And Laughter Fell From the Sky (27 page)

The shrine was not a perfect sphere. It was somewhat flattened, wider around the equator, like an egg laid by some giant, extraterrestrial creature.

“The gold globe symbolizes the sun breaking out of the earth,” Kianga said. “You see the twelve meditation chambers?”

He noticed, low to the ground, a series of sloping rectangular structures surrounding the globe, as if cradling it.

“The sun is breaking through, opening up the earth, bringing light and consciousness to humanity. In those sections of earth that are upturned, we have twelve meditation chambers. Each one embodies a different quality. Each one is painted a different color on the inside.”

“Are those finished?” He stood up and strolled over the grass to a tree nearby, where he leaned and looked away from the structure that so captivated Kianga’s attention. She seemed to him to be wearing her spirituality conspicuously, and it bothered him.

She didn’t answer his question. Instead, after a pause, she turned her gaze on him. “The most important thing, according to the Mother, is the inner chamber of the Matrimandir, especially the sunlight coming in through the top. Inside is the largest crystal ball in the world. That took some effort to manufacture.”

As she talked, Abhay’s attention was diverted by a figure he saw in the distance: a tan woman with long hair, wearing what looked like a white pantsuit. She was walking toward him slowly. He stared at the figure.

“What’re you looking at?” Kianga joined him at the tree, and placed her hand on his lower back.

He leaned his head against the rough bark. “That woman reminds me of—someone I love.”

“Is it the woman we saw you with at the Japanese garden?”

He lifted his head. “How did you know?”

“Just a guess. Does she love you back?”

“I think she does. But she’s determined to have an arranged marriage, to please her parents. She’s in India now. She might even be married by now. I feel like we’re meant to be together. She doesn’t see it that way.”

Kianga removed her hand from his back. “Why don’t you ask the Mother for help tomorrow, when you go inside the Matrimandir.”

Late the next afternoon, Abhay joined other tourists sitting at the concrete picnic tables on the Matrimandir grounds. They were all waiting for the tour into the shrine to begin. The other tourists included middle-class Indians dressed in saris and button-down shirts, and white tourists in shorts and sandals.

A slim Indian man walked over to the group and said, “The tour will begin now.” As they gathered around him on the broad red earth path, under the bright sun, he began telling them, in soft Indian-accented English, that Auroville was inaugurated in 1968 and soil from every Indian state and 124 countries was placed in an urn on what was to become the Matrimandir grounds. “The gold dome is as tall as a ten-story building, and the inner meditation chamber is as tall as a five-story building,” he said. Abhay looked across the brilliant green grass and red earth at the egglike structure, and found it hard to believe it was so tall.

The guide stressed that, once on the path leading to the shrine, they were to observe absolute silence. Within the “concentration chamber,” as the inner crystal chamber was called, they were to be silent, choose a cushion, and sit down. “The Mother said the inner chamber is ‘a place for trying to find one’s consciousness,’ ” the guide explained. “We don’t have any prescribed meditations. It is for every individual to find their own way.”

The group started down the path, and as Abhay descended with the others between two of the meditation chamber “petals,” the walls of the chambers rose on either side of him, so that his whole field of vision was directed toward the now-enormous “sun” ahead. He had to admit that the whole Matrimandir experience had been perfectly engineered to provoke some sort of reaction of awe.

They were directed to leave their shoes at the bottom of the path, and they climbed the stone stairs to enter. Inside, Abhay was in a low-ceilinged white space, with the rose-gold curving walls of the dome around them, and a large pillar in the center. Two workers silently handed white socks to each tourist. They were to wear these socks to keep the red earth off the white carpeting in the crystal chamber. Then everyone was directed through a small doorway and up a wide, white curved staircase between white marble walls, to another chamber, a huge white empty space, also round, with a pair of spiral ramps leading up. Abhay ascended one of these ramps with the group. He felt more and more as if he were in some sort of science-fiction setting.

At the top of the spiral ramp they entered the dim “concentration chamber.” This space was also all white, including white carpeting, but appeared gray and shadowy because the lights were off. In the center, under the round skylight at the top of the globe, stood the largest crystal ball in the world, about twenty-eight inches in diameter, according to the guide. The crystal was supported on a golden stand, and a beam of sunlight was directed precisely down through the center of the glass ball, making a small splash of light under and around the ball. Apparently a computerized system of mirrors was used to position the sunlight at the correct angle at all times, and on cloudy days or at night, an artificial light was used to create the same effect. Abhay was amused that, in a shrine to the Universal Mother, it was found necessary to keep out most of nature—no dirt, no windows—and to strictly manage the nature—sunlight—that was permitted in.

