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They say I am very old. |
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Fall 2003 trip to Auroville, Hyderabad, and Pondicherry India |
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Contents India calls. India's great poet, politician and seer Sri Aurobindo called India the spiritual heart center of the earth, with its incomparable tradition of saints, visionaries and spiritual paths. India repels. Everything - death, beggars, filth, poverty, air polution, piles of garbage, polluted rivers and seashores - everything is out in the open, parading by, assaulting the senses, the conventions, the morality of the visitor. Where would you look? The inner life of the spirit that has produced some of the world's greatest scriptures, visionaries and art? The grinding poverty of the untouchables, the smog, the pervasive corruption, the crowding? Or both, the bright and the ugly, the spiritual wealth and the material poverty, the warmth and friendliness of the people or the theft and corruption rampant? India is on the move. It's people, more than a billion of them, with living cultures reaching back several millennia, are stretching vigorously into the 21st century. This India log is a record of my third journey to India, this time with a group of 18 people, many from Barbara Marx Hubbard's Gateway process, who answered India's call. My old friend, Prapanna Smith, John Robert Cornell Related Links Foundation for Conscious Evolution 
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Arunachala Tamil Nadu stretches lush and bucolic along the road this morning. Rice paddies spring brilliant green in the morning sun. Oxen drag a plow through a dark mud field. Even the mud is rich and lush. Neem trees hang over the road and mark boundaries between fields. But inside our bus eyes warily watch oncoming trucks and taxis. Indian highway traffic is a whole different ball game for Americans, a whole different set of rules that look like no rules to newcomers. Or it seems a game of Russian roulette. Twelve of our group are on route to Tiruvannamalai, about three hours northwest of Auroville, for the weekend. Our driver will stay with us there and bring us back on Monday. Fortunately he is pretty conservative with his big, authoritative vehicle. He doesn't play chicken with the oncoming traffic. He patiently slows down for an occasional scooter or bullock cart in his way. Halfway to Tiruvannamalai, at the town of Gingi, he squeezes into a tiny alley to drop us at a hotel for breakfast, only to find it closed. So, he has to inch the bus back out to the main street, and we find a very local Indian cuisine at a small cafe instead of eggs and toast at the hotel. Some of our first time travelers are leary of locally prepared food, but we are all stunned at the price. Total: Rs 80 (80 rupees), about US$1.90... feeds all 12 of us! The Sri Ramana Maharshi Ashram is our destination in Tiruvannamalai. Sri Ramana's life spanned about the same period as Sri Aurobindo's. Both left the material plane in 1950. Sri Ramana is a well known saint in India today. Pilgrims from all over the country come to this ashram. Westerners also visited him during his life, including American novelist Frank Waters. A small community of Western devotees lives here.
Our guest house for the weekend is three blocks from the ashram. In fact, it also serves as an ashram when the guru is here, but this week caretakers Krishna and his wife Nagalakshmi with their two little children are the only other residents. All four live with a largish TV in a tiny closet under the stairs. Our rooms are larger, spare but clean, no cockroaches or ants—remember this is the tropics—screens on the windows and private bathrooms. Hooray! But we have to keep our doors firmly latched to prevent unwelcome visits by passing troupes of monkeys. Everything is new here! You cannot even take going to the bathroom or walking down the street for granted. The air carries alternately the scents of jasmine and raw sewage. A monkey in a white dress with pink ruffles and cap is sitting on a fence post as Kavitha and I walk to the "supermarket" for some curd (yogurt) for Kathleen. An internet cafe and orange-clad sadhus (renunciates) populate the same glance. We practice eating Indian style, no utencils except the fingers of the right hand. After a picnic lunch on the guest house roof and a nap, our guides take us up the sacred mountain, Arunachala. Some people see a reclining figure in the mountain's profile from a distance. It reaches 2800 feet above sea level while Tiru is probably no more than 500 feet. Stone blocks on the path keep back encroaching vegetation. The hillsides are green, but once they supported a thicker, tiger-infested jungle. Rock circles protecting newly planted trees announce an attempt to reforest the mountain after years of clearing by people in need of firewood.
