Pondicherry is a funny auld town really. We arrived at the bus terminal to all the usual Indian madness and mayhem. I had to haggle hard for a fair price with the rickshaw driver to bring us to the hotel district, but once settled in and strolling about it became clear that this town was different. It's famous for it's lasting French influences, probably most strongly reflected in the number and quality of the restaurants, so needless to say we stayed for 3 days.
We didn't actually do much, as there isn't that much to do, but we certainly ate well. The few sights in the town were interesting enough - the small museum, the grotty botanical gardens, the hand-made paper factory with our friendly Dutch guide, just strolling down the pleasant promenade. But the most interesting place for me was visiting the house and ashram of Sri Aurobindo, a very famous guru-type dude along with his very scary looking French assistant known as The Mother (both long dead now).
This place struck me as just weird - and not in a good way. Firstly it was the message on the notice board (next to the list of strict 'rules' for everyone visiting or staying at the ashram), talking about the author of a book that I assume was negative about the organisation. Basically this message said all copies of the book must be found and destroyed immediately and all ties with the author broken - basically it sounded very over-reactionary to a book and seemed to reflect a scary cult-like attitude to self-preservation, and not at all about acceptance of different opinions and openness. But I suppose in fairness I don't know any of the background.
But then there was the tomb in the middle of the grounds holding the 2 founders, with a number of people sitting around and others prostrating themselves on the tomb itself (every morning the tomb has fresh flowers arranged in patterns all across the top - so I assume that's related to one of the 'rules' of the place being that nobody can bring in flowers). The prostrating seemed rather strange behaviour for 'spiritialists' or whatever they are, as it looked rather idolatry to me (and as each person left they dipped their fingers in water bowls and blessed themselves). I would have thought 'worship' of anyone or anything would be against the principles of pure spiritualism, as I understand that to be simply personal development (not that that is simple of course, just look at all the Epsilons around!).
I had a wee read of some of the plentiful literature around too - all of which seemed fairly straightforward spiritualism I suppose, although always couched in those typically empty and in themselves meaningless terms, like 'energy, universal, divine, oneness', etc. Why can't someone write that literature in simple plain English, as I've always found the underlying ideas valid, simple and interesting (like for instance, a short paragraph about the importance of being an optimist as opposed to a pessimist, which naturally I had to show to the Negator!)?
Anyway, I came away from that place feeling rather similar to the way I do around any organised-religion-type places, like Christian churches or Hindu temples (Buddhist temples are OK, as Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion, and Buddhists don't worship Buddha or anyone else, they just follow (and question for themselves) his teachings - all the temples and statues and stuff are just there as aids to meditation). As I understand it, many forms of Buddhism have rituals and 'rules' and stuff, but they are all related to the original religious beliefs that existed before those branches adopted Buddhism and adapted it to their own local preferences - pure Buddhism, as I understand it, has no rituals, rites, doctrines or general 'baggage'.
We didn't actually do much, as there isn't that much to do, but we certainly ate well. The few sights in the town were interesting enough - the small museum, the grotty botanical gardens, the hand-made paper factory with our friendly Dutch guide, just strolling down the pleasant promenade. But the most interesting place for me was visiting the house and ashram of Sri Aurobindo, a very famous guru-type dude along with his very scary looking French assistant known as The Mother (both long dead now).
This place struck me as just weird - and not in a good way. Firstly it was the message on the notice board (next to the list of strict 'rules' for everyone visiting or staying at the ashram), talking about the author of a book that I assume was negative about the organisation. Basically this message said all copies of the book must be found and destroyed immediately and all ties with the author broken - basically it sounded very over-reactionary to a book and seemed to reflect a scary cult-like attitude to self-preservation, and not at all about acceptance of different opinions and openness. But I suppose in fairness I don't know any of the background.
But then there was the tomb in the middle of the grounds holding the 2 founders, with a number of people sitting around and others prostrating themselves on the tomb itself (every morning the tomb has fresh flowers arranged in patterns all across the top - so I assume that's related to one of the 'rules' of the place being that nobody can bring in flowers). The prostrating seemed rather strange behaviour for 'spiritialists' or whatever they are, as it looked rather idolatry to me (and as each person left they dipped their fingers in water bowls and blessed themselves). I would have thought 'worship' of anyone or anything would be against the principles of pure spiritualism, as I understand that to be simply personal development (not that that is simple of course, just look at all the Epsilons around!).
