 |
|
Home | About | 2nd Page | 3rd Page | 4th Page | 5th Page | 6th Page | 7th Page | 8th Page | 9th Page |
|
You shall awake into the spirit's air |
|
Fall 2003 trip to Auroville, Hyderabad, and Pondicherry India |
||
 |
||
|
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 
|
|
The Time Has Come Today I move from "Courage" room on the top floor to "Equanimity" one floor down. Sounds like a beneficial move. It puts the loss of my lovely ocean view in context, perhaps this stage of my journey, too. The end of the journey approaches. I leave India on the 20th, so I am gathering little fragments and colors of India to take back to California. Today is the first of several days of finalizing chores. Canal Street separates the Ashram quarter of Pondicherry from the downtown shops and stores. Canal Street consists of two one-way lanes, one on each side of the "canal," which used to be simply a large open sewer. The city is gradually covering it over, but sewer it remains. Downtown is old town. Many of the shops are small and narrow. When they were built, they didn't have that sense of infinite space that we had in the American West. Every inch of space has an occupant, including the sidewalks. In fact, most residents eschew the sidewalks and walk in the streets, those stream beds barely containing the overlapping currents of people, animals, and machines. My morning chores include changing travelers checks into rupees at Souvenirs Travel Agency, getting a taxi receipt at Autocare, renting a scooter on Canal Street, and shopping for Karen. How can I find clothes for her? I brought one of her salwars so I could get the right size. The scooter is for speeding up final chores like this and for a trip to Auroville tomorrow with Lynn. I meet her for lunch at the Ashram dining room and after lunch she joins me in the shopping district to hunt clothes for Karen and an internet cafe for email. The internet connection at the first place is slow and sporadic. A new place on Canal Street has a fast connection, but my California ISP's webmail is down. I finally get off a message to Karen via another account. I have not heard from her since I got back to Pondicherry. I'm glad to return to Equanimity at Mother's House and finish my chores - writing and washing a few clothes to dry on the balcony overnight. It's been a busy day. The only time I remember dropping down in there was when I pulled Patterns of the Present, by Georges van Vrekham, from the library downstairs this morning. Georges is a Belgian Aurovillian best known for Beyond Humanity, a book that makes available to any interested reader the revolutionary vision and work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In Patterns of the Present, Georges offers an unusual and hope-filled interpretation of the rushing swirl of events in the modern world, based on his reading of their writings. They were nothing if not farsighted. The massive dislocation that we feel in the modern world, the genocides, the huge upheavals of peoples, climate, and environmental degradation, says Georges, are neither random chaos nor the beginning of the end of civilization. Instead, the massive change is the result of a massive pressure, the pressure of a new world being born, a new force of conscious evolution, cleaning out the stables, breaking up the old hard shells, and bringing in a force as new to the mental world as the mind was to the animal world. Evolution has not stopped. On the contrary, the pace is quickening. The seeds and shoots of a new one-world consciousness are appearing here and there. A mind-boggling change is moving on shore. A mind-transcending change. Sri Aurobindo and Mother were messengers and instigators of that change. And how is it that I happen to be graced with a connection to this work, begun half way around the world from where I live? I turn the page in Patterns of the Present. Georges is recalling the answer to the same question that The Mother gave to the children at the Ashram playground: You are on earth at this moment, she said, because you have chosen so in the past... There are large 'families of beings' that work for the same cause, who have gathered in more or less large numbers and who have come [down upon earth] in groups, as it were. It is as if at certain times there were awakenings in the psychic [soul] world, as if lots of sleeping children were being woken up: 'It's time! Quick, quick, you have to go down [to the earth]!' and they hurry down. And sometimes they do not touch down at the same place, they are dispersed. But there is something within that causes an uneasiness, that pushes them on. For some reason they feel attracted [to a certain place] and that brings them together. That is the true family: the family of the aspiration, the family of the spiritual tendency. Another time she said this:
Auroville Once More I am up at 6 for a visit to the samadhi. I love bathing in the calm power drenching the Ashram courtyard, a reinforcement for the "Equanimity" of my room. After breakfast, I take the scooter to meet Lynn at the Ashram dining hall. She has "courage" flowers for me, but we drop them off at Golcond, the guest house where she lives, because we are heading straight to Auroville from here. Maybe they have their intended effect anyway, because I'm enjoying the freeing sensation of the wind rushing by and the organic fluidity of Pondicherry traffic. It's like sliding a powered raft through the riffles and boulders of a California river, with the added complexity of a secondary river of vehicles and animals flowing upstream (mostly) on the right.
