I had heard from my old friend Mathew, that Willie Hirsh was living in India. He did not know where he was, but knew that he had been living at some ashram here for the past 4 years. He gave me Willie's email address and I had tried to contact him when we arrived in Mysore at the beginning of January.
Then the day we arrived in Kovalam, Willie finally returned my email informing me that he was now living in Varkala, which was only an hour away. He informed me that he had become an Amma devotee and had just gotten married and had a 2 month old baby. It took us about another week to make the 1 hour train journey to Varkala. We had a lovely trip up the Kerelan coast, admiring the palm trees and backwaters that separate the city of Trivandrum from the relaxed town of Varkala. Varkala is a very relaxed beach town, tending towards the backpacker traveler, rather then the European tourist, that seems to attract Kovalam. Unfortunately, the weather had turned rainy, as it seems the monsoon had appeared two months early.
After disembarking from the train, we found a rickshaw driver who transported us to Willie's house. As we arrived at the house, Willie was finishing practicing yoga on the roof of his villa. I embraced Willie, who is now known Lokeshvara, and we immediately got into a long talk of our similar paths pursuing the ancient teachings of yoga. I found it quite interesting that we had followed similar paths that have both brought us to India. He has embraced the path of bhakti to his guru, Amma, whereas I have been practicing more asana, which is more of a physical practice of yoga. In yoga there are several different path all intended to liberate the individual from the bondages of this life.

Bhakti yoga or devotion is a practice of fully committing oneself to a guru. It means that we become a devotee of the guru and base our life around serving that person. After visiting several known enlighened beings such as Amma, Sai Baba, and Ramesh S. Balsekar, it seems to me that practicing bhakti really is something that comes from inside, and certain people have a natural tendency to this practice and do it freely. The practice of asana, is much easier for the westerner to perform, as we are not used to bowing down in the name of something greater then us. Bhakti is about the practice of prostrating oneself to something else, whereas asana is practiced by moving the energy in the body, to open and move the eneregy in the body.

Willie and his wife, Vanessa, have had a beautiful little girl, and we had a lovely lunch with them and then went for a much needed swim at an ayurvedic retreat in Varkala. We unfortunatley had to cut the visit short as it was getting quite late and the last train back to Trivandrum was about to leave. It would have been great to have a little more time with them and also to talk about Amma, who definately is an amazing personality.