Have you seen the new Tiruvannamalai Tourist Information Brochure?
It is truly astounding! As I perused each page I felt as if I was holding a rare parchment of the Brothers Grimm Fairytales. It was like being transported to a bizarre realm never seen or spoken of, for fear of breaking its magic spell. Where is this fabled "Spiritual Centre of South India", it looks so inviting? Yoga spa treatments, gourmet food, kind and warm hearted local guides who would never fleece you and who only care about helping you on your karmic journey!
Then it dawned on me as the scales dropped from my eyes and the enchanted glamour evaporated, that this is the Tiru I love and loathe. Those mugshots of our kindly guides are a rogues' gallery of every local villain and scamster. With their dead-eyed venal stare, these boys are looking for blood and geld and YOU are on the menu!
Then I came to the Spiritual Masters page. Duh: Mooji, Madhukar, Gaia (he's so famous they spelt it Gaja: obviously a homage to Lady Gaga!), that bloodless Werepig Torsten, James Swartz (looking like a dessicated cadaver!), Spermananda, Satsang Barbie and then some non-entities who I have never heard of. It looks like a bulletin board for a United Nations War Crimes Tribunal! Page after page, it gets more surreal. I must be tripping. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice to the Cheshire cat - let's take another toke on the DMT. Weird Singing Heart Ashram woman (Jacqueline Marie Longstaff) has a full page to advertise her paranoid and confused satsang (will David Icke make a guest appearance?) To top it all she even has a special retreat called Dying for Truth. I take it that this is when the cyanide and orange juice are passed around and everyone signs over their worldly possessions before the journey to the Great Hereafter!
I could endlessly list the delights of this strange publication but suffice to say the best joke is on the inside cover. It's an ad for an imaginary Visitors' Centre: there is no given address and no-one I have spoken to knows where it is. Maybe it will just teleport into place in front of the Ramana Ashram, just as coach loads of wide-eyed tourists stumble into town eager for the wonder of this magical spiritual Mecca.
Next time you sidestep a dead and decomposing sadhu arraigned tastefully among the rotting garbage, pinch yourself and think of this little fantasy magazine that promises the earth but will sell you the same old losers and spivs.
Only Arunachala could cook up the flailing entrails of the Kali Yuga into such a delicious egoic theme park. It is truly a mirror of perfection here. Just remember: SAMSARA IS NIRVANA ...
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Lurv the picture ... Start collecting ... We can burn them all on the top of the mountain at Deepam!
ReplyDeleteSad old Torsten slavishly parroting what he heard from the luxury loving Gangaji and her sleezy partner Eli Jaxon Bear who is now into Enneagrams! What next?
ReplyDeleteDear Swami
ReplyDeleteVery good and funny again.Tip top. I'll do my best to find some time to write, but we are not all rolling in money as your highness, some poor chaps like me even have to work. And have you ever tried to fuck a boorwell? Borewell? Well-bored? Can you imagine how much work that is at my age and with my deplorable health situation.
And what about being fucked by a boor well? Maybe Satsang Barbie might be interested or Gabriel ?
A local complains bitterly: I as a resident have mixed feelings about Tiruvannamalai being one of the spiritual shopping centres for westerners.
ReplyDeleteHey, I know a rich guy who was asked about his
ReplyDeletedining experience at a new exclusive restaurant. He
said, 'The food wasn't very good, but at least it
was expensive.' And so it goes for spirituality
too.
These so called "Western Masters" are a contradiction for all seasons:
ReplyDeletelike a pacifist who
carries a gun or a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy. They're so phoney could someone,anyone just give them the old heave-ho!
Bullshit is beyond race,creed or cultural conditioning, it just smells bad and that's universal!
ReplyDelete