Good Vibrations
There exists a planned city that houses people from around the world living together and sharing their cultures. Over 130 different nations are represented. The city is designed around a central golf ball shaped monument. Sound familiar? No, it's not EPCOT Center. It's a social experiment/city called Auroville in southern India. Auroville was the vision of "The Mother", a spiritual leader who, along with a yogi named Sri Aurobindo, also started an ashram in Pondicherry.
We thought it would be interesting to visit Auroville while in Pondicherry, but our friends we've been traveling with, Danny and John, had been already and told us it was uninteresting as a tourist attraction. Like the ashram-run guesthouse we were staying in, the people were way too interested in following strict rules and seemed like they had never laughed in their lives. And you can't even get within 100 yards of the Matrimandir, the huge golden golf ball that houses a meditation chamber. This whole ashram thing is bizarre – earlier that day at the ashram bookshop, Liz witnessed one ashramite yell at another and make her cry. Utopia?
The Matrimandir was really all we wanted to see, so the news was a bit of a let down. But Danny came to our rescue. He met a runway-model-turned-actress from L.A. staying in the guesthouse who, as some sort of member of the Auroville community, had access to the Matrimandir. Normally you have to be staying in Auroville for this “privilege”, but for some reason Jennifer had access anyway. She “felt really strong vibrations” at the Matrimandir and wanted to share it with us.
We met at 4:00 to ride our scooters the 5 miles to Auroville. My mother once said driving down Mass Ave at 1:00 pm is like playing a video game with the number of ever-changing obstacles to avoid. Well, if that’s level 1, driving out of Pondicherry is level 10. Pedestrians, bicycles, autorickshaws, bullock carts, cows, flaming piles of trash, potholes, and oncoming buses blaring their horns all sharing the same lane. We made it safely, and were sorely in need of this meditation chamber when we arrived. Jennifer makes this trip everyday. When we asked her why she didn’t just stay in Auroville, she told us it was too much of a party scene. Hmm, a bunch of artists working their connections and throwing big parties on the beach. Why travel halfway around the world from L.A.?
When we got there and parked near the entrance – about 100 yards from the golden orb itself – Liz walked down the path to get a picture. A security guard quickly stopped her because she didn’t have a pass. Better follow those rules! True to her word, Jennifer was able to get us a pass. While this was happening, she also managed to network with a French actor and get herself invited to a brunch party the next day. I guess she couldn’t completely spurn the Auroville scene. It seems like these temporary Auroville residents are just on a spiritual vacation – the type where they put in a little of their time to feel cleansed in a place meant to require 100% devotion. Many of India’s ashrams appear to be used for this purpose.
Despite all my jaded views of the whole Auroville thing, I was really impressed with the Matrimandir (even though it was a bit weird – it reminded Liz of a set from Dr. Who). Suspended in the middle of the sphere is the cylindrical meditation chamber. To reach it, you spiral in silence up the inside of the sphere. They silently give you socks to wear and you enter a totally quiet, white, cushioned room. Inscribing a circle about half the radius of the room are tall white columns that are not actually attached to the ceiling. At the center of the room is a spherical crystal 28 inches in diameter lit by refracted rays from the sun. It’s curiously perched on four golden Stars of David. People sit in a circle facing the crystal and meditate. I will probably never again be in a place so conducive to quiet sitting. We spent 45 minutes there then re-convened outside.
Jennifer was now gone. Danny informed us that she left after 15 minutes. We later learned that she forgot she had an appointment to chant the Vedas at 5:00. We rejoined the video game for the trip home, now on level 15 with the sun having gone down. All that quieting was quickly undone. Ah, India.
. . .
We are now in Bangalore, the IT capital of India. We already met some Microsoft employees from Texas. We head to Chennai on Tuesday, then we leave India for Thailand on December 9th. I'm going to miss India -- it's really started to grow on me. In the next few days we'll probably upload a lot of pictures because the connections here are very fast. So keep an eye on fderekf.dotphoto.com.