Monkeys chatter in the big tree overhead as I sit down on a granite bench to remove my shoes. Kathleen grunts. A big alpha monkey has jumped down from the tree and onto her backpack. He rips a plastic bag of sweet rolls out of her hand and helps himself to one. When she moves to retrieve the bag, he glares at her and bares large fangs. She thinks the better of it. The rolls are his now. But the monkeys are not finished with us. The rest of our party reach the cave entrance and sit down to rest. Several female monkeys are on the roof built over Ramana's cave. One of them lets go a waterfall of urine. Janette does not notice in time to avoid a simian baptism. Fortunately there is a little spring nearby where she can wash off a bit before chanting and dinner back down the mountain at the ashram. Janette laughs it off gently. I'm impressed with the poise of her reaction. I think she is really here in India, now.
Around the Sacred Mountain Our whole group is up before dawn this morning. A young woman with short black hair and a blue sari stands in the shadows by a pile of coconuts. She grips a heavy curved sickle with her right hand and swings. One edge of the coconut in her left hand falls away cleanly. She will serve the milk inside the shell with a straw for a rupee or two. We look for the bullock carts that Kavitha has arranged for the morning. We are going to walk all the way around the sacred mountain before it gets too hot. That's 11 kilometers, and the bullock carts are insurance against tired feet and blisters. Circumambulating Shiva's mountain, Arunachala, is a popular devotional practice for pilgrims to Tiruvannamalai. Riding part of the way apparently does not decrease its efficacy.
Back on the road we chat, walk or ride as needed, stop for breakfast at a little tea stand, visit small temples and shops by the road. Balu interprets the shrines and roadside statues for us. He has joined us for the day from Auroville. He is a young Tamil Aurovillian who has visited the Roskes' Hummingbird community in New Mexico. I'm surprised that the walk around the mountain is not more focused and devotional. It feels more like a simple outing or sightseeing than a pilgrim walk to me. Our drivers whack the bullocks to keep them moving at a fast clip. I see no rebellion flicker in their sad, patient eyes. Cars zoom by us importantly. Houses and shops and larger building of uncertain function dot the green countryside. The fields and woods along the road are the only public restrooms. The sun has cranked up the air temperature by the time we circle back to Tiru. We are all riding by now. Cornelia directs our drivers toward the big temple of Shiva, Arunachaleswar, that we saw from the side of the mountain yesterday. We leave our sandals and other gear on the carts and walk gingerly on hot pea-sized gravel toward the big gate. A man with white hair and a long white shirt dogs our steps insisting to be our guide inside the temple. We pass huge outer courtyards, large pools of water, inner courtyards, and buildings that I can't identify. A big elephant takes coins from bystanders and rewards their offerings with a blessing caress on the head with her trunk. Late in the afternoon, after lunch and a nap, we ride our bus a few blocks to a two-story house in a field. Kavitha and Cornelia have arranged for us to join a weekly gathering of devotees, who come together to chant and sing bhajans (devotional songs). They were worried that American tourists might be rowdy or otherwise dilute the atmosphere of the gathering, but Cornelia reassured them that we would fit in. Europeans, Indians, Asians of Korean or Chinese heritage, and Americans crowd into a smallish living room. Another international gathering. At one end of the room people wait with drums, guitar, sitar, flute, tambourine. The mood is quiet, intense. A tall European with a quiet but authoritative manner launches the gathering with a soaring, calling flute solo. He leads us through some of the chants in the music book the group has printed. Occasionally he puts in a devotional poem from Mirabai or Tagore. I recognize a few of the chants. Some are in English, most in Sanskrit. The chanting is full, passionate, rhythmic, sincere. Some people go out on the porch and dance to the insistent rhythm. I sit back enjoying the beauty of the sound and the unity of our voices, but something in me keeps waiting for something - that special psychic presence that is tangible in the most deeply touching devotional chanting. Sri Aurobindo reserved the work "psychic being" for the soul, the divine spark that grows from life to life in an individual until it is ready to step to the front and organize the whole being around itself. When it comes to the front of the personality, it brings a calm sweetness and grace to everything it touches.
