The following are excerpts from a two part letter to her family, written by a first time U.S. visitor to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, South India, shortly after her arriving, in February 1998. Ellen Davis went to the ashram as a 12 year student of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. A professional ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher with a very metaphysical approach to her teaching, she was asked to teach the ahramites and Aurovillian dance company ballet and improvisational dance as well as creative movement to children in the ashram school. During the time that these letters were written she was leading up to teaching sometimes as many as 17 classes a week. She taught there for 10 months in 1998. These are her first impressions of Pondicherry and primarily the ashram. She focused in these particular letters, on a few of the cultural and sensorial differences she thought would be interesting and humorous for her family to read about. They did not reflect the whole of her observations nor her present views, which she believes deepened to a greater understanding of human universality in the course of her extended stay in India.

Part 1:

Dear Family,

The samadhi is the most beautiful sight and vibration that I have encountered here. In contrast to what appears to be environmental unconsciousness galore, this place where the bodies of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother rest is so very lovely and peaceful. Ashramites bring all of their love and reverence, and all of their deepest prayers and aspirations here making it in tandem with the energy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother a very special place to be and meditate. It is more quiet psychically and audially then any other place that I have been to here, as well as visually magnificent. There are beautiful trees and plants all around and some of the (famous to me) sadhaks from the very early days when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were still in the body live in the surrounding rooms. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother also lived there. Very creative and loving devotees cover the samadhi twice a day with flowers in the shape of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's symbols with varied other sacred geometrical designs and symbols. Each time I see it, it seems more beautiful than the last. It is different every time and always fresh and wonderfully fragrant. Around darshan and at certain times of the day it can be quite busy there with many disparate energies, but I have found times to go when few are there, and it has become something that I do quite often. The first time I was there and saw the samadhi, I almost lost my physical equilibrium, it so moved me that I could be so close to them in this way, after years of hearing stories and imagining it. Still, as their consciousness is non-local I have felt as close to them at times in Los Angeles, Taos or anywhere else, as I ever did here. I have also felt no connection which I have felt everywhere else as well. It seems to have more to do with my surrender to the Silence, the Truth Consciousness and the All that is them then it does with my surroundings. What makes it so powerful and special here besides the presence of the consciousness of their bodies and force, is the collective aspiration and focus as well as the love and reverence so many have for them. Whereas in the states so few even know who they are.

I started at the Institute for Perfect Eyesight. Special exercises to improve vision done every day for a week at the institute and then on my own. A very nice facility. I also visited the Ayurvedic Section, got some lotion for my bites and discussed my diet. I may do Karma yoga there, its so neat. They grind all of their own herbs. Living in an organic chemistry set. Great drawers and bottles, mortar and pestle, etc. Ancient wisdom. The alchemist in me salivates.

I saw a classical Indian music concert the other night that was so beautiful. It was put on by the ashram. Very high production values. Very encouraging to me along with the experience at the school as far as knowing that what I do here will be framed beautifully and carefully. The food at the ashram is magically wonderful and very well planned although I am not eating any of the milk, yoghurt or porridge. I may soften but so far I have maintained my vegan diet and feel fine. A couple of times I think I had ghee - maybe. For sure I tasted a sweet that had it. My diet has been rice, dahl, bananas and sometimes bread all from the ashram dinning room. It is a food-combining nightmare (by my western beliefs and experience) but somehow it works. It is like prasad, (food of the God's - or I actually feel it is from the Mother) and I invoke the awareness that it is the Divine feeding the Divine the Divine, which makes eating quite a (consciously) sacred act.

This whole town is ashram. They have their own paper, weaving, perfumerie, leather and shoes, dairy, produce, incense, clothes, banks, auto shops, medical services including allopathic, computer services, book stores, marbling, embroidery, flower shops, schools, bakery, press, interior design and furniture, post office, hospital, day rest home, home for the elderly (that is supposed to be nicer than anything else) guest houses (like the one I'm in and will be moving to another less expensive in a couple of days), apartment houses all with the Mother and or Sri Aurobindo's symbols on them and names on plaques blown up written by the Mother in her handwriting like "Aspiration" or "Sincerity," food and sundry stores and petrol pumps. Almost all of the businesses in Pondy, whether ashram owned or not, have pictures up of the Mother and or Sri Aurobindo that really thrill me every time that I see them. I was so moved when the ashram car picked me up at the airport and there were their pictures and symbols on the dashboard.

