1006 posts since 2008

Spiritual Adventures Archives

Welcome! Sharing my reflections on the spiritual path.
Join me on a profound journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Feb 26, 2012

Rice, food of the south

The harvest festival, Thai Pongal, takes place on the 14th of January and is celebrated predominantly in Tamil Nadu, South India. The festival is dedicated to the sun god, Surya, and marks the beginning of the sun's journey northward, uttarayana. Tamils thank Surya for a good harvest and offer the first grain to him during the festival. Much of the paddy fields we've passed have been harvested as ...

Feb 26, 2012 Spiritual Adventures

Smashing the Ego

At a small Shiva temple in the countryside of the Chettinad region, we stopped to participate in a Hindu custom in which a coconut is smashed on the ground in front of the temple to symbolize the smashing of the ego. The temple was beautifully kept and practically deser
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Feb 25, 2012 Spiritual Adventures

At the Ayyanar temple

Ayyanar is a village god, loosely affiliated with Hinduism, but emerging from a folk tradition of protective deities that keep disease and misfortune away from small rural villages. In one area of Tamil Nadu, the Ayyanar cult is particularly strong and many villages have Ayyanar
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Feb 25, 2012 Spiritual Adventures

Learning Chettinad Cooking

Our spiritual and culinary adventure is coming to a conclusion and today we had our last cooking class. It was on two Chettinad style dishes. The first was "Mint Chutney" and the second "Kola Urundai Kolambu". Here's the recipe for the "Mint Chutney" that we learned today. Ingr
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Feb 25, 2012 Spiritual Adventures

Fire ceremony at Pillayarpatti

Today we went to the small town of Pillayarpatti in the heartland of Chettinad to an ancient Ganesha temple. The priests in the temple come from the best priest training school in South India and the ceremonies are conducted with incredible rigor and to the highest standard. Anci
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Feb 25, 2012 Spiritual Adventures

A gorgeous sunset in Chettinad

A flashback to yesterday evening, about an hour or so after we arrived in Chettinad and checked into the mansion, Markley and I went for a walk and we were blessed with an extremely gorgeous sunset over old mansions, a Siva temple and it's temple tank. Here are a few images we ho
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Feb 24, 2012 Spiritual Adventures

Thanjavur's great temple

This morning on the way to the heart of the Chetinad region we stopped in Thanjavur to visit the temple built by the great south Indian king Raja Raja Chola. The temple's name is Brihadeeswarar and is an architectural marvel. The 216 feet (66m) tower with its monolithic 80 ton do
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