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    The river attracts both locals and visitors at the cool times of the day. But even in the leaden heat of
    noon you can find a villager washing himself or his compliant cow. The Cauvery is the sacred river
    of southern India. Like the northern Ganges it feeds, washes, refreshes and is an ever-present
    source of contemplation. It is vastly wide and majestic and at this time of the year largely dry.

    Shantivanam, the Benedictine ashram that Fr Bede Griffiths made famous, where he welcomed
    pilgrims for forty years and where he died and is buried, rests on its banks. In the relaxed rhythms
    of the ashram that make the life of western monasteries seem driven, or in walking beside the
    river, time brakes, reality sharpens and, most surprisingly, what you desire begins to change.

    If you want to be alone you should not go to the river. The young will soon flock round you: what is
    your country, what is your name ? Their eagerness to know you is no less genuine for the
    transparency of their thinking how you might be helpful to them. It is the naive visitor who thinks he
    can blend in unseen and become local. Chandru comes up beaming with curiosity, meticulously
    courteous but fixing me with his attention – obviously one whom shyness has never troubled. Soon
    we are discussing his favourite English authors, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and trying together to
    remember an exact line of Donne and then he reminds me of the plot of As You Like It. He
    passionately loves his subject and his own proficiency in it and wants to do a masters. He looks
    crestfallen, but only momentarily, if I mention an author he does not know. His hope and ambition
    and self-confidence are constantly bursting what little self-doubt remains in him. He would be a
    delight to teach. Like most Indians he has a profound respect for the teacher and longs to be one
    himself.

    Chandru's father is dead and his mother raises him and his brother alone, he tells me. They live in
    what we would not call a house with no electricity or gas. Food is cooked on a wood fire. His mother
    works in field labour for 40 rupees, less than a dollar a day. As we talk on I realise that his charming
    voracious ego is not consumed by the purposelessness of western narcissism. What's the point in
    wanting something just for yourself? He dreams of success because it would mean he can support
    his mother and help his family. That would be – I'm sure one day will be - his sense of greatest
    success. The self in Asia is so different from its western counterpart because its natural context
    remains so securely in the family.

    The ashram is helping Chandru and other young people realise his dream. In the nearby village of
    Thanirpalli it has also started a home for the elderly, a school and a weaving business run by poor
    families that it has bought out of the indentured service that amounts to sheer slavery in many parts
    of India. The spirit of contemplation has bred compassion in Fr Bede's disciples. They make their
    gospel witness locally and concretely, not with the depersonalising abstractions of convert-
    seekers. But around them all India is exploding. Through Chandru and the billion other lives of his
    countrymen an historical movement is passing, as mighty and impersonal as the Cauvery in flood.
    Mumbai crackles with the electricity of money like Shanghai. The steep decline of the west, call
    centres in Bangalore serving customers in Kensington and Detroit, many of the world's richest
    people and most conspicuous spenders, the environmental pollution that proves progress. Yet, as
    the wheel of karma turns and the tide of wealth rises and India becomes a superpower, the poor
    who will always be with us get poorer.

    Of course I wonder how long will the experience of the spiritual here survive this rollercoaster of
    mammon? As the signs of consumerism increase it is hard not to fear that the all-pervasive
    religious sensibility will fragment as in the west. Except religion here is not an institution. It is a way
    of responding to every situation of life. God is everywhere and good and bad alike believe. It is in
    every heart as well as mediated by nature and guru. Life itself is the sacrament. So atomic physics
    coexists with the Dancing Shiva. Logos and mythos are not severed as in the western psyche.
    Visitors to India should not be looking for holiday mysticism but for inspiration in dealing with the
    diseases of affluence and the capital sin of superficiality. India might just still be able both to
    prosper and to retain the remembrance of God.

    That night I heard a strangely familiar mechanical rumbling in the dark. Next morning three huge
    yellow earthmovers had appeared with their proboscis raised ready to scour sand from the river
    bed. For three days I was ready for the assault to begin and then overnight, for no apparent reason
    they disappeared. The river won. It is still India after all.
MESSAGE FROM FATHER LAURENCE, August 2006