Times nearly up

My time living in a vegan community its almost up. I've had some amazing experiences and met some great people but I feel that it is time to move on.

Auroville is an interesting place. They have a lot of money (not sure where it comes from) but they are constantly putting on free shows and concerts which is a part of the system I do appreciate. Most activities on auroville are free and of a really high standard. They all build on great principles but I'm not sure how many of those principles work in reality. I think the idea of auroville, that each person can own land and farm it and work it the way they would like to is wonderful and that everyone supports each other in their endeavours. However, i have to wonder if such a community is feasible without the vast amounts of money the indian government pumps into it. It seems that people somewhere in the world have to do the dreadful jobs in order for the happy community of auroville to survive. One of the big things that comes to mind is the clothing. There are no cotton farms in auroville so fabric and clothing have to be brought in, fabric spun by factory workers well out of sight of the regular aurovillian. But wearing nice clothes doesnt seem to weigh in on their consciences. Also auroville is a completely flat town, yet very few people cycle here with most happy top jump on ancient pollution spewing motorbikes to get around. I would think such a place would value a cycling community and although cyclists are respected on the roads, they are few and far between.

I think this post is very cynical because I think people like modern day luxuries and when honestly given the choice tend to convenience over environment. If not even the hippies can do it, how can we expect the rest of the world to do it?

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Life in a community

So its nearly been a week here in Sadhana and I'm beginning to become more comfortable with community life. I can definitely see the benefits of living in a community where everyone works together and helps each other out. I like that I can spend the next few weeks exploring this way of living as a volunteer. I think that because Sadhana takes on so many volunteers and people are arriving all the time it makes for a bit of a different dynamic. New volunteers are enthusiastic and willing to do any job they are asked to do, volunteers that have been around for a week or two have realised the best jobs to sign up for and leave the not so enticing work to the newbies. The newbies soon learn and join the ranks of those who've been in the forest for a few weeks. I definitely think that Sadhana needs the newbies to take on the jobs that others get tired of but at the same time the community is not a long stay community. There are a few people who have lived in Sadhana for more than a year but in the grand scheme of things a community base is supposed to be a life time. People who are thinking of spending their lives in a community feel much more for the community and everything that is done should be done for the good of the community but themselves as well. If no one wants to compost the toilets then the whole community will suffer or if no one gets rid of the termites they'll destroy everything. When you only stay in the community for a few weeks or have the feeling you'll leave whenever you want, the onus is no longer on you to ensure everything stays running smoothly.The termites won't destroy the building in the 2 weeks you'e there, and if they do, well you can just move on to the next place. This means that in Sadhana people are given options (you are never forced to do a job you really don't want to do) and then working under a supervisor you complete the task, The long term volunteers have a skill in naming tasks so they seems interesting but as soon as you get to the task, its not at all what you imagined. For instance today I signed up for library and later found out that meant I'd be building shelves. Not quite the library work I was expecting. However, I see why this is done and understand that these tasks need to be done. Running a community where people only stay a few weeks is not an easy task. I can imagine that other communities have other difficulties and problems to face when people are around for the long haul. Maybe one day I'll join a long term community for a few years and see how that works.

Sadhana forest

I'm learning a lot about myself st the moment. I'm in sadhana forest, a reforestation project in tamil nadu, india. Its a community of people who live trying to make the least amount of impact on the environment. They use compost toilets, bucket showers, wood stoves and completely biodegradable products. This is such a lovely idea and a great community of people but for some reason I feel so out of place. I can't pinpoint the reason why though and keep trying to figure out what makes me so uneasy. Its definitely not the fault if people here in sadhana, its all to do with my own limitations and perhaps the wealthy first world environment I was brought up in. The thought of how much work goes into creating a self sustaining community like this just blows my mind! Simple things like getting enough food for everyone, ensuring toilets are properly composted, rubbish disposal, fresh drinking water, electricity all have to be done by the people here. There's no outside services coming to fix things or take things away. The rubbish we generate has to be sorted out by us. The toilets cleaned out by us, water stations refilled, ash sifted for soap and countless other things. These are just things I've noticed on my first day. There has to be so much more going on being the scenes that I can't even begin to comprehend!

