Pilgrimage to Kataragama

We travel for this...

"We travel for this: to settle in to our body and connect with our heart; to savor diversity; to be surprised; to remain flexible. We travel to remind ourselves that compassion must overwhelm narrow–mindedness and fear, and that we are a part of the human community."

Lisa Lindblad
www.lisalindblad.com

A letter to Bill from Udurawana, Sri Lanka

"Dear Mr. Bill Gates,

This letter is from the Udurawana from the Kandy Hilly`s. We have bought a Computer with Microsoft for first time to our home and we have big problems, which I want to be bringing to your notices.

After connect to internet we planned to open e-mail account so we filled the form in Hotmail in the password box but something funny happens only ****** appears (stars), but in the rest whatever we typed the letters and numbers appears nicely, but we face this problem only in
password box.

One friend told that there are bites on his computer but he cant receive them. Can you also include some bites in my computer - I mostly like Cadju and Rata Cadju and Bola Kadala but I like to try anything interesting you also have !

Your esteemed customer,
K.P.G. UDURAWANA. (Kiri Panu Gaya)
The House on the Hilly`s
KingsTown, Kandy"

Sri Lanka: Gateway to Other Worlds?

"Long before modern scientist ever dreamed of the existence of gateways between parallel universes, the ancient world already regarded Lanka or Serendip as being the Antipodes, a topsy-turvy wonderland inhabited by nagas, yakas and various other-worldly spirits. Oral traditions still current in Lanka tell of hidden gateways situated islandwide through which yogis and siddhas, could travel to distant places or even to other lokas or worlds in the blink of an eye.

Lanka’s longstanding reputation as a mysterious gateway to other worlds has been testified to in modern times also by the great pioneer of dream-related psychology, Dr. Carl G. Jung. In Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Jung recorded his own experience of an intensely vivid post-anesthesia dream in which he suddenly found himself floating in space hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface. He especially recalled seeing the island of Ceylon directly beneath him like a vast emerald in the shimmering blue Indian Ocean"

http://www.kataragama.org/research/gateways.htm

"Not only is the universe more complex than we ever thought, it is far more mysterious and magical than we ever believed."

American physicist Dr. Fred Alan Wolf

Tea Horse Road

"An ancient route that spans a not unimpressive 2,350 kilometers, traversing some of the most diverse and mutable terrains in the world. For thousands of years, travelers have been lured across its snow-capped mountains, precipitous canyons and lively streaming rivers to discover some of the most beautiful landscapes in all of China.

As its name suggests, the Chamadao, literally translated as 'Tea Horse Road' or 'Tea Horse Path', was a central trade route for exchanging Tibetan horses and Chinese tea. The corridor came to play a crucial role in the communication and exchange between the cultures of present-day Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, with the route passing through, among a number of important posts, the volcanic ranges of Tengchong, the colourful culture and dwellings of the Khamba people in Changdu, the breathtaking gorges of Lijiang, through Tibet as far as Burma and India."

http://english.cri.cn/725/2006/02/19/168@52713.htm

Frangipani Tree

Crystallized tears of Buddha

"The interior of this mountain (Adams Peak) produces red rubies, blue sapphires, yellow Oriental topaz, and other gems; they have each and every precious stone. Whenever heavy rain occurs, the water rushes out of the earth and flows down amidst the sand, and the people search in the sand for the stones. There is a saying that the precious stones are the crystallized tears of Buddha"

From The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores by Ma Huan, who accompanied Cheng Ho on three of the later expeditions. They remarked on the curious impression in the country's highest mountain, a giant 'footprint' which Buddhists associate with the Buddha, Moslems with Adam, and Hindus with the god Shiva.

Anoma

"Human insecurities, greed and conflicts blur the boundaries between reason and passion and explode the tensions that exist within all of us. We create and destroy in our search for immortality, never accepting life’s unalterable fact – impermanence."

Anoma Wijewardene

http://www.anomawijewardene.com/home.html