Lynn suggests that we stop at Savitri Bhavan for the weekly reading of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo's profound epic about spiritual evolution. The small gathering is typically international, with Indians, Europeans, and Americans present. I recognize Helmut, a German Aurovillian architect and long time resident. Shradavan, who runs the center, supplies exquisite commentary on the passages that we read taking turns around the circle. We scoot over to Verité so I can say goodbye to Aurelio, who asked me a couple of weeks ago to stop by before I leave for the US. He's not there, but it's great to see Danya's twinkle one more time. We're going to spend the rest of the afternoon shopping for gifts to take back to California. Lynn helps me look for clothes for Karen in the Auroville Boutique at the Visitor Center. I keep coming back to one skirt I think she might like. The pattern and color are right but I don't know about the cut. Harem skirt - what is that? I can't tell just holding it up. The girl behind the counter looks at me puzzled when I ask her to model it for me. Reluctantly she agrees, and I'm so glad she did. Low cut in front with lots of bare belly. Nope, I don't think Karen would wear that!
We leave our friends and strike out into unknown territory, the wild jungle of Auroville's northern greenbelt to look for the community of Fertile Windmill. This community was started by Vijay, a man with a gift for reading stones and people and matching them together. I wasn't able to find a ring for Karen in Hyderabad, but I hope to take her back some beautiful and healing stones. Our map wistfully tries to match the branching red dirt lanes and paths, but soon I have no idea where we are. Thick foliage crowds the edge of every road and path. On a hunch, we veer left along a narrow lane and cross a cattle guard. Oops, a big dog appears out of the jungle barking. A quick U turn gets us back out to the main lane. No human habitations, no people have been in sight for 15 minutes. We backtrack a little, and suddenly the map makes sense again. In five minutes, I try another left turn. We follow a two lane track several blocks back into the jungle. A sign and clearing announce Fertile Windmill, but nobody seems to be around. Siesta time? Vacation? The gemstone shop has glass walls and colorful flowers by the door. Inside we can see shelves, cabinets and displays crammed with stones, rings, jewelry, lamps, carvings, geodes. A bell hangs outside the door. No response to our clang-clangs. On the third try a petite woman with gray streaks in her hair and bright eyes strides over to us from the residential buildings. She tells us they are not open on Sunday, but she pulls out a bundle of keys and opens the door anyway. Inside, the rock shop is a fairyland of polished stones, jewelry, and crystals of every color and shape. She points us to a book that gives the particular vibration of each stone. I choose three stones for Karen: chrysoberyl for thyroid health, labradorite for creativity, and ruby for positive fire in the heart and blood. It's getting late and Lynn wants to be at the Ashram sports ground by 5 for the evening practice. We still have to find our way out of this remote area and get back to Pondicherry. Once we are on the dirt road again, a man gives us directions to the coastal highway, and we are on our way. I haven't seen the famous sports ground. It has played an important role in the life of the Ashram and of the Ashram school. See this note for an earlier discussion of Sri Aurobindo's and especially Mother's insistence on the importance of physical education throughout life. The sports ground has dressing rooms, a substantial set of bleachers, one field bigger than an American football field with a running track around it, and another field about half the size of the first. Ashramites and youngsters from the school are practicing in groups everywhere. Lynn has disappeared into the dressing room. I settle into the stands to watch. This year's presentation has something to do with internationalism, because many of the groups are practicing national music and dance: Italy, Argentina, South Aftica, and so on. A young woman in jeans sits down for a short while in the stands a few rows away. I stare at her when she gets up and starts down the stairs. Just as the stands are about to block her from view, I catch her eye. She stops and breaks into a smile. Only then does it click. It's Lopa, an IBM programmer who lives in the Bay Area in California. I've seen her many times at the Ashram in Lodi, California. Out of context, half a world away, I couldn't resolve her face in memory. She is actually much more in context here than