My day started with 5:45 wake up and 6:30 heading to the forest. Some people stay back to make breakfast, everyone else plants trees. This only happens for about 2 hours before we head back for breakfast. Its hard work those 2 hours, especially before breakfast and when you're not used to manual labour! But then for forest work, that's it for the day! after breakfast time is spent maintaining the community, my job was termite eradication. This went on until lunch when we finished for the day's work. Afternoons and evenings are free. I think I thought there would be more tree work and we'd be in the first for longer. 2 hours in the morning doesn't seem like a lot to rebuild a forest. Hopefully as I get to know more people in the community I'll become more relaxed and get into everything as I thought I would!

The photo is my afternoon's work, reshaping my mosquito net to fit around my hammock!

Spoilt by tourists

When I first got to india people  kept saying its important to bargain otherwise indians think they can always over charge foreigners. I sort of believed it but always bargained just to get the cheapest price possible. Now I've come to see how right those people were.

I've heard pondicherry is a lovely place to visit so it was a stop over on my way to sadhana forest which is part of the auroville community. I took one of india's infamous overnight buses to pondicherry from the ashram. It was not nearly as bad as I expected. I had a decently comfortable bed and a friendly bus driver (though going to the toilets is a bit of a mission and a bit gross). We arrived at 6 am and instead of being dropped off at the bus station, as you'd expect, i was dropped off on the side of the road somewhere in pondicherry and then suddenly bombarded by tuk tuk drivers. Now not even having decided on a hotel and having tuk tuk drivers around you is never a good combination! Talking a mile a minute and invasion of personal space are to be expected while they try draw you towards their rickshaw.

This particular rickshaw driver wanted to charge me 150 ruppees to get into town, way more than it was worth. He then blatantly admitted to me that pondicherry is small so drivers overcharge. After much arguing and debating (with me not having much of a leg to stand on because I have no idea where I am) I get him down to 90 to take me to the one hotel name I remember from my book. As expected he tells me its a very dirty hotel and he has a better one in mind. I tell him to take me there anyway and the rooms were dirty so as I'm walking out, there he is waiting to spring on me. I finally let him take me to his hotel which is marginally cleaner and a lot more expensive. I'm so tired I take the room and go to sleep. A very expensive start to pondicherry.

The next day I make sure to enjoy all the luxuries involved in being in a massive tourist destination. I eat pizza, drink coffee, find bread and devour a croissant. I also manage to do all my shopping at good prices. There are loads of westerners wandering around the town and I'm wandering if its their fault tuk tuk's are so expensive.

After an extremely early night I wake up ready to leave the tourist trap. I head off to the bus stand while being followed by loads of rickshaw drivers. A tourist with a back pack is like carrion to these vultures. I successfully manage to find the bus stop without help. Pondicherry is a place where you won't find help doing anything the way a local would. There's just no money in it for them. I get charged double on the bus for having a back pack which I know is not normal but the bus driver is about to drive off with me still in the bus so I have to let it go. He's going to accrue loads of bad karma!

The bus station is nightmare and I'm sent from one end to another until I finally find the bus to get on but the conductor shoos me off shaking his head and suddenly I'm surrounded by rickshaw drivers. 300 to moratandi, where I need to go. I find out later that the rickshaw drivers and bus conductors are in on this together. They chase you off the bus then the rickshaw driver offers to take you where you need to go because the next bus is only in 2 hours. Well being stubborn and not willing to pay the now 200 ruppees to get to moratandi I step to the side and look on at the bus that's only leaving in 2 hours. The bus driver is sitting in his seat. Why would he be doing that if he's not leaving for another 2 hours. The rickshaw driver is still pestering me. I've already told him to fuck off, which I never do! Eventually I turn to him and tell him that even if I did take a rickshaw I wouldn't take his because I don't like him. This finally gets rid of him and as he turns to walk away he bumps into someone and explains why he's angry. Instead of sympathising this guy comes to my aid, yells at the bus conductor and gets me a seat on the bus. The bus costs me 5 ruppees.

