R & L Join Ashram; Promptly Resign

One of the best values in India (and there are many) is the public ferry that plies the backwaters between Kollam and Alleppy, an 8-hour trip through the jungle canals that costs about $8.00 each.   You can break the trip about half way at the Amritapuri Ashram, a high-rise compound that jumps out of the jungle like the scene from Apocalypse Now as they ride the river into the Heart of Darkness.  But the Amritapuri Ashram is a happier place.

Its guru is Amma, a fat black woman who presides over a colony of about 2000 permanent residents (as permanent as one can be on this transient plane, Amma might tell you) and a slew of devotees of lesser duration.  We disembark at the boat jetty with about a half dozen other tourists.  Among them is Vince, a 24-year-old kid from the UK who has been traveling around India on his own for three months.  The Ashram has made it into the Lonely Planet guidebook, so this particular road to enlightenment has been well mapped.

We proceed into the compound and are taken to the administration building, where they have a registration office.  It is not unlike a large hotel process, except none of the staff is surly and they have a space on the form for Spiritual Name.  “T-Bone”, Roger writes on impulse.

Linda has booked in advance so we are given a room in their equivalent of Married Housing.  Vince and the other new arrivals are shown to huge dormitory blocks.  All the newcomers are encouraged to attend a 5:00 pm orientation, and we are given a list of The Rules and then were free to wander around the grounds.  We run into Vince again, and we become good friends.  Vince had visited another Ashram earlier in his journey and had a disappointing experience.  “It was a bit of a cult,” Vince said (ya think?), operated by a couple of Italian swamis who ran it like a prison.  The worst was the Karma Yoga, where you were assigned menial, degrading and often filthy tasks that were supposed to build spiritual character or something.

Our Ashram was much looser, but we still had The Rules.  Respect the spiritual journey of the residents, so no small talk, eye contact, if you wish to greet another member use the prescribed Mantra “om namah shavaya” and absolutely NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS of affection.  We were also reminded that there should be no PRIVATE displays of affection either, have a little respect for the monks, people! And no hanky-panky in married housing, either.

Instead of Karma Yoga the ashram had “Seva” or communal chores, and we were instructed to report to the Seva Office for our assignments.  We decided instead to make it our special chore to avoid Seva altogether. 

Lining up to get a hug was the main activity and the big draw for this place. Amma’s darshan (the way she spreads her beliefs) is to hug people. So we lined up when it was our turn, as indicated by the numbered ticket we received when we arrived. Amma started hugging at 11:00 am, and it was our turn about 7:30 that evening. It didn’t turn out to be a big spiritual experience, buried as we were in her ample yet surprisingly fragrant bosom.  The old girl still smelled pretty good after 8 ½ straight hours of physical contact with several thousand people.

We met a couple of people who had lived at the ashram for several years, and a few that were there for a couple of weeks or a month or two.  Some were slavishly devoted to Amma and some were there for a spiritual vacation.  But mostly we hung out with the other ashram tourists.  We stood out like dogs’ balls, as they used to say in Australia.  We were the only ones not swathed in white gauze and you could detect a nicotine withdrawal twitch in more than a few of us.  Roger noticed a guy in the communal chow line wearing a yellow heart around his neck the size of a Frisbee that said “In Silence”.  But the guy kept having an animated and apparently hilarious conversation via pen and paper.  If you’re taking a vow of silence shut the hell up for Gods’ sakes.  And we all had a great laugh.  Belly laughs from the ashram tourists are frowned upon at Amritapuri Ashram.

Anyway, we decided NOT to move there and join the monkhood. We checked out early.  We resisted the impulse to buy Amma souvenirs, including Amma dolls, key chains, and postcards showing her feet (although Roger stole a couple of stainless steel communal tea mugs from the cafeteria.  Is there bad karma in that, we wonder?)  It was a pretty cool place, though, and we weren’t nearly as weirded out as we had expected. We boarded the boat the next day for our onward trip to Alleppey, and the backwaters of Kerala. Details, of course, will follow. Namaste.