Every discomforting experience and encounter I now regard as a test of my ego, and this morning provided a most formidable exam. On the way to Chennakesava Temple in Somanathapura I asked the driver to do a side-stop at Chamundi Hill overlooking Mysore. Yikes! After taking in a wonderful view of Mysore, the driver dropped me off at the temple for a quick look inside. Wrong! After ditching my sandals at a chaotic checkpoint and getting scolded for touching someone’s shoe (they dropped it and I was handing it to them), I followed a frantic crowd to what I believed to be the entrance. And then…

…before I could do anything about it, I became trapped in the cage line to the deity! This wasn’t the entrance! No!! I knew what this was. I see it at every temple. These beautiful devoted souls would wait for as long as it took to lay offerings at whatever deity graced the temple, and here it was none other than Goddess Chamundeshwari, who is a fierce form of Durga (Shakti) and is revered as the tutelary deity of the Mysore Royal Family — a real demon slayer, worth every hour of devotion it took to wait in this line.

We literally filed through the bars in single file, creeping, creeping…I looked for a possible escape route but found none. I imagined climbing to the top of the bars and scaling across the top to the utter amusement, horror, and chagrin of all those watching me below, you know, the crazy white guy, but that wouldn’t work either. Even the ceiling cracks were sealed off. I stood on my toes and tried to see how long this line went…at least 100 feet one way, and then it looped back, looped back, looped back, and then looped back again before disappearing from view. Then what? My whole day was gone! The Indian people looked at me like I was insane: What was I doing here?

Get a grip, man! Before I let my own demons of impatience get to me, I laughed at my predicament. My laughter became contagious and those around me started laughing as well. God couldn’t have chosen a better lesson for me. I have always been an impatient B*@*ard who needed to learn, man, who needed a real lesson in patience and goodwill. I started chanting mantras. I prayed for those less fortunate. I marveled at the beautiful souls around me, the children and mothers and grandfathers, all models of patience and humility and a temperament still beyond me. This was my lesson for today, and I should be thankful for the opportunity.

There was even a guy at the end of one of the rows, locked on the other side, in the outside world, selling peeled cucumbers to those of us trapped in this line. The gate was locked…you could buy a cucumber and then turn and start heading back the other way in the next row of bars. I looked at his cucumbers and remembered an expression in Russian I learned in Siberia: “Chustvuyu sebya kak ogurchik!” It literally means, “I feel like a cucumber,” which people say when they are finally starting to emerge from the death-throes of a wicked hangover.

I DID NOT feel like a cucumber right now.

Wow! The weird things that go through your mind. Ask anyone who has tried to meditate for more than five minutes. And to think I’ve let that unruly mind run my life for over half a century. No wonder I went crazy! Ok, ok, get a grip. Breathe.

After over an hour of this fun and meeting people on the other side of the bars — “From?” — I made it to the deity and had about ten seconds before I got carried out of the way by the rushing tide of the crowd. I was thankful to just get some fresh air! I called my driver and he picked me up like nothing happened. No matter. I learned patience. It was just a lesson. And was I in for a treat at Chennakesava Temple!

I’ve already rambled a lot, so let’s just say this 13th Century masterpiece follows in the same vein as the other temples I have shared with you recently: Mind blowing! My pictures and words can do no justice to this artistic architectural marvel from a golden age of craftsmanship, so let me just share some pictures…

This temple was built in 1268 by Somanatha who was a general of King Narasimha III during the Hoysala reign. The temple is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and represents Hoysala architecture at its peak.

The interior contains small chambers opening to deities and providing intimate spaces for worship. The cool interior provides immediate relief from the hot sun outside.

That is the last, but certainly not the least, of our temple visits and examples of Hoysala architecture, What a beautiful experience it has been.

Now on to Arunachala Mountain, Ramana Ashram, and exploring caves, as well as a surprise visit to a living saint existing in a perpetual state of samadhi. Many blessings on you all! And be patient:) All will come to you…maybe even a cucumber.