This is by far the worst I've been treated as a tourist in india. I guess the north is just as bad but I've never been blatantly lied to by bus conductors. If I hadn't been in india for a while I might have fallen for that. Its terrible how badly tourists are ripped off. It makes it hard to trust anyone in india.

This has been a rather depressing post. Hopefully the next one from sadhana forest will be more optimistic!

The ashram hairdresser

With a title like that you'd be forgiven for thinking this will be an anecdote about some wise hairdresser here in the ashram. Well in part you'd be right. I am wise ;) this is about how I have become the ashram hairdresser since everyone has found out I cut my own hair. It all started with a trim that led to an easy reshape and today I did a full on restyle cutting long hair very short. It came out so well and I'm actually quite proud of my efforts! So now I've got the title of hairdresser and pest control (I'm the only one not afraid to chase the monkeys away). One more day in the ashram and I'll spend my bus ride to pondicherry summing up the experience

Meditations in an ashram

Sitting in meditation for nearly an hour each day gives one plenty of time to think, even though you're supposed to clear your mind and not be thinking. I'm starting to believe that's a tall tale and that no one can fully clear their mind when they're forcing it to be clear. The moment I sit down to mediate a million thoughts begin to cross my mind and at a rate I didn't think was possible. Put me in a philosophy lecture and I'll probably be zoned out and thinking about nothing almost instantly. Tell my mind to zone out and naturally it refuses, suddenly there are so many things to think about that just can't be thought about at any other time.

It doesn't really matter what my mind wants to think about, could be train times, could be people, the next vacation, work, camping, the best sleeping bags, getting winter tyres, food, skiing, things that have happened, things that will happen, there's no end to the list. I'm finding that the longer I'm here and the more I try to mediate the busier my brain gets. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm rebelling mentally from putting myself in a place with such a strict regime, something I've avoided since almost school days. Is my mind so undisciplined that I now have no self control at all and just let my mind wander freely at its own discretion? Is that a bad thing? Are we supposed to be able to reign our minds in to complete submission. Can I even look at meditation as submission of the mind to a greater control or a greater power? There are so many people that believe in mediation and have had out of body experiences or reached moments of bliss, but then there are lots of people that believe lots of things. I think I abhor the idea of surrendering control of my mind, I mean my mind is me and so surrendering my mind is surrendering me and I'm fighting meditation to the extreme. Who's to say the forces I'm surrendering my mind to are good forces? Maybe I'm completely misguided and have the whole idea mixed up. Maybe one day I will reach bliss and will come to love meditation.  What I do know right now is that what is for brunch its usually far more important than emptying my mind.

Life in the ashram

Its been a few days but that's because life in an ashram is pretty monotonous and writing about a routine is not necessarily interesting. Writing about how the routine is driving you slightly crazy is ever so much more interesting.

Life in the ashram follows a very strict routine. Our schedule starts at 6:00 with meditation and chanting, this is followed by our asana class until 10. At 10 we get brunch. Apparently its a good thing to do exercise when your stomach is rumbling. for some reason my tummy rumbles at the quietest time in the class. I guess its waiting for the opportune moment to let me know its dissatisfied. Then we have lectures and free time which I generally find I spend sleeping (5:30 wake up is rough). We then have class from 4-6, once again when we're at our hungriest. (its now 6 and my tummy is HUNGRY!) then come 8 we have meditation and chanting again.

So that's the basic schedule. I have decided that as soon as I leave the ashram I will never again chant anything of any kind unless my life depended on it, and maybe not even then. Ever had a song stuck in your head that you couldn't get out and its haunted you all day and perhaps all night? Wil there gets a point when it finally goes away. Over here that's not possible, wee chant the same song every night and every morning of every day. Its a repeat after me chant so every single line is related twice, some of them are repeated more times just for the hell of it. I'm actually going crazy repeating these songs (or I should probably say lines) in my head. I don't understand how chanting us relaxing. For me its like a recurring nightmare, twice a day and haunts my entire day!

On a more positive note, I did a head stand today all by myself