Travel Day 937 – Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, INDIA
Today I actually managed to get up a bit earlier and so I finally found myself at the beach by 6.30am for the morning meditation…
Pink High-Rise Ashram of Amritapuri
Unfortunately it turned out to be not the guided meditation that I had expected and the few people who had bothered to actually show up, clearly just minded their own personal business. So I found myself just meditating on my own for a while as well until I felt cold and bothered by the buzzing flies who decided to constantly walk somewhere on my exposed skin…
When I got up this morning, I initially wanted to try out the morning yoga class as well, but it was still too early for that and so I rather went for a little exploration walk along the backwaters right behind the ashram. I had already arrived while driving across one bridge with the bus, but now I was taking a foot bridge to the other shore and to the local village on the main land…
Amritapuri Ashram with the Backwaters
While the local village was definitely a great site, seeing the ashram from the back was even better. What came to my mind first when I was looking back to Mata Amritanandamayi Math was that everything looked a little bit like a spiritual factory from the other side of the water. This factory seemed to have massive warehouses, similarly looking to those back in Brooklyn and sounds carrying across the water were those of the daily production…
It didn’t really matter if I was inside the factory or not, the machine was steaming ahead anyway and while it was nice and tranquil on my side of the backwater, on the ashram side the morning prayers were in full progress. Hearing the constant mumbling of the prayers and seeing all the little people running around like ants was quite an interesting sight and I couldn’t help but think about how all the local people from the village might receive this pink monster in their neighborhood…
The Backwaters of Amritapuri, Kerala
It was actually quite amazing because the more I walked along the backwaters, the more I realized how out-of-place, out-of-scale and out-of-color this ashram seemed to be. Everything else just seemed to be small houses, palm trees, fishing boats and Chinese fishing nets as I had seen them in Fort Cochin already. Yeah, this Spiritual factory could have hardly looked more alien in its immediate environment as it already did…
This little walk and the thoughts that came to me made me realize that I would probably not be able to fully appreciate what this place had to offer, but at least I was still willing to try. Unfortunately I had missed my Yoga class in morning, but at least I did join the Tabla class, I really enjoyed my Seva at the compost plant with all the other guys and I really enjoyed the evening session at the beach with Amma…
Actually after this little question and answer session while the sun was setting at the beach, I all of a sudden not only lost my factory vision, but I also felt that there really was something to be gained and learned here from Amma. I was just hoping that there would be more great occasions like this nice get-together at the beach…
Leave a Reply