When we listen, if we do, to the litany of death, tragedy and damage on the daily news it is pretty clear that news nowadays automatically implies negative news. If someone gets shot in a city of over 80,000 people that’s news. The 80,000 people who were not shot just aren’t news. One aircraft crashes, that’s news. The 500+ safe flights aren’t mentioned. To constant listeners the world seems full of nothing but bad news. Then people start to take pills for depression instead of turning off the bad news machine. It’s a funny world.
And it seems to be an axiom of American newspeople that where there are crowds there is violence. I know, and you may know of TV cameramen who have bribed youths to fight so they can have some violence to photograph. The violence in Seattle brought in hundreds of cameramen. The day after the violence, when the city showed its true colours in the clear up action was not news. And we now know that much of the photographed violence in modern crowd scenes is deliberately staged to discredit the reason for the march, or the demonstration, and not infrequently by the police. And this is true even in relatively civilized Canada.
But peaceful crowds don’t seem to be news here at all. And the expectation of violence with crowds goes as unchallenged as the automatic connection between guns and gun crime. Canada, for example has many more guns per capita than America. In Canada I owned two guns to put food in the refrigerator. Here I own none. But Canadian statistics of gun violence are way below ours. Every home in Switzerland containing an adult male has a gun. Just about zero violence. When Britain outlawed ownership of guns by the public, so that the politicians could get brownie points, gun crime soared. It’s about six times what it is here. In Australia the same thing happened. Gun violence went through the roof. Yet here we equate access to guns and gun violence as obvious. Just as we do crowds and the incidence of violence.
Yet there is a country where crowds like we cannot even imagine here assemble regularly in peace, without sex scandals, corruption or violence. Those assemblages don’t rate here as news, though visible on Google Earth, and though a brawl by soccer hooligans in a European Cup Match, or in a rock concert would certainly be noticed and commented on.
That country is India. And we’d better take notice of what happens in India. In less than a decade it is going to push China into second place as the most populous country in the world. And as some of you I am sure know well, most of our credit card or computer inquiries are answered by people from India.
I had a question about some software I bought here and phoned for technical assistance. The lady who answered me was very competent and told me her name was Elizabeth. I didn’t believe that for an instant. I have several well educated Indian friends from Gujerat whose English is perfect, but with a lilt and music that English people don’t have. When we had finished she asked if I had any more questions and I said, “Yes. I wonder if your real name is Rathna, or Varsha or Mirabai, and are you in India right now?” She was. And she was in Gujerat. Her instructions were to use the Anglo Saxon name to make U.S. and U.K. callers feel comfortable.
Last week I was at a graduation ceremony where a friend was being awarded his M.A. Among the graduates there were 90 with an M.Sc in the sciences. Of that 90 there were 76 with obviously Indian names and faces. Maybe then we should know a little more than we do about a country that has already captured much of our technical work, is a nuclear power and a definite spiritual power among the New Age Set.
At any moment of any day in India there are more people working diligently at their spiritual practices than there are people in this country. Religious festivals are common. Every three years a special religious festival is held in rotation at one of four sacred sites.
It is called the Kumbha Mela, and you can check it on the Web and even buy tickets for tours of the events for aliens like Americans.
The four cities concerned are Pralag, Nasik, Ujjain and Hardwar. So each city gets its turn every twelve years. The crowds are always numbered in the millions. Every Hindu sect is represented. These millions get together in mutual respect to worship at the site in their own way. The sadhus and rishis come out of the Himalayan caves and forests to join the householders in a common celebration.
The Kumbha Mela at Pralag (Allahabad), is the biggest. It is the Maha Kumbha Mela. It’s held at the place where the sacred rivers Ganges and Yamuna meet. For the astrologers among you I’ll mention that it is held in the month of January/February in the Gregorian calendar. The highest spiritual merit is attached to bathing on the new moon day, when Jupiter is in Aquarius (known in India as the Kumbh (the pot)) and both the Sun and Moon are in Capricorn.
