Their presence in this city has changed the very air, which seems to carry a silent, sustained devotion. You think that the change has seeped into the stones on the streets and the mortar in the buildings. Even the beggar with no legs outside the Ashram dining hall shines up at you, eyes brimming with something that you could make a home in. You could curl up in it like a cat in a down comforter and go to sleep, safe at last. You could drink it like cream soda; it smoothes everything behind the fizz.
But this is not paradise. A travel guide comments that India is essentially an ungovernable society. It is too big and unwieldy. A friend remarks that the Indians are a long way from mastering matter. That's easy enough to see. Garbage rots in the streets, and it is too hot to keep the windows closed if there happen to be any glass windows to close. There is corruption, wretched poverty, dirt, pollution, ugliness, homelessness, exploitation, caste discrimination, theft --chaos on a scale that is simply incomprehensible.
The peace and silence here, at least here in Pondicherry, are in the midst of that, not separated off in some cloister! You feel it walking down the streets or shopping in this leather shop or that silk shop or this furniture store, especially ones run by people touched by Them, people dedicated to this path.
These are quiet, radiant, purposeful, sad, privileged people. They live inside an envelope of grace. Walking the streets of the town, you begin to sense its outlines. You feel it thinning when you cross into the commercial district of Pondicherry. The closer you get to the samadhi, the more substantial it grows.
Inside the envelope, everything seems to be orchestrated. It's a different kind of time, a different style of movement. You don't need a Daytimer. It's not that kind of time. It is the flow you have heard about, that you have floated in yourself on occasion. It is here all the time. But this flowing time is not here just to lie down and luxuriate in.
There was a profound work going on here behind the scenes. He and She were on a mission. For 60 years without letup they engaged life and matter in the most stupendous effort of conscious evolution. They didn't want to just find the divine spark within, declare victory and be done with it. Both of them had found the spark within themselves and united with it long ago.
The distinction of their spiritual path is their labor to uncover the Divine, not only in the soul, but also in mind and life and body. A life divine on earth, clearly visible and sustainable even in the lower reaches of human nature, even down to this chaos, even down to the cells of the body! A stupendous work, revolutionary at the time and, if it seems less so today, that is only because of the far-flung influence of their work.
And you sense that it is still going on today, behind the scenes, without the slightest hype. It was never the kind of work held up to public opinion. Nobody's going to broadcast it. It is done inside the silence. The growing busloads of tourists that come here are brought by government tours for the politicians' purposes, not by Ashram public relations. A home for the ancient traveler by John Robert Cornell This article is excerpted with permission from the Fall/Winter 1995 issue of Sunseeds (Vol. 9, No. 2). editor@collaboration.org #
But this is not paradise. A travel guide comments that India is essentially an ungovernable society. It is too big and unwieldy. A friend remarks that the Indians are a long way from mastering matter. That's easy enough to see. Garbage rots in the streets, and it is too hot to keep the windows closed if there happen to be any glass windows to close. There is corruption, wretched poverty, dirt, pollution, ugliness, homelessness, exploitation, caste discrimination, theft --chaos on a scale that is simply incomprehensible.
The peace and silence here, at least here in Pondicherry, are in the midst of that, not separated off in some cloister! You feel it walking down the streets or shopping in this leather shop or that silk shop or this furniture store, especially ones run by people touched by Them, people dedicated to this path.
These are quiet, radiant, purposeful, sad, privileged people. They live inside an envelope of grace. Walking the streets of the town, you begin to sense its outlines. You feel it thinning when you cross into the commercial district of Pondicherry. The closer you get to the samadhi, the more substantial it grows.
Inside the envelope, everything seems to be orchestrated. It's a different kind of time, a different style of movement. You don't need a Daytimer. It's not that kind of time. It is the flow you have heard about, that you have floated in yourself on occasion. It is here all the time. But this flowing time is not here just to lie down and luxuriate in.
There was a profound work going on here behind the scenes. He and She were on a mission. For 60 years without letup they engaged life and matter in the most stupendous effort of conscious evolution. They didn't want to just find the divine spark within, declare victory and be done with it. Both of them had found the spark within themselves and united with it long ago.
The distinction of their spiritual path is their labor to uncover the Divine, not only in the soul, but also in mind and life and body. A life divine on earth, clearly visible and sustainable even in the lower reaches of human nature, even down to this chaos, even down to the cells of the body! A stupendous work, revolutionary at the time and, if it seems less so today, that is only because of the far-flung influence of their work.
And you sense that it is still going on today, behind the scenes, without the slightest hype. It was never the kind of work held up to public opinion. Nobody's going to broadcast it. It is done inside the silence. The growing busloads of tourists that come here are brought by government tours for the politicians' purposes, not by Ashram public relations. A home for the ancient traveler by John Robert Cornell This article is excerpted with permission from the Fall/Winter 1995 issue of Sunseeds (Vol. 9, No. 2). editor@collaboration.org #
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