The sensorial affront for me equating to culture shock would be more on the audial level than any other. The noise over here is very high and the people don't seem aware of it as though they have shut it out. This is also at the ashram dining room where construction like electrical saws are being used as we eat. Everyone eats so fast in reaction they seem to feel frenetic inside. I could feel my body wanting to react in the same way but I calm it down and eat slowly. The way I have been so aware of things like that and their pole to the transmutation of the physical has me somewhat surprised that people here at the ashram seem so oblivious to it. It seems people here are only doing their sadhana (yogic practice) in select areas. Sri Aurobindo said "All of life is Yoga" and I really have taken that to heart. Horn honking was initially another affront. Considered an insult in our culture it is not here and used as a warning before every intersection (every block), every past car, every pedestrian, in other words constantly. The horns all have different sounds and sometimes I can now even hear music in them. Once I heard tonalities from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story and sometimes Aaron Copland. It is interesting to me that they are American composers. I wonder if they ever visited India. But when a Westerner hears a horn honk they jump. I had learned even in the US to work with it but still would feel tension in my stomach. This side of life here assaulted me initially in the ashram car on the way from Madras airport to Pondicherry. My otherwise seemingly enlightened ashram driver was heavily peppering and salting his driving with honking. He was perfectly calm and even joyous and honking (my) head off. I thought "what is wrong with him?" There was also the fact that he was always driving on the left (wrong) side of the road and even that didn't hold shape as he often would be anywhere and everywhere on the road. He was actually a good driver, very awake and conscious and although I felt noise polluted, I felt secure with his driving (and proud of myself for it).

Learning to keep an open heart, be present with and at the same time "protect" myself from people that want something from me on the streets is challenging for me because they seem to pull at me quite differently than I am used to having to deal with. Coming from feeling positively boundaryless and knowing all of life as my family, and my family as God, I am concerned that I don't create boundaries with any fear or tension because I know that will counteract the experiences of unity I have so enjoyed and attract the very things to me that I am resisting. The whole idea of protection seems counterproductive to my sadhana, as I have been practicing it. Still, the "rules" here seem so different - or at least their appearances are. Up until this time I had felt empowered through unity to create understandings with others. I have not felt so successful here with the technology I am used to achieving that with. My being an odd and different sight to those here attracts a lot of attention and I don't always want to engage all of the energies in my "family." Having enjoyed indulging in eye contact without discrimination for gender has also proved inappropriate in this culture. This society seems to have its share of sexual repression inside and outside of the ashram with all of the expressions and projections of its distortions finding their belief of a worthy target in this western woman's appearance to them. I will have to learn to limit my eye contact with just females until I can better sense things. What I have sensed in the past as safe insofar as not engaging energies that would catalyze my mismanagement of my own energy is no longer the case here. Mother is asking me to take clairvoyance to a deeper level. The challenge is to do that without going into separation. I would like to be able to say "no" with love and not fear or impatience and at the same time be responsible to my truth in whatever world I am standing in. I figure that I am not only here to learn to exercise my flexibilty of consciousness, accept things unconditionally and see them universally, but to carry my individuated signature to this space and time as well, which may include the limitations of my boundaries. Although my prayer is to honour and embrace the diversity and not interfere, it is also to be the presence of love and whatever face that love calls for. My being here is not only my taste of globalization, but also theirs.