At this time of the year the rivers are partially dry. The Indian Army builds a tent city for the pilgrims who come from all over India and live in the tents for several weeks, at no charge. Well known and little known gurus and spiritual heavyweights from all over India put up temporary ashrams for the festival. The programs go on all day 24/7 and food is free to all attendees. Do we hear about it? No sex, no corruption, no violence no news.
As with pilgrimage, similar bathing rituals exist in most religions, for the purpose of purification. In Judaism, one form is total immersion in "living water"--that is moving water, the sea, a river or spring--for restoration of ritual purity. Christians are known for their various rites of baptism. For most Protestants it signifies a public declaration of belief. Catholics believe that baptism removes the "stain of original sin" and is a requirement for entrance to heaven. Muslims have the custom of ghusl, washing of the whole body, recommended, for example, before touching the holy Koran. In the Shinto faith, standing under a waterfall is a method of purification. There are special days in the Kumbha Mela dedicated to bathing in the sacred waters.
At the 2001 Prayag Mela there were Seventy Million people assembled. Satellite cameras could easily see the crowds. As a comparison…the sprawl of Tokyo and its suburbs has a population of 34 million. Seventy Million is close to a third of the population of the U.S.A. And they were gathered in an area measuring about 3 miles by 5 miles. And they had a tent city and food all ready for them. Think how these inefficient brown skinned people compare with what our white government organized after Katrina.
At that time it was the largest gathering in the history of the world of people in one place for any purpose. They were all together, millions every day, honouring each other’s ways of worship; chanting and meditating together in harmony and mutual support. No violence, so not news here. Did you hear about it? Or any of the others. The numbers and the amazing organization involved merited headlines. Here there was silence.
When Mark Twain was doing his world tour to pay his debts he was in India on the occasion of the Kumbha Mela. He thought it was worth mentioning though he was pretty anti religious himself. He said in 1895:
"It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination marvelous to our kind of people, the cold whites."
Quite so, Mark, it is beyond the imagination of the cold whites.
Let’s look at some other pilgrims. We have all heard about Rome, and Lourdes and Bethlehem. What is the most visited pilgrimage spot in the world? None of these. It is the temple at Tirupati in South India.
The Shri Venkateshvara Temple there brings in about $6 million every day. Every day around 30,000 people show up. They have to climb ten thousand steps to reach the Temple. Our latest conveniently labeled genetic disease of obesity would be a definite handicap. When the pilgrims arrive they are given the opportunity to donate all their gold and jewelry to the Temple and to have their heads shaved. Men and women alike walk away from the Temple bald.
The line of devotees moves along quite slowly. They chant hymns and sutras or the many names of the god Vishnu, who in this Temple appears as the black statue of Sri Venkateshvara. The reason for the popularity of the site is the earnest belief that ANY wish made before that statue according to the proper ritual, must come true.
Given the numbers of pilgrims it isn’t too surprising that thousands of wishes do come true, and many pilgrims return with even more expensive gifts for Vishnu to express thanks for his help on the previous visit. The Black Virgins in the South of France and the grottoes at Lourdes also have their stories. But 30,000 a day after climbing 10,000 steps, and nobody carrying lots of gold and jewelry gets robbed?!
We have heard a great deal about the selfless work of Mother Teresa among the poor of Calcutta. But it is the only person we hear about because she is, or was Caucasian and a great publicity image for the Catholic Church. The slanted Western publicity gives the direct impression that the little brown skinned brothers and sisters aren’t doing anything to help the poor and sick. Well, they certainly are, but they aren’t white or Christian, therefore they aren’t news. Let’s look at one example who honours the West by coming here every year. Amma.
Amma had her 50th birthday celebration in the city of Cochin in South India a few years back. The city authorities, not being stupid, declared a four day holiday for the whole town. About 1.4 million people came to Amma’s birthday celebrations, including 5,000 Westerners. Everybody did their own personal practices and seva…selfless service of some kind. The banner on the temporary bamboo convention hall read ‘Religions Embracing for Peace and Harmony.’