I had a wee read of some of the plentiful literature around too - all of which seemed fairly straightforward spiritualism I suppose, although always couched in those typically empty and in themselves meaningless terms, like 'energy, universal, divine, oneness', etc. Why can't someone write that literature in simple plain English, as I've always found the underlying ideas valid, simple and interesting (like for instance, a short paragraph about the importance of being an optimist as opposed to a pessimist, which naturally I had to show to the Negator!)?
Anyway, I came away from that place feeling rather similar to the way I do around any organised-religion-type places, like Christian churches or Hindu temples (Buddhist temples are OK, as Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion, and Buddhists don't worship Buddha or anyone else, they just follow (and question for themselves) his teachings - all the temples and statues and stuff are just there as aids to meditation). As I understand it, many forms of Buddhism have rituals and 'rules' and stuff, but they are all related to the original religious beliefs that existed before those branches adopted Buddhism and adapted it to their own local preferences - pure Buddhism, as I understand it, has no rituals, rites, doctrines or general 'baggage'.
Anyway, these 'organised religion' places always have people doing silly little rituals (like blessing themselves with 'holy' water, or kneeing down or bowing or robotically recanting verbatim prayers or whatever). I've long thought all of those things are just means of control and subjugation, and are simply used to prevent people from questioning anything they've been told to believe (I love that classic Catholic answer to any 'difficult' theological question, such as a simple 'Why is there so much suffering in the world?', answer: 'Ah now, God acts in mysterious ways!' - how in any god's name is that an 'answer' to anything?!?!). But I suppose the individuals themselves 'like' not having to question stuff, and therefore 'like' living in their bubbles of self-imposed ignorance, and ultimately I just feel kinda sorry for them 'cos I think they're really just selling themselves short.
Actually, we were coming out of the lovely main Catholic church here during a mass service (I've always liked checking out churches and cathedrals, as they're always so calm, cool and peaceful - it's just the opulence and obviously expensive upkeep that disturbs me somewhat). Anyway, it was during that bit in Catholic mass when the whole congregation all chant together that mad long '...we all believe in the one true church, the divine such-and-such...'. Every time I hear it it sends a shiver down my spine - I can't help thinking of the mindless robots in The Stepford Wives (the story of a small American town of men that kill their real wives and instead create perfect, docile and mindless wives for themselves - it's billed as a horror story). I always now associate that bit of mass with a congregation of mindless, docile, 'repeat after me' robots.
The same bit of Catholic mass always makes me smile though too, as it automatically brings to mind one of my favorite pieces of comedy - a scene in Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian'. It's where Brian is trying to tell all his idiot followers that they are all individuals and should find their own directions in life, and they all, in robotic unison, respond with 'Yes, we are all individuals!', whereupon one member of the crowd shouts out 'I'm not!'. Oh lordy, how that makes me laugh - it's so funny because it's so true...
Anyway, enough of that rant - the next day I had wanted to rent a scooter to check out the nearby Auroville, which is the main centre of the Sri Aurobindo crowd. Apparently a few thousand believers live out there and are quite successful, so it would have been interesting to look around. But the scooter rental guy told me that the police are regularly checking drivers for licenses, and I don't have my license with me (the one for motorbikes). Sarah can't drive a moped so we were forced to forget about a moped and just get bicycles instead. It meant not getting out to Auroville, which was a pity, but instead we could saunter about the town instead.
First we rode out to the bus terminal to book seats to our next town for later that night, then back to check out of our hotel, and then rode to an internet place. Then we rode down along the lovely promenade (it was a glorious day), to a great French restaurant for a very fine lunch of fillet steak and fish (we had lobster the night before in the fancy Promenade Hotel, Sarah saying in all seriousness on the way home, 'I think I prefer my lobster with lemon as opposed to a sauce' - methinks maybe I'm continuing her lifelong spoilt-ness just a tad!). After lunch it was another leisurely cycle through the lovely quiet French-esque streets to the internet place again, before another fine dinner and then a rickshaw to the bus terminal for our overnight bus trip to Madurai.
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