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Published: June 26th 2012
Spirituality is big business in India. Mega loads of people go to India for yoga, meditation, ayurvedic treatments, etc. Many Indians are cashing in as there are tons of spiritual and healing centres all over India and they all charge big money. It doesn’t cost that much to live in India so where does all that money go? I’m no exception and initially, I also wanted to visit some of these centres but what I saw were just huge money grabbers. I guess since I’m Chinese, I’m very aware and weary of any place where most of the customers are foreigners. I wanted to find authentic places to where Indians or locals go. They may have existed long ago but once the foreigners started pouring in, why would anyone charge 100 Rs for locals when they can charge 1000 Rs for foreigners? And locals would never pay such exorbitant sums so nowadays, all these centres seem to be for foreigners and very wealthy Indians. I have many friends from all over India whom I asked about this. I also talked to locals everywhere I went in India. Do Indians practice yoga or meditation or go to ayurvedic treatment centres? Some had no inkling of what I was talking about. Some people said that these are practices from ancient times and nobody does them anymore. There are ayurvedic practices handed down through generations within families but for real illnesses or conditions, people went to western medicinal facilities or homeopathic clinics. Most people said that they trust western medicine far more than ayurvedic medicine simply because western medicine has a far superior system of education, training, and regulation than the system for ayurvedic medicine. Some laughed at me and told me that all those centres are just businesses making money from foreigners. What about all those famous spiritual gurus such as Sivananda and Vivekananda? They are for the wealthy who can afford to go to those ashrams. For the poor, becoming a sadhu is the only available path to holiness. I’m sure if I stayed in India long enough, I would be able to find real gurus and ayurvedic healers, but the amount of aggravation I would have to endure would probably kill me. In any case, if I’m really on my way to enlightenment, my guru will find me anyway, so no need to go searching.
My point is, if you’re looking for a very comfortable path to enlightenment and being a sadhu is not your cup of chai, you can avoid all the hassle of going to India, all the stress of hagglers, pollution and heat, by finding something local. That Jubu down the street is probably a better bet.
But I guess it also depends on your definition of spirituality. At the core of Hinduism is linga/yoni worship. I always found it kind of funny that whenever I got to the innermost santum of a temple in India, what did I find? a lingam. Hmm... So I came all this way to see a penis?! Wow, here’s paganism in its purest form, and there’s nothing wrong with that but personally, I would prefer something more subtle or poetic or perhaps metaphorized, symbolized, mysticized or something, like the ying and the yang, but I guess I’m just being Chinese.
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Joel
non-member comment
So true...
I lived in India for some years and I was really surprised by the number of foreigners looking for spirituality in a country where the obsession of praying to the goddess of money is pervasive. One thing is for sure... If your life is lacking excitement then go to India, you can find better spirituality in helping the needy people close to you, by helping you will do more for yourself than in an expensive ashram with a greedy guru.