Hearing the people on the street speak, to my unaccustomed, American English and romance language indoctrinated ears, the Tamil language and Tamil speaking English, (if that is indeed what I am hearing), sounds to me like people on speed barking at each other. When they call each other it's this half grunt, half scream - ahhhuh! All the names sound like that to me when they are called after. Otherwise it's Ma! Very short and constant like a percussive style call: Ma! Ma! MA! Ma! MA! <This is as I am walking away. It sounds just like the Indian crow here. Caw caw (exactly). Then there is the other style, the more adagio one with vibrato that I mentioned before: "Maaa" - like a sheep "Baahh" (exactly). The one's that call me like that are on automatic pilot it seems and are not awake. Then there are the rickshaw drivers: Madam! Madam! Madam! Madam! Madam! Madam! This is as I am walking away. Shaking my head no doesn't work because it is close to their figure eight with the head "Yes". So I say, "No!" and keep walking as they keep calling which is effective if I accept their constant whining. It is like having people always whine at you audially and pull at you psychically, not accepting no for an answer as they usually do in the west.

Beautiful little children who are healthy and clothed beg as well. I give a lot when it feels right but often they are scamming the western women, I feel. Those from the ashram say to absolutely not give to beggars. I think I wrote you on how I handle beggars in the moment, individually and according to my clarity of intent for their highest best. I think that it is very important that I see their innate wholeness before giving to them otherwise it is a prayer in action towards the belief in it being otherwise and therefore enabling their disempowerment. It is a challenge for me learning to deal with this. Shutting it out doesn't seem true. Communicating to them about it doesn't seem possible as none that I have experienced have been open to it and seem very committed to singing their begging song. So how does one not shut down, stay aware, stay present with them, compassionate, keep the heart open, not project our western values onto them and not get involved with it? I had learned all of that in the U.S. Don't get involved with ignorance. Don't waste my energy. Don't go where doors aren't open. But there you can physically remove yourself from its proximity and face things that you are called to. Like vibrations attract and gravitate to the same areas. Here it is all in your face all of the time. So I am being stretched to carrying my truth right into the middle of the kind of life which I had never really been drawn towards before. Thank God (and oh shit), but I'll write Thank God to affirm the positive.

The streets are so full of visual diversity. We have the old French architecture, some modern buildings ingeniously designed by the Mother and little village areas with thatched roof huts or thick walled adobe looking dwellings very primitive on the same blocks. We have beautiful young women in these lovely long dresses with pants, long flowing scarfs and their braided hair with divine smelling jasmine and other flowers in them as well as young and older women in elegant, elegant saris. Cleaning women and beggars also wear saris. There are also half-clad to well-dressed individuals with leprosy and many other kinds of physical anomolies imaginable. On the other side, the men are either looking very pure and clean in white perfectly ironed long Indian shirts with pants or the Tamil men wearing dhotis and a shirt or shirtless or very loose sloppy unstylised Indian-made western type clothing. The other night, probably before his bedtime, (his room is right next to the samadhi), I saw Nirodabaran, another famous sadhak, shirtless in a dhoti (long wrap sarong) at the samadhi. Most of the ashram men wear clean pure white. I bought a couple of outfits like theirs (hungry for clean pure white). I had both altered completely (the high neck lowered the long sleeves shortened, the entire thing taken in, darts added, etc. ..). The other one I am thinking of doing something similar to. I can't bear the long sleeves in this heat.

Part 2:

Dear Family,

In the streets there are bicycle rickshaws with skinny riders who look like they wouldn't have the strength to make it. There are auto-rickshaws, these fifties looking taxi cabs, mopeds, motorcycles, monster buses and occasional Japanese cars moving right along with pedestrians, bullock drawn carts, occasional skinny goats and horses, dishevelled looking dogs and cats, birds, chickens, roosters, reptiles that look to me more like a painting than reality and bullocks hanging around and stinking. All of these miraculously move in some kind of harmonious anarchy without accidents. Traffic moves at a very slow pace, might making right with no right of way laws or traffic signals. It is not the quiet Pondy that I heard about. Total chaos but the Grace abounds. It is bizarre.