I am. She studied at the Ashram school here. She tells me she was just reminiscing about times when she was down there on the field performing. Another of the bright and engaged young people that have come out of that school. It's been a full and fun day. Lynn seemed happier today than I've seen her in years. Back at Mother's house after dinner, I put my Mac laptop on the little desk to work on this web log. The white keyboard is jumping with black specks of frantic movement. Ants! I had the laptop stored in the cupboard. A trail of confused ants stops and wanders around on the second shelf where the Mac was a minute ago. I pull off the keyboard; they buzz around the innards. I think half of a colony has moved in. What could possibly be attracting them to the silicon insides of a computer? Fortunately, the machine still works. Just before bedtime Prapanna stops by my room. He has learned about the how the darshan will be organized tomorrow. I will wake him at 5:15 am and we will go to the ashram together. It will be my first darshan in Pondicherry. This is one of the main reasons that I came to Pondicherry.
Darshan Prapanna is already dressed when I go to his room at 5:15. A hushed crowd mills around in the street in front of the Ashram before 6. The big door to the Ashram complex is closed. Roped pathways in the streets around the Ashram mark off lanes where we will enter the complex for darshan later this morning. Years of practice with huge crowds for darshan have honed the organizers' skill. Today is one of only two days a year that Mother's room is open to visitors. Darshan means meeting with the Divine, often through the mediation of the Master or guru. This one commemorates Mother's mahasamadhi, when she left her body in 1973. A strong sense of presence pervades these special days even now. Though the masters of this yoga are no longer in the physical body, they are very close to the physical plane, in a dimension that they called the subtle physical. We settle in the school yard across the street for half an hour morning meditation at 6 am with many other ashramites and guests, then ride downtown for some breakfast. Back at the Ashram a little later, we get darshan passes for 8:00 am but are able to join the line early. This darshan doesn't have as many people as the ones later in the winter. The cooler season when most visitors come has just started. The line of devotees climbs to the top floor of the Ashram building. A strong benevolent pressure on the top of the head grows as we get closer to Mother's room. It's a buzzing pressure, but finer and smoother than that. Mother's room is small, with her bed and other items, and a sense of something wide and awake. Someone or Something is here, something you want to dive into, wrap yourself in and carry around forever. Each visitor has a second or two, no more, to stand at the entrance to the room and absorb the presence. Then we file down different stairs into the Ashram courtyard, where the samadhi is covered with flowers. Prapanna wants to check up on Dr. Ananda Reddy. We heard he was in the hospital because of a heart problem. I ride with Prapanna to the Reddy's house. It was a false alarm, he tells us a bit sheepishly. He was in the hospital for several days, for what turned out to be a benign condition. In fact, he is about to hop on a plane for America. He is a traveler, one of the Ashram's many ambassadors to the wide world beyond Pondicherry. I have some errands that I want to get out of the way to clear the afternoon. My watch band is broken. Like my belt, it softened and broke in the soaking humidity of this climate. I bump into Ron and Ross on my way downtown to find someone to repair it. Ross says it is too late to find anyone open to fix it, but at a tiny storefront shop, a little man rummages through some drawers and finds a generic plastic band, a razor blade, and a pair of pliers. He pulls an old eyepiece over his right eye, sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth, and concentrates on that rebellious band. Forty-five patient minutes later, he has wrestled both bands into a perfect fit. I find an affection for him and his unhurried concentration balances my impatience to just get the thing done. The fee: Rs 55 (about $1.10) for the band, nothing for the labor! I get lunch at the Ashram dining room with the other darshan attendees and go back to the samadhi for a quiet afternoon. A pass gets me into the school playground for the traditional evening meditation in the evening. Mother's recorded voice outlines the three things needed for the transformation: consciousness, plasticity, and surrender. Back at Mother's house, I am very tired and go to bed early.