There were many world leaders there, and spiritual leaders, an Archbishop and the Secretary of the World Council of Religions. The Prime Minister of India was one of the secular leaders. The Women’s Initiative program was inaugurated by Martin Luther King’s daughter Yolanda. There were 100,000 young people listening to her. The CEO Summit was attended by business leaders from all over the world. No controversy, no reports here.
Sounds from every nation were heard over the four days…music and theatre from everywhere. There were dancers from Japan, women singers from Africa, an Incan theatre performance, more dancers from Spain, Ireland and Africa. The Hindustani singer Ramesh Narayan and his group Fusion Medley performed, mixing traditional and Western jazz drumming. A mixed group of Europeans and Americans sang Michael Jackson’s ‘Will You be there?’ and brought everyone to their feet. And so it went on. There was even a Dixieland band playing ‘She’s Got the Whole World in Her Hands’ in gospel mode.
EVERY hour 60,000 meals were served. Amma’s people bought 10 million kilos of rice and 10 million kilos of semilina. They stored it in railroad cars. These are the people who can’t organize anything according to Western journalists.
Among the programs inaugurated at this birthday festival was one with 1008 lawyers to represent poor people in legal trouble, particularly women. During the whole time Amma gave darshan for 12 hours every day and for 24 hours on the final day. Darshan from Amma means a special hug from the guru. She by-passes the Western obsession with words by conveying divine love with a mother’s hug. She hugged tens of thousands of people. On occasion she has hugged 30,000 people without a break of any kind…fresh at the end as at the beginning. She is not an ordinary celebrity. None of this was news here.
On the last day 191 representatives from different nations brought water from the rivers all over the world. The water was gathered, mixed, blessed by Amma, and poured onto a banyan sapling. This was a symbol of how the whole world could live together in peace and harmony. Not news.
This lady has built an ultra modern state of the art hospital here for the poor. Western hospitals fall over themselves to hire people who have worked here because they experience the treating of conditions that are rare or unknown in the States and are very highly qualified. A dental clinic is built next to it. She had 10,000 homes built for poor people and has 100,000 more planned. In India she is regarded as a national treasure. Not news here. Only one saintly white lady helps the poor according to our press.
When a leper was brought to her, covered in the foul smelling sores and lesions of his disease, she greeted him like a long lost member of the family and personally washed his sores. She told him to come back every day. Every day she licked one sore clean of pus. When she did this the sore healed. Over the weeks the leper was healed. She left one sore untouched. When asked why she didn’t heal the leper completely she said it was to prevent him from becoming complacent. He remembered God while he still had one sore. And remembering God was much more important than 100% healing. That’s wisdom.
Remember Mother Teresa’s remark when a reporter watched her washing the sores of a leper and said’ “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” To which she replied, “Neither would I.” That splendid comment went round the world. Do you remember any comment from Amma or about her tremendous work for the poor?
The religions that most of us hear about stem from Father Abraham. The Jews, Christians and Moslems all have this man as their ancestor. So the thoughts of everyone in these three religions tend to be the thoughts of his time and place. And they are linear thoughts. Each religion has a date in history to which they refer past and present events. They are not the same dates of course. But this way of thinking influences all we do. We tend to think of time as a straight line from past to future with events stuck on it at intervals.
The Hindus don’t think like that. Their religion is many thousands of years older than the big three, all famous for their intolerance to other religions. They don’t think in straight lines. They think in cycles. This isn’t the first universe to them. We are simply in a stage of the endless cycle of create, sustain, destroy…like the three prongs on the fork of Lord Shiva.
You could walk the whole length of India and only the Christians or Moslems would be concerned with any attempt to change your faith. There is the historical proviso that fundamentalists of ANY religion are dangers to the human race.
Just think about the scenes I’ve mentioned. They happen constantly in this other land. They are about cooperation and compassion. So we machos don’t hear about sissy things like that. Not news. Even the visits of Amma to see thousands of people every year in Fairfield, Naperville and Chicago, and visits from other famous Indian Saints aren’t newsworthy events. Maybe our priorities could do with an overhaul.
