La Maison Blanche Pondicherry

... I have had nothing to do and I don’t know when my life was last like this. No class, no studying, no practices, no meetings, no work, no nothing. I typically have things pretty planned out so this is all new to me and I'm really enjoying it. It has been getting pretty chilly in the evenings these past few days (by chilly I mean 70). Tonight I saw a family of four on their motor bike and all of ...

... 120 spots in a circle facing the center. The center is a perfect glass sphere which was the biggest in the world at the time it was constructed. There is light reflected from outside into the sphere and that is the only light inside the meditation area.

Auroville is such an interesting place. I’ve been spending more and more time there lately. I went to a party out there this weekend and met quite a few people for all over ...

... the city today so hopefully I will be able to talk with him. I also found botanical gardens that I didn’t even know existed here in Pondy. I didn’t go in because I thought I could save that for another weekend. It was one of the French guy’s birthday so we went to a beach resort down the road from campus and celebrated with him. The resort was great; we sat at their rooftop restaurant that was practically on the beach. I ...

... daurada gegant. El menjar (evidentment vegetaria i biologic) es exquisit. Si algu mai s'hi aventura que ho faci en transport public o amb una moto, el fet d'anar-hi en bicicleta es bastant dur i tan sols per a temeraris perque 1/ no es obvi arribar fins a la comunitat (els 10 km teorics de distancia s'acaben transformant en mes del doble) i 2/ els conductors indis no tenen cap respecte per als conductors de vehicles de dos rodes sense motor (ha anat de poc que no ...

I spent the weekend here in Pondicherry trying to get more familiar with the area. The university is about 30 minutes outside of the actual city, similar to Grand Valley being in Allendale outside of GR. For those of you that don’t know, the school I’m attending is Pondicherry University. There are about 1200 students and the campus is on 800 acres of fenced in land. Yesterday a ...

... with all the amenities that are included. All of these families are assisting the builds of their new homes and were very happy to greet us today. I am looking forward to spending two weeks with the villagers and getting to know them better. They live in a village that consists of mostly straw roof homes and they are about a 5 minute walk from the Indian Ocean. I cannot imagine, what it was like living ...

... gather and meditate. I sat in silence for about twenty minutes before a loud, rude, disrespectful, Yankee tour group arrived and ruined the serenity. Nhey really had no idea where they were. Many foreigners are students here and the main spiritual teachings are a synthesis of yoga and modern science. I cruised around the backstreets on a heritage walk in and around the French Quarter but ended up completely lost on my way to the seashore. This proved to be a good thing ...

... of their motto 'may there be many more forests to grow people' at Sadhana Forest in the future and i hope to return some day to see how it has progressed and of course to check up on the ongoing Auroville experiment in human unity and transformation of consciousness

Silly poem i wrote during creative writing class with Zoe, the topic was beer:

Have you ever met the man on the moon
I hear he is quite the loon
he hosts tea parties in a dress
Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India inoursuitcase

... also made campfires outside the Forest some nights as well. As with most campfires in life, people brought out drums and guitars (someone once brought a didjerdo) and played and sang. Since the founders have requested that the main hut be quiet after 9pm, the campfires are a great way for everyone to hang out and make noise without bothering sleeping volunteers. Mud pool- just outside the Forest, about a 3 minute walk, is a huge pool of mud. The top layer ...

... wasn't all positive. According to our insider, the Osho devotees he met were involved in a competitive game of meditation. They are literally trying to out-meditate each other in the Ashram. As a result, it is a very quiet place and people were very serious. Nobody wanted to talk to him. It wasn't the positive karmic experience our man was expecting! We were curious how the ...