Big Changes The room is black. No sound except the sputtering sea nagging the shore a block away. I'm awake in the middle of the night. Uh oh, an edge of pain has crept back into my throat. Maybe more antibiotic will help. I'll ask Regina, who runs Mother's House, about an Ashram doctor tomorrow. I turn off the overhead fan and plunge back under dream waves. Sri Aurobindo's words from the Darshan message are the guide for my meditation at the Samadhi this morning: Sitting calm and quiet remember the Mother and open yourself to Her. This is the rule of meditation. At breakfast at the dining room I see Sena Reddy, from Hyderabad. He looks on me with such beneficence. We struggle through a little exchange in broken English. On the way back to the main Ashram building, I bump into Ashok, to whom I brought the electronic equipment at the beginning of this trip. He gives me a big, warm smile and chides me gently for not getting in touch with him when I got back from Hyderabad. We arrange a visit for tomorrow afternoon at his place.
I spend the morning in Pondicherry shopping. All of my trip money is now changed into rupees except $20. I find another salwar kamise for Karen. Since I don't normally buy clothes for her at home without her approval, I'm not in comfortable territory here. Fortunately, we like the same blues and lavenders and pinks for her clothes, and the sales girls keep pulling out more items till I find something I like. Sena is at the dining room again at lunch time. He seems to be a guardian angel watching over me. He holds my hands and looks at me kindly. I find Mathejis upstairs and join him for lunch. I bathe in the joy coming out of his eyes. He is a Dutch ashramite with many talents. He is a writer, a psychologist and a Mac programmer. "Big changes are coming," he smiles. I remember again the words of the Mother I saw today at the Auroville Boutique in Pondicherry: They say I am very old. Since ancient times, for eons, I have been waiting for them to admit a change in the cycles of the world. The time has come. These meetings with kindred beings are profoundly reassuring. I return with my treasures to Mother's House and open Georges van Vrekhem's Patterns of the Present. He quotes Mother's words at length about this "family of aspiration." Following an Indian custom, I buy some sweets to give away on my birthday tomorrow. A short visit to the exhibit on the Chariots of the Gods at the Exhibition hall after dinner has me dragging. I am tired. The trip is rushing to a close. Ants are still buzzing in my laptop, but not as many during the day as at night. I put the laptop in a sealed bag. Maybe they will decide that there are better nesting places. We will see what tomorrow brings.
Day of the Grace It's the day that I have been waiting for. Everyone here looks forward to this day. When she was in the body, Mother received each of them on their birthday. It is one of those days when the Lord Himself opens the doors wide for us. It is as though He were inviting us to rekindle more powerfully the flame of aspiration. It is one of those days which He gives us. We too, by our personal effort, could attain to this, but it would be long, hard and not so easy. And this - this is a real chance in life - the day of the Grace.