Goodbye to Tiru The subtle embrace of grace, the quiet, the sense of benevolent presence in the big samadhi hall at Sri Ramana's ashram invites meditation. This morning I am here before breakfast. And I notice differences from my response to Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's samadhi in Pondicherry. Here the pressure of the grace on my body is very specific, strongest in the heart center and the brow. At the ashram in Pondicherry, I feel the grace and peace way down deep... in the bones. In the marrow. I suspect these differences in perception relate to the different paths that Sri Ramana and Sri Aurobindo followed. Kavitha and I have a short exchange about the differences at breakfast. Cornelia has brought us to yet another ashram a short walk toward downtown where visitors can order breakfast. Sri Ramana is more of a traditional Indian saint. He taught a simple method of self inquiry for discovering the true self on the way to liberation, the ascent of the soul to the heights, the state of nirvana free from the confines of matter and the body. Sri Aurobindo realized the same liberation; but this, he discovered, is not the final end and goal of human experience. Instead, it's a step in a greater journey: After the ascent of aspiration comes the descent of answering grace. After the experiential discovery of the Transcendent, there is the return to earth of a transforming grace within evolution, until matter itself becomes "a means for the full manifestation of the Spirit," a life divine on earth. Beyond liberation - transformation. This, I think to myself, is why Auroville is different from other Indian spiritual centers. After breakfast we say good bye to our hosts and bring our luggage out to the street to load the bus for the trip back to Auroville. And we wait. We have been together for almost two weeks now. We are getting to know one another better each day. This morning we are waiting for Katherine and Makasha... again. Carolyn laughs that tardiness is part of their cellular makeup. She has known them for years. Kathleen wants to say something about it to Katherine. I don't remember the context, but Kathleen also mentions a work she does at night when souls are making the transition from this life to the next. I note again that there are some high beings on this Auroville journey. Carolyn is another. She looks very happy in Tiruvannamalai. She told me that Sri Ramana Maharshi is her lineage. She was up very early again this morning to return to the mountain for a last meditation.
After a late lunch at Auroville's New Creation Corner restaurant, we unload back "home" at Verité. It feels like home. Green and quiet and relatively unpolluted. I'm also happy to get back to the Matrimandir. My scooter won't start, so I ride with Prapanna. An hour of concentration goes by easily in the white silence of the inner chamber. Back at Verité, I cross the road to call Karen. Afsanah Guest House has a phone and internet station. It's the first time I've heard Karen's voice since I left two weeks ago. What a kick! We catch each other up for 35 minutes - for only 330 rupees, about $7.00. It's internet phone, what they call voice-over-IP in the communications industry. The "phone" breaks the sound of the voice down into little data packets and streams them across the internet, just like an email message. The device on the other end reconstitutes the voice. There is a small pause - we are 7,000 miles apart - but nothing you can't accommodate yourself to. We have a lot to talk about.
Auroville Gold Every morning I wake up at 5:30 to the music of the jungle and Matrimandir's call. By 5 minutes till 6, I push the scooter out to the gate and Kathleen appears under the bougainvillea in the twilight from Afsanah across the road. Morning meditation at Matrimandir has become a welcome habit for both of us. It's cloudy this morning, a change after three clear days in Tiruvannamalai. We park by the Matrimandir office and wade through early morning light toward the gold sphere emerging from the earth. Down the approach ramp into the earth and then up the stairs to the big double doors into the globe. Now up the long spiral ramp inside, soaking in the salmon light coming through the portholes in the cement skin. An hour goes by in silence in the inner chamber. The sun shoots spears of light through the trees on our way back to the parking lot. A little flock of dark-feathered birds on a big branch ahead sends out rhythmic ripples of water-chime calls timed to their bursts of flight when we get close. After breakfast our group has an intense check-in at Verité's Integral Learning Center hall. Katherine tells teary-eyed of her lifelong struggle with lateness. Kathleen owns that she dumped her frustration unfairly on Katherine, and had to go back to her with apologies. John's face is much clearer, thanks to time spent at Quiet Healing Center here while we were in Tiruvannamalai. Ron is feeling the weight of Auroville's material and informational need. He has also downloaded some pictures of the firestorms raging in Southern California near his home. This group is not afraid of disclosure and vulnerability. As our time together draws to an end, we are finding deeper