The smells are also diverse: whiffs of incense, fresh flowers of plumeria and jasmine; absolutely divine scents - and gulps of rickshaw, moped and bus pollution, marbled with open sewage and bodies that haven't bathed. There is a special scent like a wet hairbrush or camel hair coat which comes either from the bullocks or humans, I'm not sure. And wonderful Indian food smells: fried curry spice smells, fried onion and potato smells and other as yet unidentified wonderful smells.

Have you ever seen an elephant pee? This was a baby elephant (the one that blesses me with its trunk). It's like a cross between a fire hydrant and Niagra Falls but of course south bound, but like someone took a big bucket of water and dumped it upside down all at once. Where this elephant hangs out is right near the Ganesha temple which is also very close to reception and the samadhi, and there are always these huge mounds of dirt sand covering this animal's waste.

Since Darshan is over and many of the visitors have left, I recognize many people and feel I am in a small town. My students find me on the street and give me news or gifts of raw vegetables or help in some way. Most days I see Dhanavanti which is like meeting my soul mate and communicating from the deepest parts of ourselves. Did I tell you she gave me a stereo and some tapes to use while I am here? Geeta also lent me several tapes. So now I have music in my room and can teach there. A mirror was also donated from the school for my room to teach with. Dhanavanti also gave me a white cotton ashram sari which I still have not worn because I have to buy a petticoat.

Today was very nice. I saw Amal Kiran, aged 94, in the morning with his good friend, Dr. Dinker Pillande who is an orthepedic surgeon who has developed procedures for lepers to be able to use their hands and feet. He is currently interested in holistic healing and I am honoured that he has really been direct about wanting to build a friendship and my possibly working with him doing healing. Amal Kiran, or some know him as K.D. Sethna is the author of several books some of which I have read, and the editor of Mother India. He is the one person I really was thrilled to meet because I so admire him. He is brilliant with an open heart and humour. He seems to really like me too and we have had some good conversations. I haven't been able to visit him as much as we would both like because of my schedule. I taught two classes, saw Dhanavanti and met a new friend at dinner and went to a school play.

Today while walking to the ashram (I often go to the samadhi or visit Mohini), several Tamil men were exiting a doorway holding a big long metal beam. There was one man per three inches on both sides of this maybe 10 foot long beam. In other words, there were around 20 men carrying this beam. It cracked me up. Then there were other men doing work on a building wall. They built scaffolding out of latilla looking logs and there were around eight men doing a relay type of activity on this wall. I wish I had my camera with me. The other day, I was buying toothpaste (great stuff I used to buy at India Sweets and Spices, in L.A.), an Indian Ayurvedic toothpaste. Next to me there was an Indian me buying Colgate. That also cracked me up. The differences from our culture give a sense of the absurd. By our way of seeing there are glaring incongruencies. For example a beautiful woman in a sari riding down a street on a moped with very poor people sitting on the side of the road, or even in the road! In the states, someone with that appearance would never be on a moped or be in what looks like this "dangerous area," and yet here it is not considered dangerous. I think I am finding my centre again as everything is starting to look very funny to me..

The vision, the perfect vision which sees perfection, saw with a child's heart as if for the first time with nothing to compare anything to, no past only present moment to experience, to embrace and to appreciate. Much of the flavors I have given you are in reference to what we know from our pasts. The true experience happens when the slate is clean and the mind stays out of the way with its interpreting, categorizing and comparing. Where then goes similies and metaphors? When we know ourselves as That we can play. Play in perspective with perspective. Play in time with time. Play with similies and metaphors.

It's ten P.M. and I am at a restaurant I have never been to awaiting dinner I didn't have time for Ashram dinner because I was teaching. Dinner is at eight and so was my class. This place closes at eleven (the latest I have seen), but I have to be back by 10.30. The gate closes then. Everything stops after lunch, businesses close at 11.30 and reopen between 3.30 and 4.30, so in the afternoon when it's hot, everyone rests. I hadn't been but have started to now because I've been feeling very drained. I use to walk on beach road (which I practically had to myself) and go into town trying to find places that were open.

Embracing the diversity, I am eternally Yours,

Ellen

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