I skip the masala dosa at Cottage Restaurant and drive to the beach for a short stroll. A young beggar looks me in the eye with a bit of a smile. Richard takes me to the Ashram on his scooter and up to Mother's room at the top of the stairs. This is her receiving room, where she received 100 to 200 visitors a day, not her private room that we visited day before yesterday. Richard leaves me in front of her chair. For half an hour I sit there under a golden force that pours down into my body, from the crown of the head through the recalcitrant power center to the base. Plainly visible with the inner sight, the descent is gentle but continuous. I have never felt it go down this far. I am way inside there, absorbed in this progressive filling. Time disappears. Next thing I know, Richard is gesturing to a tray of flowers in front of Mother's chair. I'm so absorbed in the force that I don't see a lovely gold locket among them until, coached by Richard, I pick up the flowers. The locket is a birthday gift from Karen, arranged by Lynn. Sri Aurobindo's symbol is embossed on one side and Mother's symbol on the other. As we get up to leave, Nirodbaran comes through Mother's room, led by another person. He walks unsteadily. The firm stride that I saw the last time I was in India is gone. Richard greets him. Nirod-da, "Companion to the Divine," as the booklet commemorating his 100th birthday is titled, raises his hand in reply. He was one of Sri Aurobindo's personal attendants for years. He transcribed Savitri from Sri Aurobindo's dictation after the Master lost his physical sight. Richard leaves me at the top of the stairs outside Mother's room to wait for my turn in Sri Aurobindo's room. Five or six others who will go in at the same time gather on the steps below. The door opens. We enter the room and place flowers on silver trays laid out between the offering boxes. A large photo of Sri Aurobindo in his green chair draws the eyes immediately. A benevolent, heart-touching force seems to emanate from the photo. We visitors sit on the floor and the silence of the Master washes in. The golden force goes on working. Nirod sits in the room with us, straight as a soldier. I am feeling full and very happy. Time vanishes again. After the concentration, the birthday celebrants receive flowers and a card from a tray on the right side of the room. The man distributing the cards asks if it is my birthday. Yes, I say. Good, he replies and hands me another card with a flower. That is very good, Richard remarks when I tell him about the flower and card. Divine Grace, he says, is the name Mother gave to that flower. Richard keeps the locket. Something further needs to be done to it. I'm too engrossed to remember what he said. I'll pick it up at his place later today. I float down the stairs into the courtyard. Divine Grace is in the button hole of my long white Indian shirt. A man with clear brown eyes, white hair, and a white beard smiles at me. "Happy birthday," he says softly into the silence of the Ashram courtyard. I haven't eaten any material food except a small sweet at Kailas's place this morning. I doze off in a chair at Mother's House before lunch. Magee, a French lady staying at Mother's house, eats with me. We discuss politics - Bush, Iraq. Magee's face is full of sadness. While I pack and make some financial arrangements, a message arrives from Richard that the locket is ready. Back at Richard and Kailas' place, I expect to pick up the locket. Instead Kailas points out some flaws in the design: one of the rings is missing in Mother's symbol and a rivet through the chamber mars the perfection of both symbols. Kailas knows someone who can fix it. In fact, he is the one she would have recommended make it if only she had been asked. Do I have time? I'm flying out of Chennai tomorrow. Will it hurt Lynn's feelings if I take it to a different jeweler? It's your decision, Richard reassures me. So I will meet Richard at 6:30, after my visit with Ashok, and we will go to see what this jeweler can do.
Shobha-di has taught music at the Ashram school for decades. There was no appropriate music available when Mother first asked her to teach, so she wrote music for the children. Most of it has not been recorded. The Ashram has given her no resources to record, so Ashok has gradually built a small recording studio in the basement from donations of friends. He plays some of her music for me in his studio. It is is lovely and lively. On the way back to meet Richard, my scooter quits in mid flight without warning. It was running fine a minute ago. It's dark. Better check the gas, er, petrol. Uh oh, empty. A man walking by stops to chat and offers a practical suggestion. Push the scooter to the petrol station a few blocks away across Canal Street. The scooter is heavy, but fortunately the terrain is flat. Richard and I decide to visit the goldsmith on my scooter. He probably won't make that mistake again! I do OK on the open road or on the quiet streets of the Ashram quarter, but we have to go back across Canal Street into the narrow, crowded downtown streets. Getting across each busy intersections is a small Russian roulette for a neophyte like me. I think Richard has a few more gray hairs after that ride. The jeweler can repair the locket, but it won't be ready for a week. After some discussion, I leave the locket with him and arrange to buy a gold chain for it. Most of my rupies are gone. It's illegal to take them out of the country. Fortunately, Richard and Kailas have just received a big donation. They will front me the money and I'll wire repayment to them when I get back home. One last trip to the Samadhi. Richard brings me flowers "from the Ashram and from us." I've never had a birthday so full of grace!
