December 26, 2004, is a day that the world will remember the way Americans remember September 11, 2001. Our pilgrims were ready and packed and fully prepared to embark on our seventh journey to South India. I was in the Bahamas that week, giving a retreat to a yoga community in the lineage of Swami Sivanana of Rishikesh. Although I wasn't properly aware of what was happening on the other side of the world, I remember the day quite well. The sky was overcast and large grey clouds were rolling in as I went for a walk on the beautiful white beach beside the ashram. It was extremely windy and the ocean was rough, free from the usual panoply of water-skiers, jet boats and surfers. It was, in fact, rather deserted, but for one exception: a young man and a woman, headphones plugged into a shared iPod, dancing wildly at the edge of the water, just like the advertisement. They beckoned for me to join them. Reluctant to crash their private party I waved gratefully and walked back into the ashram.

Later that day, when I tried to send an e-mail to asha, I read the news on the Internet. I immediately thought of my parents who live in Chennai, right alongside the ocean that had consumed a good many lives, and wondered if they were they alive. Leaving an anxious phone message for Asha, asking that she check on my folks, I started setting up for my evening presentation. Later, just as I was about to perform, I received news that my parents were safe, so I began with an invocation filled with gratitude.

My return flight arrived Oakland, California, close to midnight on the 27^th of December. From that moment, I continued what Asha had begun: a roller coaster ride of relentless phone calls, e-mails and monitoring newspapers in India through the Internet. It was terrifying to watch television, as every news channel was flashing images of indescribable pain and unimaginable loss from around the world. The tremendous scope of this catastrophe, the likes of which no one had ever witnessed, fueled our imagination and filled us with concern about our up coming trip. Repeated warnings of the threat of epidemics resulting from poor hygiene and the lack of infrastructure in third-world countries only created more anxiety for us and for our fellow pilgrims.

By New Years Eve we had determined that Chennai, our first destination, was safe for us to travel. The city had indeed been affected by the tsunami, in particular the fishing communities who dwelt along the shore. The good news was that the government had effectively mobilized help and that a lot of relief effort was well underway. The beach resort we usually stay at had also been hit. We were worried about our gypsy friends who live in the area but there was no way of knowing whether they were safe. Once we had determined that we would not be putting any of our participants at risk we planned that we would go ahead with the pilgrimage. But first to, we needed to discuss the matter with every member of our group and find out if they were comfortable making the journey. Almost everyone we spoke with was keen to go ahead as planned; only one person dropped out, and we respect her choice.

We were moved by the consensus. Once again, our pilgrims showed the same resolve that our group showed in 2000, when there was so much hype about computers crashing and air travel being endangered by the resulting confusion in air traffic control. Then there was September 11, following which, 90 percent of our group decided to go ahead with the journey despite the concern everyone had about air travel. This is the difference between pilgrimage and other journeys. The lesson keeps homing in: when we prepare to go on pilgrimage, we prepare our minds, our hearts and our souls to become free from all attachments. And fear, we all know, stems from attachment.

We arrived in Chennai late at night on the ninth of January. Instead of going to the beach resort, we spent those first few days in the heart of the city within the confines of a four-star hotel. We did this because safety was our number one priority. We conducted conferences in the hotel's conference rooms and arranged for a special concert during one of the meals, but it was wasn't the same as our time at the ocean. Still, this was a small price to pay within the context of the overall situation. The awareness that so many thousands of people had lost their lives, and that thousands more were homeless and grieving the loss of their loved ones, added a sobriety and solemnity to our presence in India. It enabled us to connect with the people and to the land in a very special way. We decided that we would not endanger our pilgrims by going to any of the disaster zones. Instead, Asha and I would visit these places after the pilgrimage was completed, which we did.

At Shantivanam, we chanted and prayed and meditated over the power of the tsunami. Each day we sought to further expand our spiritual awareness and add deeper understanding of the meaning of life in the face of this current tragedy. During our sojourn at the monastery, two of the monks journeyed to one of the worst hit areas taking with them a generous sum of money collected by the efforts of some members in our group. St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, had collected $1600 from its members which they sent through Jackie Grimmett who was journeying with us for the third time. Diane McPhail, who was also journeying with us for the third time, contributed another large tsunami donation, $6000, from her friends in North Carolina. One of these contributors gave her entire first salary toward this donation. What an amazing gift! The monks brought back pictures and stories of hope from the victims who could benefit from this generosity.

