At the small village the bus driver stops not far from the canal. Opposite is a sign saying Satchitananda ( fullness of bliss in being) .There is no sign saying Shantivanam but you know that’s the sign and that must be the path . The path is a whole lot of red dust in the Christmas sun. I wandered down past banana plantations, it was an easy slow limbed walk that takes you to a gate with strange looking Christian images of Mary and Jesus painted above, Indian motifs for an Indian world in a Hindu time. When you passed through the gate it was like you had entered the land of Narnia . The stillness was there . It was so ordinary and yet so profound. This ain’t Osho fuck time. This is prayer time in the simple and the pure. You could feel the soul of Bede Griffiths dripping from the trees. Everywhere was Tagore and Wordsworth, and poets like Mirabai humming their song. It was erotic without the sex. The shakti was everywhere , women who worked nearby had a grace and sensuality with the way they walked and worked . An old leper stretches out like a tired old tiger happy and content . Time had stopped save for the prayers . You had entered sacred space beyond the hustle of city life , do something, do nothing it’s all the same. The truth is I loved the do nothingness of life there , life had slowed to walk , a breath , a heartbeat . every part of the day was holy , eating breakfast was holy, washing dishes, washing clothes on an old slate rock was holy , last prayers sitting in the dark with maybe one or two souls chanting Yesu , Yesu namo , at first normal till you got to a whisper , and quietly stood hearing the sounds of crickets and the hoot of owls.I slept on a rock slab with a wafer thin mattress covered by mosquito net and once you turned the light out you were greeted to the fairy world of Arthur Conan Doyle as fireflies light your hut and down on the ground is a giant green mantis , and on my netting are spiders and it’s all holy and then around 4am , you are woken by prayers in the village and you head out into the darkness with torch , shawl , blanket , covered in Rid my holy mosquito spray and head over to the gurus hut and meditate and you know this is a privilege as only some monks are allowed into Bede’s hut and you are there with a friend and you sit quietly and then when the time comes to go , you bow and walk slowly over to the octagonal library and find a seat, and then a holy man sits beside you. A sanyasi who has made pilgrimages around India no less than twenty times. He has a small brown body, and his eyes stare into the infinite and he gently holds my hand and says nothing, and I watch his illuminated gaze as if I was given a gift , for I’m nothing but a broken hallelujah too, and then dawn breaks the sky and I walk over to the open aired ochre mud built temple, take my sandals off and enter. At the other end of the chapel is a black Christ sculpture sitting in lotus as if hidden in the cave and you find a spot and cover your body from head to foot wearing two pairs of socks as the mosquitoes are real killers early morning coming off the river and the buzz and prayer is all just big holy and surviving that , time ticks over to 8am and the monks come in. Hooded looking like Sean Connery in the name of the rose . And the local Tamil community come in and Sister Marie Louise sits near me her face in ecstasy and I think I must be in heaven even though I’ve done some heavy shit . I’m here. You feel like crying because it’s all so fucking beautiful and the whole chapel is full to the brim and then the Mass begins. My sanyasi friend reads a chapter from the upanishad and then Christudas the priest reads the gospel and gives his homily in his sing song voice and then camphor is lit and the light is given to each person and they pass it on and so it goes. Then the host is made of flat bread and the wine passed around and people are swaying and singing hymns and then it’s over . Christudas leads us out where we walk over to the grave of the guru and place fresh marigolds and each person touches his tombstone as if to say rest easy buddy time for you take some well earned rest and walk behind Christudas in single file under an arch of bougainvillea and head into the refectory where we sit cross legged against the wall . It is beyond perfect. And some people come round carry giant buckets that hold rice cake , and I take one , two, three, four, five and put it in my tin tray and the person following gives you a sauce of sorts and you mix it with your fingers till you end with a curried version of Uncle Toby’s Oats . Then another person is carrying a huge kettle of coffee and you fill your small tin cup take a banana the size of your finger and have some curd and you listen to someone reading the gospel of the day and quietly you get up and go outside to a trough that is next to a real Bethlehem manger complete with straw and cows and you wash your plates and dump any excess for gods holy creatures and then you find a seat and begin cutting up vegetables . Carrots, beans, potatoes and whatever else and the quality of the vegetables is rank and that in Australia it would be tossed out as inedible but here a heavy dose of curry and chillies kill whatever ghouls that were about to attack your stomach but it’s okay because it’s holy and I get it because we are trying to eat like the people in the village who are as poor as church mice and it’s a way of generating compassion. Then someone from Germany starts talking and for the frenzied minutes chopping up vegetables life seems like a big noisy city but it’s still holy because the whole place has been sanctified . Then I get up and wander over to my hut and my sanyasi is coming towards me complete with Santa Claus hair , a great shock of white hair that reminds me of Sonny Rollins be bop saxophone man and he says, ‘Jesus is coming for you ‘ .