Soul's Home Awake this morning before dawn, lots of racket outside, then chanting, then the crows. Up at 6, visit to the Samadhi. Lots of people this early! Masala dosa at the Cottage Restaurant. They have a breakfast menu again, but not very friendly service. I try to see Prapanna's psychic friend at 8:00, but he has already gone out. Picking up loose ends today: load pictures on to my laptop, return coconut oil bottle to Richard and give him the globe I got in Auroville. By the way, the ant queen and her troups have decided to stay in India. No sign of them in the machine this morning. Stop by to see Lynn. She is not there. No email from Karen. Add petrol to the scooter, buy t-shirts for the kids and a copy of Georges' Patterns of the Present to take back with me. Back to Mother's House for a shower and lunch with Sue, the Philippine lady and Marie Louisa, the German lady. There is a letter from Lynn on my door. I wonder why we keep missing each other, and then I think - the locket! Pack in the afternoon. Ready to leave. Sob. Richard stops by just as I get my bags and Prapanna's in the cab. "I just made it," he smiles. He has things for me to take to Karen, Judith, Maraya, and Dakshina. My fellow travelers to Chennai are Prapanna, Matt and Ahana, a friend of theirs, and Ron, who is still in Auroville. Ahana hasn't seen any of the wedding pictures yet. She giggles when I tell her she can see some on my laptop while we wait for Matt to return from an errand. We pick up Prapanna at Cottage Guest House, where he was being interviewed for the Golden Chain, and artist friend Manoj Das Gupta at his apartment. In Auroville, we find out that Ron was sick all last night with food poisoning. He has been staying at Center Guest House in Auroville near the Visitor Center. He is weak and subdued, still nauseated. He's flying back to the U.S. with me, while Prapanna, Matt and Ahana are taking a train north to visit her family. We talk enthusiastically about the wonder that was Sri Aurobindo on the way to Chennai. That's a wonder in itself. The family of the aspiration. Whew! Dinner in Chennai. I'm still in India. The airport and goodbyes. The airport is just not the old India any more, it looks so modern! Not even any troubles with the ticket, although the guard wonders aloud why it is out of date. Ron is in a daze. He is just hanging on. The plane leaves at midnight. Dozing to Singapore. I'm not in India anymore. But it is still my soul's home. |
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 
We bump into Jill and Swar during lunch at the Visitor Center restaurant. They are going to show a visitor from France the new American guest house in the International Zone. Lynn has not seen it either, so we hop on the scooter and follow them to the site. Jill does a Vanessa routine introducing us to the unique, double opening composting toilet, two seats side-by-side in the stall. You choose the seat, depending on the body's need at the moment. American ingenuity at its best. And no, that doesn't mean that you have to share the stall.
Regina gives me the name of a doctor to see, but remarks that sleeping without a fan has taken care of a similar problem for her. Here they say that the congestion is a factor of the sharp wind that comes ashore this time of year.
Richard, who has been in Pondicherry for half a century, is arranging my birthday visit to Sri Aurobindo's room this morning. Richard who was here for darshan when Sri Aurobindo was still in the body and who was a little boy in the Ashram under Mother's care. Richard of the soul-smile. Richard the Gentle, lover of nature. Everybody knows Richard. He taught many of the ashramites in the school. It's a privilege to know someone so close to the heart of Infinity.
Now it's time to visit Ashok and Shobha-di. Ashok greets me at his front door with that wide smile of his and introduces me to Shobha-di. We exchange stories about how we came to Sri Aurobindo and Mother. I'm still surprised that I can travel halfway around the world and feel so at home almost instantly with strangers like these. That inner connection to the Masters opens the heart and we are strangers no more, in fact, friends, family. The family of the aspiration. |
|
Home | About | 2nd Page | 3rd Page | 4th Page | 5th Page | 6th Page | 7th Page | 8th Page | 9th Page Copyright John Robert Cornell, 2003-2004. All rights reserved. |