The french doors which open onto the veranda have been open all night, and the sound of the breakers on the blackstone promenade where alternately lulling us to sleep and calling us out of it. Either the waves or the rain, which greeted us on our arrival in Pondicherry and has come in sheets and drizzles since then – last night at least two good downpours swept west off the ocean and past us toward Tiru and Bangalore.

Manny Muros:

Today we climbed the mountain located behind the ashram. In 1900 a 16 year old local seeker climbed that mountain and stayed for 17 years in a cave. Then moved to a second cave for 6 more years. When he came down his followers created what is now the ashram where we are staying…. Ramana Maharshi had found out that he was not “this body” and achieved freedom from life as he had know it.

Two days into the trip and, as I previously mentioned, two years of living done. You know how to live longer? Travel, make yourself new, open up to new sights and sounds and people. You may pass away at the same second of the same minute of the same hour and day and year as you would have otherwise have died… but your life will have been immeasurably longer, and maybe you die knowing you had really lived.