DAY 396: Pondicherry isn't just known for its France meets India vibe; it was in Pondicherry that a worldwide New Age movement was born in the 1960s based on the "integral yoga" teachings of Sri Aurobindo Ghose, which combined yoga with modern science. To the uninformed person, the movement appears like some sort of a futuristic science fiction cult, especially since followers of it meditated around a big crystal ball that focused the energy of the sun and the fact that the movement's primary organizer was a woman whom is only referred to as "The Mother."

The purpose of the movement is similar to that of most organized religions, as it is a pursuit of Divine Truth, although one main pillar of the movement is that it embraces no religion. One mission statement by The Mother states, "...Research through experience of the Supreme Truth. A life divine but NO RELIGIONS. Our research will not be a search effected by mystic means. It is in life itself that we wish to find the Divine. And it is through this discovery that life can be transformed." In this respect, it is a sort of organized Atheism "beyond any religion" based on self-meditation that aims to bring forth a "supramental consciousness" so that followers evolve to a "level beyond the human."

Within Pondicherry city limits the movement is present at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the former residence and headquarters of Sri Aurobindo Ghose and The Mother (born as artist "Mirra Alfassa"), when they met and worked together after their individual life struggles and thirst for spirituality. The ashram Sri Aurobindo writes, is "not for the renunciation of the world but as a center and field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness." In other words, the ashram is open to anyone as long as he/she takes her shoes off first (the first rule in most Asian religions).

I took off my sandals and went inside. The place was silent in a sacred and holy way, although with its philosophies there was nothing "holy" about it. Devotees surrounded a central meditative altar called a samadhi and meditated to reach higher levels of consciousness while pictures of The Mother were hung up, her constant gaze staring down in (at least for me) a sort of creepy way. "Love The Mother. Always behave as if The Mother was looking at you, because She is indeed, always present," read a nearby sign.

THE REAL EPICENTER THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother lies not in Pondicherry, but 12 km. to the north in Auroville, The Mother's experimental Utopian community where true devotees of the New Age movement resided and used all efforts for the betterment of humanity. At the center of Auroville stood the Matrimandir, a huge golden geosphere that looks like Spaceship Earth at EPCOT Center. Inside, so I've read, lay a big crystal sphere (picture above) which, due to its positioning in the center of the geosphere, concentrated the power of the sun into one focal point, so that devotees could sit around it and meditate on The Divine.

As culty as this all sounds, Auroville and the movement are recognized and supported by the United Nations. The 1,500 odd residents of Auroville (no pun intended), many of which are foreigners who came to India in their own searches of spirituality, don't just meditate, but help local communities in environmental and educational programs. One of Auroville's mission statements reads, "Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women from all countries will be able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The aim of Auroville is to realise human unity." [sic] The Mother continues, "Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness."

I only had an hour to explore Auroville that morning after breakfast -- my auto-rickshaw's meter was running -- but in that time I got a taste of what Auroville was like; as nice as everything looked on paper, if you weren't one of "them," it was sort of weird being there, especially with the ever-suspicious security guards eyeing me down in case I illegally took a picture of anything. (The pictures so far are pictures of pictures that I snuck in the Visitors Center Museum when no one was looking.) I left Auroville with the content feeling that, at the very least, I learned about something new that day.

FROM "THE MOTHER" IN PONDICHERRY I journeyed the three and a half hour bus ride back to the mother of the guesthouse in Chennai, Geeta. Since my first day in Chennai, she was always a friendly motherly type who gave me a ride on her motorscooter and, more importantly, didn't have a creepy picture of her on the wall staring down at everyone -- and really, that's a comforting feeling. She was a progressive modern Indian mother, who didn't seem to mind when her daughter Laika left the house to go on a date or something, dressed to kill in a sexy dress.

"How many girls do you [impress] with your dimples?" Geeta asked me the first night at dinner.

"Uh, none really. Just my mom."

"No, really."

I thought about it some more. "No really, it's just my mother that seems to be impressed by them." I supposed it was just a feature that mothers picked up on.

CHRISSY CAME HOME AFTER WORK and with Amanda and Dr. Alexandra from Boston (who had assessed the hole in my leg and said everything was fine), we went out shopping. At Pondy Bazaar, Chrissy bought a cheap pair of earrings, Amanda got some Indian sweets to bring back home to Seattle since she was leaving the following day, Alexandra got some new outfits and I got some genuine Jockeys for less than two dollars each. It was a final dinner that night back at the house, my last sitting of yummy home-cooked Indian food and Kenneth's corny jokes. Afterwards, we sat around the living room for farewell pictures and conversations with the modern Indian couple, who continued to entertain us with tales of modern family life in Chennai.

"I told my daughter one day, 'I think we should have The Talk,' and she said, 'Okay, what do you want to know?'" Kenneth told us. He strummed his guitar to serenade us with his self-made comedy classics like "Once there was a woman who walked like a duck..."

A TAXI PICKED ME UP AT 4:30 early the next morning to bring me to the airport for my morning flight back to Delhi that connected to my flight out of India that evening. Chrissy, who had graciously donated to my cause by taking on my relatively costly tab for my entire stay in Chennai, woke up to see me off in the darkness of the pre-dawn morning, as did Geeta who had the keys to open the front gate. "Bye, thanks for everything," I said. My goodbye hug to Chrissy was a given, but then Geeta opened her arms as well. I reciprocated of course -- really, you just don't get that sort of motherly treatment in a plain old backpacker guesthouse -- for I knew the goodness of humanity didn't necessarily have to involve creepy pictures or meditation around a crystal sphere.