July 25th

Day 2: Haritachala is Home

My name is Pravallika Kullampalle, and I was a participant in the 2023 Giggling Geckos Summer Camp. I am 19 years old and attended camp with my younger sister Geetika Kullampalle and I am from Ashburn, Virginia.

Introduction

I had never smiled to myself at five in the morning before, but the excitement for the day ahead was bubbling inside of me. The three bells that rang signaling the start of the morning played like a metronome as the crickets chirped and the rain and leaves danced outside the mesh windows. I sat up in bed and looked around at all the other girls who were still under their sheets.

“Guys!” I whispered as I headed toward the switch board, playing with them to try to figure out which one would turn on the light at the front door of Babuji Hall.  “It's 5! Time to get up!”, I said as the bedsheets started to peel back to reveal a sleepy gecko. I turned the knob letting myself out of Babuji Hall. As I turned to the stairs, the darkness of the morning was illuminated by Baba’s vigraham (statue), which was visible in the distance, through the grails at the mandir. His radiance was felt as I descended the stairs from the hall that we were staying at and made my way to the bathroom. As I opened the door to the bathroom, I almost jumped back at the sight of two frogs who sat on top of the sink.

I was afraid now, but I would eventually greet the two buddi (tiny) frogs who came out at night and disappeared behind the sink during the day. Weary at first, I looked around afraid of what other creepy crawlers were hiding in the bathroom. I only regained my confidence once some of the other girls had come down to the bathroom as well. As we took our first cold showers at camp we were able to hear Baba’s naamam and the world around us slowly came to life as night turned to day.

Just as the clock hit six, Geetu (my younger sister) and I walked to the community kitchen. The rain had reduced to a pitter patter and the greenery along the path to the community kitchen held a beautiful vibrance. The Banana trees seemed to be welcoming us by waving their leaves in our direction. It was at the community kitchen that we met some of the aunties who we would grow close with over the two weeks we spent at Haritachala.

Blue Tea

Our first activity was making Butterfly Blue Pea Flower tea, a concoction made from Butterfly Pea Flowers (శ౦కుు పువులు) that were grown organically at Haritachala. As we learned from Sruti Akka, these flowers were potent adaptogens that helped to improve our moods, balance hormones, boost immunity, and fight fatigue. The preparation for making this tea is very simple. After water reached a rolling boil, we turned off the stove and added in the blue pea flowers that we had rinsed lightly; letting the flowers steep in the hot water. For each tall steel glass of water, we added eight to ten dried flowers. Once the concoction turned a bright blue, and the flowers lost their color, we would filter the tea and keep it at the communal gathering space, GTR, before heading to the Mandir. 

Mandir

As I removed my footwear before climbing the stairs to see Baba, I remembered what Manmohan Uncle had told us yesterday during Orientation. “Do you know why we line our shoes up neatly before going to see Baba?” he had asked us. “It’s because it is a conscious activity. Keeping your shoes together in a neat way allows you to find your shoes again faster, but you also start learning how to make conscious decisions for simple tasks such as this one”, he had explained to us. Sitting in front of Baba and taking in the Satsang atmosphere made me feel warm inside. As Kavita auntie sang Naamam, the volunteers were bathing and drying Baba’s statue. His form captivated my attention as he smiled back at me. I thought it was beautiful that Baba’s reflection was seen 10 times in the panels that sat behind him.  If a volunteer was drying Baba’s feet, the reflection of that showed 10 times behind him. In a way it made me think about how Baba said “If you take 1 step towards me, I will take 10 steps towards you.” When it came time for arati, I was so happy to sing along with all of the girls in Satsang. One of my most favorite memories from a long weekend satsang we had in the United States was singing arati together. The reason for this was because it was the one activity that all the Saiseekers at these events would do together. The sound of everyone's voices rising in love and adoration for Baba and Guruji was so powerful, and revisiting that memory brought tears to my eyes. Singing arati together at Harithachala made the feeling of actually being there so real. After arati, we all had vada and idli covered in sambar as prasadam before going to GTR to have Blue Pea tea together.

Yoga, Breakfast, and Break

As the ground was still wet due to the rain, we all had Yoga with Sruti Akka for the first time in Babuji Hall. We started off with doing some warmups that included head rotations, toe ups, knee rotations, twists, hip rotations, toe touches in triangle position, and arm circles. Afterwards, Akka taught us how to do Surya Namaskars and we also learned the Sanskrit names for each of the asanas. During break, Geetu and I spoke to Sruti Akka and I expressed how sitting with my legs folded was hard for me because of my lack of practice of sitting on the ground and Akka told us about micro exercises that she did while she sat on the floor when she worked. Micro exercises were simple stretches that you could do while doing another task that helped to strengthen muscles. I made a mental note to pick my own micro exercise of sitting cross-legged on the ground for at least 10 minutes a day so that I could get more comfortable with sitting on the ground. I started practicing my micro exercise after coming to college and after practicing this for more than a month, my legs have definitely gotten more flexible and I am able to sit comfortably in that position for close to 15 minutes.

