Indian Spiritualism

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The guy who was rooming across the hall from us in our Hyderabad hotel calls himself Ananda, which means bliss. He started a conversation with us like about 50% of people do here anyway, and I could see that his head was freely floating way up beyond the clouds after about 30 seconds, when he told me that he spoke the word of the Ultimate. We had a bit of a chat, mostly centering on spirituality (given that it's his specialist subject) and then left for oiur evening meal. On our return, he offered to show us his photographs (he spent 5 or 10 years or something in the Himalayas training or something). He was obviously not dangerous. I don't even think he was looking or money or brainwash us into becoming his devout followers - he was just looking to spread the word a bit on his teachings. So we consented, and had a nice enough chat, looked at some photos of him and his family and the westerners he'd taught. He seemed to mistake our learned knowledge and objective interest of matters spiritual for actual gone-with-the-fairies openness to his teachings, which seemed to be a modern take on traditional Indianism.

I coin the term 'Indianism" here for good reason. Before western culture imposed itself on the people here, there wasn't even a word for religion - and that's quite significant. It meanrt that the practices we now term as Hinduism, Bhuddism or others were merely part of everyday life. This here country is like the spiritual melting-pot of the world. I've seen Muslim women her ewearing Bhindis and saris like the Hindus. Aside from their methods of worship, they are all the same (that's something Ghandi preached). Everyone's superstitious here - and it's a particular brand of superstition that could only be Indian. The culture and state is built around it. There's no real welfare system - people are expected to give alms to beggars (and it's bad luck if they don't give any). One beggar (a bloke with a shaved head wrapped in a sari, making annoying coo-ing noises) passing through my train out of Mumbai tried to curse me because I wouldn't give him anything (waved his left, or dirty, hand in front of my mouth). Luckily, I don't believe in their superstitions, so I'm immune.

Anyway, Ananda was absolutley lovely, and his wife was really nice too, but similarly floaty. He gave me his Yahoo email address (haha!) when we left Hyderabad. I told him we might like to visit him and learn more (being polite, really).

Hyderabad itself is a pretty big, horrendously polluted city. I was developing a slight headcold when we arrived, but it really blossomed here, thanks to the ubiquitous, heady mix of exhaust fumes and dust. It's got some nice culture though. It's India's Muslim capital, so there are plenty of mosques. We took a look at the Salar Jung museum. It's built around an extremely rich bloke's private collection of "cool stuff". The most interesting (and most unethical) was the ivory collection - amazing intricate carvings and crafts, from Japanese figurines on which every hair seemed to take shape to wonderous little hollow balls-within-balls (no join on the outer balls - the smaller ones were carved from the outside through the holes in the bigger ones). There was a very famous sculpture of the Biblical character, Rebecca, which I feel very privileged to have set eyes on - the sculptor carved every detail of her veiled face so well, it looks like the statue has been veiled.

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Comments

[Helen]

sprit ualism
Sounds like an interesting guy you met, as long as you don't run off and join a cult! Would be good to see some pics soon. Seems like you are getting a bit sick of blogging despite the fact that everyone is so impressed with the standard. Saw Stella today and she said how literary they are too. Will email too love to yu both