bonds together from the close contact and also from our small conflicts. Aster Patel welcomes us to the Tamil Cultural center at Bharat Nivas later in the morning. I am thunderstruck when she starts out speaking about the essential quality of America, an "energized matter" in New York and a receptivity in San Francisco that is waiting for some kind of completion that Sri Aurobindo's work could provide. I have long been interested in the "American yoga," what America's spiritual path may be and what she has to offer. Aster is referring to what she experienced on her recent trip to America. I heard her speak during this trip, at the Conference on Integral Psychology in San Francisco in May. I was impressed then with her graciousness, the depth of her thought, and her richness of presence. The meeting today builds on that impression. Aster was one of the first children in the school that the Mother founded at the Ashram. When she was only 17, the Mother asked her to teach in the school and later to work in Auroville. Today she splits her time between the two places. During our meeting she invites us to tell her about our Auroville experience. Marilyn speaks of her work with and concern for women at home in New York. Janette talks about her personal journey and how much Auroville has affected her already. At the end of the meeting, Aster gives us her phone number and asks anyone experiencing changes in the body from Sri Aurobindo's yoga to get in touch with her to compare notes. After lunch I catch Aurelio making a beeline for the gate. I ask if he will do a tuning session with us before the group leaves. He hesitates. It seems Aurelio, who is a master of sound and consciousness - I know this because several years ago I saw him take a whole room of people into a sonic dreamscape for an hour and a half with just a few words and chants - has not been doing tuning sessions for some time. He has hardly had time for his music. Everyone in Auroville, we have learned, has three or four jobs. Everyone at Verité seems stretched near the breaking point. There is so much to do and not enough people to do it. But with a little prodding, he agrees: Thursday morning, our last full day together.
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organized the trip. Like his name, Prapanna is a mixture of East and West. He has lived in India and taught at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry. He has founded the 
Kavitha, an American devotee, and Cornelia, a German devotee, are our guides this weekend. They take us to visit the samadhi hall and a small adjoining room where Sri Ramana received visitors. You feel a distinct atmosphere of peace and refinement when you enter the grounds of the ashram. Large photos of Sri Ramana in the samadhi hall exude a lovely benevolent presence. I visited here once before, in 1999, with my friend Lynn. Even then, looking at one photo in particular, I felt we were receiving darshan grace of the saint and that we have must have met somehow before.
The air is a mass of suspended water vapor. Kathleen, a hiker and backpacker at home, leads up the hill, over a ridge and down a dip. The city comes into view below, far more attractive from a distance, which hides the piles of garbage and the open sewers that you see up close. A wall rises over the trail on the left. Stairs climb through the wall to the cave where Sri Ramana lived in silence for seven years. I don't feel the same presence on the mountain, said to be sacred to the Indian god Shiva, as I do in the ashram, where there is a clear pressure on the forehead and the heart, and a lesser pressure on the crown of the head.
Traffic on the road is light this early in the morning once we turn off the main highway. The air is mild and damp. The road is paved. I'm grateful for the early start and the exercise. Most of us are walking so far. We stop at a small shrine by the road. A priest wearing an orange cloth from waist to feet and a swath of white on his forehead offers each of us a bit of white powder from a little cup. Carolyn thinks it is ash. After a short discussion among ourselves about it, I'm surprised to hear the priest speak up in broken English. He tells us the powder is ash from cow dung, for which Indians have found many practical uses. Spiritually, he explains, this sacred ash reminds us that life is short and that we all will soon enough end up as dust and ash. Realizing that, he tells us, should make clear the insignificance of this life compared to what will come in the next. In his words I hear an echo of the Catholic Ash Wednesday admonition: Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.
On the way back to Auroville we stop at 
Verité is a big place! This afternoon we get our long-promised tour of Verité's 10 acres. Founding member Danya takes us on a temporal as well as spacial journey, from the Gondor white tower house in the back of the property to the new reception center/healing and education center now under construction to the organic garden and the natural waste water system. We see Katherine's (not the Katherine of our group but Verité's Katherine) house and Aurelio's house. Danya has a |
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