Afterwards, we all went to the kitchen for our first breakfast at Haritachala. Ammama and the aunties had cooked up a delicious meal of Saggubiyyam Upma and we all enjoyed our first breakfast together on our pitas. A lot of us would come to have a certain realization during camp which was that we usually didn’t like a certain type of food, but at Haritachala, we would be lining up for seconds and thirds right after our first bite!

Time with Ammamma

After our break, we had our very first conversation with Ammama. She was so caring and sweet and asked us about what each of us were passionate about. We all shared our hobbies and Anvi (Anvitha) showed us a cartwheel. It was honestly very beautiful how much love and affection Akka and Ammama showed towards each other and it was something that all of the girls talked about afterwards. Additionally, I thought that the way that Ammama and Sruti Akka were seated right in front of Baba and Gurugaru’s photos at the Community Kitchen painted a beautiful family portrait and it was then I noticed how similar Akka looked like Guruji Thaathaya. Ammama also talked to us about the importance of reading the lives of saints and she also told us about her niyam of reading a few pages every night about a saint. We also learned about the importance of eating food by sitting on a pita and the significance of bowing down to our food by bending down for each bite.

Haritachala Tour

During our next segment of the day, Akka gave us a tour of Haritachala. This was one of my most favorite parts of the day because we learned the deeper meaning and the purpose that each part of Haritachala held. At the mandir, we learned that Baba’s vigraham was made by the grandson of the sculpter who made the Baba statue that stands today in the Samadhi Mandir. Akka told us how Baba’s face has a slight smile and some of the girls expressed how they also felt like Baba was smiling at them.

After the garlands that are adorning Baba and Guruji’s photos are removed, the flowers are dried and ground into a powder that is then sold. We also got the opportunity to walk through the nursery and learn about the different plants and the process that is used to grow all organic crops. As we continued to walk around, we learned that the tree that stands in front of GTR was planted there because the shade it provides makes the temperature a few degrees lower. For this reason, it serves as a waiting room.

Afterwards we visited GTR’s roof for the first time. Although we hadn’t known it at that time, this roof would be filled with so many memories and it was here that I feel we truly lived up to the name Giggling Geckos. For lunch, we had Noni Sambar that Ammama made from the Nonis that we picked on our Haritachala tour as well as potato curry and perugu. 

Additionally, the big Badam tree in the middle of GTR also provides a lot of shade and it was planted there because of it. We also learned that the Birds of Paradise plants near the bathroom were planted there because they absorb a lot of water and produce oxygen and this makes sure that the area around the bathroom does not smell. Learning about how each plant and object had a purpose was very powerful and I had never realized an environment could be made to be so meaningful. As we continued our tour, we visited Guruji Thaathaya’s library and looked through his grand collection of books that stretched all the way from topics on different spiritual communities and religions to classic novels that some of us had read in school. Having the opportunity to hold an item that was once held by Gurugaru and run my hand around the annotations that Guruji Thaathaya wrote made him feel very real in the moment.

The Social Dilemma

The next activity that we had was watching The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary that described the effect that social media had on our brain and the different manipulation techniques that they used. It was interesting to see technology professionals come forward to testify about the way that social media works to keep us hooked to it. Afterwards we reflected on our own relationship with social media and had a discussion of how it shapes our beliefs and ideas. This was the first time that we all had a discussion since camp started and the topic of discussion branched in many different ways.

A Discussion With Akka

After watching the documentary, we reflected on the kind of jobs that we wanted and the effects they would have. As many of us were pursuing a career in the technology industry, we each reflected on how our work could have larger implications similar to the way the tech professionals who spoke in the documentary had. We also discussed how we could integrate conscious living into the work that we do. 

One of the main takeaways we had from our conversation with Akka was the discussion we had about religion and spirituality. Akka told us that Saipatham is not a religion, and that we actually do not follow a religion. 

“Are we atheists?” We began to wonder as she continued to explain to us that Baba is not confined to a religion; instead, he is beyond religion and we shouldn’t try to confine him. Akka told us that Guruji Thaathaya in a satsang defined “spiritual strength” as not being influenced by external things. It was interesting to hear this and something that I have tried to understand and follow better as I am currently in college where there are so many different people with different beliefs that I meet. One of the main issues that a lot of the geckos expressed was that it was difficult to express our connection to spirituality in words and Akka told us her definition as follows: “I believe in the human potential to experience things beyond our human limitations.” It was so interesting to really learn what Saipatham is about and our connection to spirituality. 

It was late afternoon by the time we had finished our conversation. After a short break we all had dinner together, a meal of Semiya Upma and Podi, and took Baba’s darshan again at the mandir where we sang arati again. Afterwards, we all gathered together for a Gratitude Circle and drank saffron tea while we shared. Gratitude Circle would grow to hold a very special place in my heart because it was a time for us to not only share with each other about what we were thankful for, but it was also a time where we reflected about our days. The laughs that started at Gratitude Circle would carry into our group journaling time before bed, and the giggles of the geckos would echo into the night.