Gurus, Flagellation & Kitchen utensils

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Pondicherry, which used to be owned by the French is really rather agreeable. There is a long promenade along the beach with palm trees and the odd cafe, all the streets are named (highly unusual) and are all in French and are full of beautiful greenery and trees and although there are the odd noisy parts it is generally quite peaceful. You can even have a croissant for breakfast. And find good coffee. Definitely most agreeable.

Also contributing to a sense of peace here is the fact that we are staying in the guest house of an ashram - quite a famous one - the Sri Aurobindo and Mother ashram. Our room is lovely and our balcony faces the ocean and we are close enough to be able to hear it. There are various rules such as no smoking and a curfew of 10:30pm which suits me fine as I have given up smoking (this is day #2. My inexplicable grumpiness today might have something to do with this) but Adam is not so O.k with the rules but seeing as he put me through 5 days of cricket I guess this is payback time. Ha.

Am feeling a little disheartened after my observations of ashrams in India. Part of me longs to find a teacher and live in an ashram for three months next year before heading back to the U.k. It is something I have prayed about, finding the right teacher for me - and I know that if or when the time is right it will happen. But I feel so repelled by a lot of what I see. It feels like people get so caught up in worshiping their gurus. I understand the need for a teacher, I understand wanting to pay respects to your teacher and feeling love for your teacher but not worshiping him or her and the guru being the be all and end all. The word guru means bringing lightness into darkness - that is all. There seems to be this human tendency towards both personality worship and seeking truth in a nice easy formula handed down to you from an outside source which you can effortlessly accept without questioning. Part of me wishes I could do the same. But it feels very much like this will never be my path. Not that anyone has has a guru is a personality worshipping ignorant fool who is happy to blindly accept things - I think this is our Western perception of people who have gurus and it definitely not true.

The other thing that I find disconcerting is that many of these gurus who are still alive are millionaires and many ashrams seems to make a lot of money. I went on a tour today of all the craft businesses - I had hoped they were created to employ disadvantaged people but from what I saw it's just various money making schemes. You can buy Sri Aurobindo photos, calendars, pens, paper, incense, candles, blankets, towels, T-shirts, books, bags, soap etc etc...If you want to see an example of a guru's money-making empire look no further than www.osho.com.

But, just because something seems to be immersed in shit, doesn't mean there is no gold lurking underneath. The messages of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are based on Truth. It is easy to dismiss everything - all religions and spiritual institutions - just because they has been shadowed somewhat in people's rubbish. And it takes consistent effort and perseverance not to.

It feels like a lot of people in the West look down and judge people for committing themselves to a teacher. They think doing so is a sign of weakness, that you are letting someone tell you what to do, giving up your ability to choose and discriminate for yourself. I think it doesn't have to be this way, that it can take an awful lot of strength... to recognize Truth in someone and that you can learn valuable things from them and then dissect and see through all the bullshit that has been mixed in by other people so that the essence of the message and Truth is revealed. That's not easy. I think that people often renounce spiritual and religious messages and institutions so freely because it's just easier than truly exploring and dissecting them.

Anyways, favorite random moments of the past few days:

*Sitting in the Tiffin Rooms for the second night in a row, this time for Masala Dosas and a variety of other South Indian treats including deliciously syrupy Gulab Jamens when the manager of the restaurant approaches us, pointing to a word in the book he is reading and asks us what 'flagellation' is.

*Going to one of the Sri Aurobindo shops on this tour (which consists of me, the only white person, and a bunch of Indians who have obviously made a pilgrimage to Pondicherry to visit their Guru's ashram) which sells framed photographs of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and bizarrely a range of kitchen utensils. The Indians on the tour hadn't really been that interested up until this point but they enthusiasticaly started queuing to purchase potato peelers and spatulas etc...

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