We thought it would be interesting to visit Auroville while in Pondicherry, but our friends we've been traveling with, Danny and John, had been already and told us it was uninteresting as a tourist attraction. Like the ashram-run guesthouse we were staying in, the people were way too interested in following strict rules and seemed like they had never laughed in their lives. And you can't even get within 100 yards of the Matrimandir, the huge golden golf ball that houses a meditation chamber. This whole ashram thing is bizarre – earlier that day at the ashram bookshop, Liz witnessed one ashramite yell at another and make her cry. Utopia?
The Matrimandir was really all we wanted to see, so the news was a bit of a let down. But Danny came to our rescue. He met a runway-model-turned-actress from L.A. staying in the guesthouse who, as some sort of member of the Auroville community, had access to the Matrimandir. Normally you have to be staying in Auroville for this “privilege”, but for some reason Jennifer had access anyway. She “felt really strong vibrations” at the Matrimandir and wanted to share it with us.
We met at 4:00 to ride our scooters the 5 miles to Auroville. My mother once said driving down Mass Ave at 1:00 pm is like playing a video game with the number of ever-changing obstacles to avoid. Well, if that’s level 1, driving out of Pondicherry is level 10. Pedestrians, bicycles, autorickshaws, bullock carts, cows, flaming piles of trash, potholes, and oncoming buses blaring their horns all sharing the same lane. We made it safely, and were sorely in need of this meditation chamber when we arrived. Jennifer makes this trip everyday. When we asked her why she didn’t just stay in Auroville, she told us it was too much of a party scene. Hmm, a bunch of artists working their connections and throwing big parties on the beach. Why travel halfway around the world from L.A.?
When we got there and parked near the entrance – about 100 yards from the golden orb itself – Liz walked down the path to get a picture. A security guard quickly stopped her because she didn’t have a pass. Better follow those rules! True to her word, Jennifer was able to get us a pass. While this was happening, she also managed to network with a French actor and get herself invited to a brunch party the next day. I guess she couldn’t completely spurn the Auroville scene. It seems like these temporary Auroville residents are just on a spiritual vacation – the type where they put in a little of their time to feel cleansed in a place meant to require 100% devotion. Many of India’s ashrams appear to be used for this purpose.
Despite all my jaded views of the whole Auroville thing, I was really impressed with the Matrimandir (even though it was a bit weird – it reminded Liz of a set from Dr. Who). Suspended in the middle of the sphere is the cylindrical meditation chamber. To reach it, you spiral in silence up the inside of the sphere. They silently give you socks to wear and you enter a totally quiet, white, cushioned room. Inscribing a circle about half the radius of the room are tall white columns that are not actually attached to the ceiling. At the center of the room is a spherical crystal 28 inches in diameter lit by refracted rays from the sun. It’s curiously perched on four golden Stars of David. People sit in a circle facing the crystal and meditate. I will probably never again be in a place so conducive to quiet sitting. We spent 45 minutes there then re-convened outside.
Jennifer was now gone. Danny informed us that she left after 15 minutes. We later learned that she forgot she had an appointment to chant the Vedas at 5:00. We rejoined the video game for the trip home, now on level 15 with the sun having gone down. All that quieting was quickly undone. Ah, India.
. . .
We are now in Bangalore, the IT capital of India. We already met some Microsoft employees from Texas. We head to Chennai on Tuesday, then we leave India for Thailand on December 9th. I'm going to miss India -- it's really started to grow on me. In the next few days we'll probably upload a lot of pictures because the connections here are very fast. So keep an eye on fderekf.dotphoto.com.
posted by Derek at 6:00 PM
1 Comments:
Derek forgot to mention the final parallel with Disney World. Our Honda scooter played "It's a Small World" every time we hit the brakes! This got quite annoying, but served as good theme music for our video game ride to Auroville.
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