07-01-2005, 09:07 PM
American sadhu offers rare view on changing India
Agence France-Presse
New Delhi, July 1, 2005
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Many people in United States dropped out and turned on in the 1960s as the country became involved in the Vietnam war and major cities became engulfed by race riots. Rampuri went a big step further, he disappeared into rural India and became a naked sadhu.
For 21 years he wandered holy outposts and smoked pot from a clay pipe called a chillum, learned the rituals of sadhus, Hindu devotees covered in sacred ashes and sporting dreadlocks, from a guru and along the way abandoned his western name and cut most contact with his family in Beverly Hills.
The wandering years are the subject of his book, Baba, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi, that gives a modern globalisd twist to what Thomas Wolfe wrote in the 1930s about a man who moves to New York and writes a best seller critical of his small town roots, You Can't Go Home Again.
Rampuri, 54, says he is a rare western witness to a demise of the ancient sadhu culture in India. The perch led him to realise that as a foreigner he could never fully understand the ways of the vast country, but equally he could never rejoin western culture back in the United States.
The traditions of sadhus in story telling, ayurvedic medicine, yoga and in giving aashirvad (blessings) played an important role in India's ability to withstand 20th century commercial trends as many people found the holy men a potent reminder against middle-class desire, Rampuri says.
"But the sadhus who were plugged into that, that's coming to an end. This is what really impressed me. These were people who could basically wander the country with no clothes, no money, nothing between you and the Earth. That is now in a tremendously rapid decline," he says, dressed in an embroidered kurta pajama in an interview at a luxury hotel in New Delhi.
"The financial pressures on the sadhus now are just enormous, many people shoo them away. I am one of the few people to see that from both sides and I feel other things that bind me to the sadhus, but I still feel outside. I also feel an outsider to my own country. It's an epiphany. I see that I have come to play a very unique position."
Sadhus have been around for thousands of years in India with an estimated four to five million now, according to Dolf Hartsuiker, author of Sadhus, Holy Men of India. They can be called naga babas (naked holy men), yogis (a term of reverence) or the more generic sadhu.
Hartsuiker says the number of sadhus has declined from a century ago when Indian society was more organized to support the holy men who are not supposed to work.
A central feature of sadhu existence is the dhuni or sacred fire which is regarded as a home and temple for daily rituals and ascetic exercises.
Sadhus, who normally wear just a string around the waist tied to the penis, regularly smear the ashes from the dhuni on their bodies to indicate rebirth.
But as India liberalised its economy to imports and became a hub for outsourcing, Rampuri says he noticed that people chasing the new affluence increasingly ignored the holy men and found their practices out of touch.
"I've seen it as devastating. We used to walk into a village trailed by kids waiting to hear our stories. Now there's no one waiting," Rampuri says.
"They are not listening to the stories. TV now replaces the living babas. The smarter ones are now running businesses. They have learned to buy and sell. The ones who have understood all this change are the ones that have prospered. The ones that did not understand have been impoverished and their ancient knowledge is on the decline."
Sadhus are organised into various sects to pass on wisdom such as yoga and usually live in small groups or by themselves on the fringes of society in devotion to a deity, such as Shaivas who follow the Hindu god Shiva and Vaishnavas who who worship Vishnu or incarnations such as Rama Krishna.
Agence France-Presse
New Delhi, July 1, 2005
Advertisement
Many people in United States dropped out and turned on in the 1960s as the country became involved in the Vietnam war and major cities became engulfed by race riots. Rampuri went a big step further, he disappeared into rural India and became a naked sadhu.
For 21 years he wandered holy outposts and smoked pot from a clay pipe called a chillum, learned the rituals of sadhus, Hindu devotees covered in sacred ashes and sporting dreadlocks, from a guru and along the way abandoned his western name and cut most contact with his family in Beverly Hills.
The wandering years are the subject of his book, Baba, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi, that gives a modern globalisd twist to what Thomas Wolfe wrote in the 1930s about a man who moves to New York and writes a best seller critical of his small town roots, You Can't Go Home Again.
Rampuri, 54, says he is a rare western witness to a demise of the ancient sadhu culture in India. The perch led him to realise that as a foreigner he could never fully understand the ways of the vast country, but equally he could never rejoin western culture back in the United States.
The traditions of sadhus in story telling, ayurvedic medicine, yoga and in giving aashirvad (blessings) played an important role in India's ability to withstand 20th century commercial trends as many people found the holy men a potent reminder against middle-class desire, Rampuri says.
"But the sadhus who were plugged into that, that's coming to an end. This is what really impressed me. These were people who could basically wander the country with no clothes, no money, nothing between you and the Earth. That is now in a tremendously rapid decline," he says, dressed in an embroidered kurta pajama in an interview at a luxury hotel in New Delhi.
"The financial pressures on the sadhus now are just enormous, many people shoo them away. I am one of the few people to see that from both sides and I feel other things that bind me to the sadhus, but I still feel outside. I also feel an outsider to my own country. It's an epiphany. I see that I have come to play a very unique position."
Sadhus have been around for thousands of years in India with an estimated four to five million now, according to Dolf Hartsuiker, author of Sadhus, Holy Men of India. They can be called naga babas (naked holy men), yogis (a term of reverence) or the more generic sadhu.
Hartsuiker says the number of sadhus has declined from a century ago when Indian society was more organized to support the holy men who are not supposed to work.
A central feature of sadhu existence is the dhuni or sacred fire which is regarded as a home and temple for daily rituals and ascetic exercises.
Sadhus, who normally wear just a string around the waist tied to the penis, regularly smear the ashes from the dhuni on their bodies to indicate rebirth.
But as India liberalised its economy to imports and became a hub for outsourcing, Rampuri says he noticed that people chasing the new affluence increasingly ignored the holy men and found their practices out of touch.
"I've seen it as devastating. We used to walk into a village trailed by kids waiting to hear our stories. Now there's no one waiting," Rampuri says.
"They are not listening to the stories. TV now replaces the living babas. The smarter ones are now running businesses. They have learned to buy and sell. The ones who have understood all this change are the ones that have prospered. The ones that did not understand have been impoverished and their ancient knowledge is on the decline."
Sadhus are organised into various sects to pass on wisdom such as yoga and usually live in small groups or by themselves on the fringes of society in devotion to a deity, such as Shaivas who follow the Hindu god Shiva and Vaishnavas who who worship Vishnu or incarnations such as Rama Krishna.