05/04/2010

I joined Emer and Lena to a chanting session this morning; curiosity and amusement were the reasons why I went… not a great way to look at what some people use as a meditative way to enrich their lives or reach that point of greater power in their search for whatever it is they are looking for. Personally I’m quite happy being spiritually unfulfilled, taking each day as it comes without the need to focus my aura or become a follower of some hippy cult.

When we entered the ashram it was a little different from what I expected, thinking people would be chanting in a tribal way seen on National Geographic. Instead everyone in the room sat on floor cushions around a throne cross legged which is something ive always had difficulty doing for as long I can remember. There were quite a lot of people doing this, all westerners but mostly some variation of hippy.

Then Babu or whatever his name was came out and sat on his throne, this guy was a Brazilian who founded the ashram; this guy, apparently on a higher plain than the rest of us was being worshipped by his followers to a point where people even kissed his feet. He talked (translated) about peace, love and about how you should not over indulge in food and what-not and people listened, took notes, and recorded his speech in audio and video as if everything he said had a more intricate meaning. I didn’t quite understand the whole situation perhaps because I was a little distracted playing a game on my camera thinking it was more interesting but a lot of this spiritual mumbo-jumbo for example reading your horoscope in the local newspaper is always very general and open ended but not at all specific to you, you can however, and people do, especially these people, manipulate the words to associate it with yourself and your life only resulting in false hope.

I know im sounding very cynical, but now some kind words, I thought the music performed was great and I got cake.

Later we went to a beach north of town with a German man named Deter where he insisted for us to try his filtered water from the Gangas using his Swiss-made portable filtration device… yes, he was a little strange.

Anyways, after baking in the midday sun and drinking the not-so-tasty water We headed back into town where I napped for the afternoon and into the evening where I did nothing other than watch the Aussie film Rabbit Proof Fence that was an hour and a half of pure dribble, it actually was more entertaining watching it at x1.33 where everyone had squeaky voices not that there was much dialog and the film didn’t go on for so long.