T h e    K o v a l a m    S e m i n a r s   

I had traveled all over Southeast Asia, but had deliberately avoided India for the usual reasons: the unbeatable combination of dirt, utter poverty, unreliability, corruption, etc.

But when India became almost the only spot on the map of Asia that I hadn't visited, I finally gave in and toured South India in '84 for three weeks. The trip ended in Kovalam, at the Rockholm Hotel. The first time I entered the hotel and walked down the stairs to the palm-fringed terrace, I fell in love with the place. The constant sound of the waves crashing on the big rock boulder on which the hotel sits, the timeless atmosphere of the place, the big airy rooms and good food made it instantly one of my favorite hotels.

But I had no intention to return to India, until February of '86 when I came to see Ramesh for the first time. After that fatal meeting, India became my second home. I returned to Bombay (now Mumbay) about every three months and grilled Ramesh with my questions for about ten days on each visit, and then went back to the Rockholm to digest his answers. It was the perfect place for that pursuit, and I began to understand the well-known Kovalam mantra amongst travelers, "I'm leaving tomorrow," repeated day after day. I, too, succumbed to the pace of Kovalam and always stayed much longer than planned.

During my fourth visit to Ramesh, I met Henry Denison, a 78-year-old American who had traveled the world for more than 25 years in search of a Guru. His search ended when he found Ramesh. Henry asked Ramesh if he would come to the States to give some talks. Ramesh didn't like the idea, but Henry was persistent, and Ramesh finally agreed when Henry presented him with a paid, round-trip ticket to Los Angeles.
I accompanied Ramesh for the two and a half months he was in California. Towards the end of his trip at the retreat in the desert in Joshua Tree, the idea to have a two-week seminar in Kovalam in April '88 began to shape up.
Mary Ciofalo and a friend of hers, who both attended the Joshua Tree retreat, were the first ones to sign up. After that seminar Mary became my partner in enrolling people for all further seminars in Kovalam and Germany, and also a very good friend.
I had become stung by the Advaita bug one year before I met Ramesh. A good friend of mine from Los Angeles, Peter Roe, gave me Nisargadatta's book, I Am That. Until I read that book, I had only bad things to say about "this spiritual crap." Since I hardly knew anyone interested in "this crap", there was no way for me to find thirty people to come to Kovalam for two weeks to meet this Guru, who was virtually unknown in the West.

But another good friend, Henning von der Osten, knew enough people who were interested. Finally, on Easter '88, I found myself waiting in the middle of the night at the Bombay airport for 33 spiritual seekers to arrive. I was very, very nervous and I wasn't sure I hadn't taken on too big a job.
But the seminar went wonderfully. It was easy and relaxed. People eagerly absorbed Ramesh's words and Presence and also enjoyed the hotel, the food, the beach and ocean, and the beautiful countryside.

Ramesh wrote in one of his letters, "I must say that the group members seemed to have a thoroughly good time, a lot of fun. I could see from the balcony of our room (Ramesh's wife, Sharda, accompanied him at the first seminar), the group members on the beach and in the ocean from 7 am 'til late in the night taking advantage of the surroundings…"
By the time the seminar was finished, it was clear that there would be more, and I booked the Rockholm for March '89. It was there at the second seminar that I met Erika and fell in love. Together we set the stage for the talks in March '90.
By that time Ramesh was going every year to the States and to Hawaii, and he slowly grew tired of too much travel. He traveled to the States for the last time in '91.

In the spring of '92, Erika and I went to Auroville, a large spiritual community in the South of India near Madras, for two months, intending to settle there. We found that it was not the place we would like to live. We spent the next two weeks in Kovalam and then spent two weeks with Ramesh. Somehow, we got to talking with Ramesh about Kovalam, and how it might be a place we would like to live. Then Ramesh unexpectedly said to us, "Why not have another seminar in Kovalam?"

The very next day we were on the plane back to Kovalam. We rented all rooms at the Rockholm, some more at the Palma Nova (now Palmshore Hotel) and we also wanted the two rooms at the Aparna Hotel, situated behind the Rockholm, but higher up. We sat in front of these two ground floor rooms and talked to the owner. He offered us six more rooms which he would have finished building in time for the seminar on March 28th, 1993. Erika and I exchanged just one look, and then I asked Chandra, the owner, if he would sell us the top floor. We struck the deal then and there. Building work would start in July, which would give us both nine months to finish our flat and his six rooms.
To build this flat to my standards in India almost proved too much for me. I came close to death as a combination of physical exhaustion, poisoning from highly toxic paints, and stress.
The first participants, who arrived a couple of days before the seminar started, helped us finish the last touches.
On the evening of the 27th of March, we sat for the first time in our wonderful lookout high above the ocean. The next day the fourth seminar started.

By that time Kovalam had been discovered by English charter companies, and the place started to change. The Rockholm, like many other hotels, had given the charters half their rooms for the whole season. That was clearly the end of any kind of seminar in Kovalam. The last Kovalam seminar was filled to capacity with 85 people attending, almost tripling in size from the first seminar. We thought this was also the last seminar anywhere, but we were wrong. Ramesh gave talks for four more years in Schermau, Germany from 1998 to 2001.
After the last seminar in June, 2001, nobody had any doubt that this really was the end of Ramesh's travels. The long trip to Germany was too exhausting for him. Now, the only way to see, hear, and be with him was to travel to his home in Bombay and attend the morning talks there.
Three weeks after Ramesh returned home from the last seminar in Germany, I got a phone call from Roger, the owner of the Rockholm Hotel. He told me that the charters were pulling out, and he was open to business as usual. A few minutes later I rang Ramesh and asked him what he thought of doing another seminar in Kovalam. His reply was clear and short, "Why not?"
And so after a break of 7 years Ramesh returned to his favourite place for conducting Seminars: Kovalam. Words are really inadequate to describe the eleven days in November 2002 and December 2003 that 110 seekers shared with this brilliant, sharpminded, compassionate, witty, teacher of advaita - just read some of the comments in the announcement of the 2004 Seminar.

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