Among the highlights this year was a house concert and dance performance. We sat crowded together on the floor of a small living room, mesmerized by the performances of traditional South Indian Classical music and Bharatnatyam dance, while we drank tea and ate cookies that that been specially prepared for us. Two blind musicians - violin and mridangam (a two-headed drum) - accompanied the performances on violin and drums.

Another highlight was a powerful moonlight ritual we created on the banks of the holy Cauvery river to honor the victims of the tsunami tragedy. Shortly before we left Shantivanam, we gathered together in the meditation grove on the banks of the river where we did our meditation each evening. Here we lit a fire into which we offered sacred ash for the dead. Then, anointing ourselves with vermilion powder (symbolizing life - for the divine has power over both death as well as life) we walked ceremoniously in procession into the broad river bed that was partially dry. At the edge of one of the flowing rivulets we chanted as a flame of camphor was burned in a halved coconut shell. The flaming shell was then placed in the water, allowing the stream to carry it toward the ocean where it was headed, the very ocean that had destroyed so many lives.

We offered the first flame for those who had died, the second for those who were injured, but still alive, and the third, for those who were grieving the injured living and dead. It was quite amazing to watch the first flame extinguish in the wind the moment it was placed in the water, symbolizing, we thought, that God was telling us not to grieve for those who have died.  They have indeed returned to Spirit. There was a humorous moment when one of the coconuts caught in the weeds as it drifted away making us anxious that it might set fire to the beautiful eucalyptus forest alongside the river bank. Fortunately, our trusted assistant, Madhi, waded into the water and rescued the coconut and the forest. It was almost a full moon that night and we chanted for a long time, returning back to the ashram in reverent silence.

We went back to the sacred meditation grove the next night for an extended chanting session with two extraordinary musicians - a harmonium and a tabla player - who had just returned from a three day, nonstop chanting ritual that honors the union of Radha and Krishna, archetypal symbols of the soul and its relationship to the divine. We chanted for several hours, taking turns to lead the kirtan, and punctuating the quiet stillness of night with ecstatic devotional songs.

About two weeks after our group had departed for the U.S., Asha and I followed up on our own efforts to understand and respond to the impact of the tsunami in Tamilnadu. We left early in the morning, driving along the coast line from Chennai, and once we were out of the city, we encountered settlements on either side of the highway. Most of these were makeshift constructions made from palm thatch, tin sheets and plastic. Each group consisted of about 25 to 100 simply refurbished dwellings. In all, we passed about eight of these settlements along the way and we stopped and interacted with about five of these groups. Most of them seemed quite well organized with their own panchayat, the local village jurisprudence. The children appeared to have resumed their normal activity such as playing and going back to school but the adults were afraid to go back into the ocean to earn their livelihood.

We were informed that the government had given them adequate food supplies - lentils, rice and dry goods - so that they could meet their daily food requirements. Their main concern was rebuilding their lives and their homes. They wanted to go back to the ocean front and wanted the government to rebuild their houses along the shore, as before. But the government did not think this advisable or practical in the light of coastal erosion as well as the danger of another tsunami, so they wanted the fisher folks to move their living a bit away from the ocean, to the other side of the main highway that runs along the coast.

For generations these people had lived directly along the ocean front, beside their boats and nets, just a stone's throw from the ocean. Apart from their deep connection to the ocean, they were concerned about their safety - not so much from the occasional tsunami but more from daily traffic. They set out into the ocean around one or two a.m. in the morning. To cross the not particularly well lit but perennially busy highway would only be courting death, doubling the odds of that which they were up against each day while fishing.  Still, overall, they seemed to be having a healthy on-going dialog on this issue with the government and we trust that it will be well resolved since there is much mutual respect on both sides.

We were also informed that the local Indian community had responded very well. Apart from the government, many well off Indians visited these communities regularly and provided them with money, clothes and food. They felt cared for and were deeply moved by the response.

Our final stop was the settlement of our Gypsy friends. Some of you might remember that several years ago, the government had moved them out of their temporary settlement alongside to the ocean to their own plot of land. Their original in-land settlement had burned down many years.  This new piece of land, about two to lawmaker from the ocean, saved them from the tsunami: none of their men, women or children had been hurt. However, their livelihood was affected, particularly because the resorts in the area were closed down and tourists had declined dramatically. Over the years, we had developed a relationship with these simple, wonderful people, and had helped them. We were glad to see running water and electricity and the foundations for 30 to 40 concrete huts that were being built for them. We called together a forum of their elders, as we had always done in the past, and offered them the sum of money that we had put together for their community.  As always, they were deeply moved and expressed their gratitude in song, dance and word.

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