Abhay walked slowly around the room, considering the large square white cushions that had been set out at precise intervals in three concentric circles around the chamber. He seated himself on a cushion next to one of the twelve columns surrounding the crystal ball.

The doors were shut softly, and they were left to their individual fifteen-minute meditation. Abhay didn’t know how to meditate. For a while he gazed at the light in the crystal ball, but since it didn’t move, he grew bored and closed his eyes. The place was cool, but not quiet. The room magnified any small sound, so that whenever anyone moved or cleared a throat, it was like a small burst of thunder rolling through the room. Abhay now became aware of a slight tickling in his throat. He swallowed. He’d been required to leave his water bottle at the entrance check stand. He wished he had chosen a cushion near the door so he could exit easily in case of a coughing fit. Now, looking around the room, he couldn’t even make out where the doorways were. The walls of the room were evenly smooth and shadowy.

He spent the next fifteen minutes concentrating on his throat and trying not to cough. As he sat there, perspiring in his effort, he realized that he felt disappointed not to be having any sort of out-of-the-ordinary experience, after all the buildup to this place. He realized he had hoped, semiconsciously, that the Matrimandir might give him some answers to his never-ending questions. Instead, all he was doing was trying to suppress a cough. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could have a spiritual experience in a place with so many rules.

He decided to take Kianga’s advice and see if he could come to any conclusion about Rasika. Why had he so often seen a glow around her? Why had she come to visit him in Portland? Why had he run into her just a few days before in Bangalore? Were they all meaningless coincidences?

He tried to calm his mind, to allow the presence of whatever spiritual power might be here to help him. As he thought about Rasika, he came to a realization: perhaps she was merely a distraction from his quest to figure out what to do with his life. Maybe he only thought he was in love with her in order to give himself some certainty in his uncertainty. After all, they were so different. In the shadowy grayness, these thoughts became clear to him.

The doors were opened, and everyone filed out of the room, down the ramp and staircase, and outside. After slipping on his sandals he proceeded, still in silence, toward the banyan tree nearby that marked the exact center of Auroville. This had been one of the only trees growing when Auroville first acquired their land. It was beautiful but not huge, as banyans go, although it did of course have its share of root-trunks descending from the spreading branches. Abhay saw some of the Indian women from his group approach the central thick trunk of the tree and press their cheeks against it.

Sitting on one of the benches around the tree, observing the others wandering around among the thin columns of the root-trunks, Abhay reflected that the Matrimandir fit a Western idea of a spiritual place—a place of sensory deprivation. Most Hindus, on the other hand, wanted noise, food, crowds, incense, dogs, monkeys, flowers, and hawkers of all kinds at their temples and religious places.

Kianga joined Abhay on his last evening in Auroville for an unusual dinner at his guesthouse consisting of eggplant parmigiana, garbanzo bean curry, and papaya. After dinner, they sat under the trees, drinking herbal tea. The sky was dark, and the courtyard was lit by shaded lanterns hung from the tree branches. Abhay had changed into long pants and socks for protection against the mosquitoes that arrived every evening. Kianga didn’t seem to be bothered by the insects: she wore a faded, flowing sleeveless dress. She had worked all day at the farm, and she still faintly emanated the scent of manure, perhaps from her sandals.

“What do you think of Auroville now?” Kianga asked.

“Interesting.” Abhay slapped at a mosquito poised on his forearm. “Fascinating, actually. But I could never live here.”

“In terms of ecology and community, Auroville is just about as perfect as it gets.”

“I’m not looking for perfection.”

“I think you are looking for your own variety of perfection,” Kianga insisted. “What’s wrong with Auroville that you could never live here?”

He could tell that Kianga was growing frustrated with him, and he didn’t blame her. He took a few sips of his woody, aromatic tea to buy some time. “I like it here, and I can see why you love it. But for me, it’s too spiritually focused, in a confusing way. I don’t understand the Mother’s words that everyone quotes. ‘Supramental.’ ‘Divine anarchy.’ ”

Kianga stirred her tea a little too vigorously. “They’re not meant to be understood. You just allow the words into your consciousness, and they can provide you with a certain insight, a kind of opening into another world. A strong spiritual force holds this place together, which is the force of the Mother. Not just that particular woman who was a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, but the elemental Mother. I think there is something really supercharged, superenergized, about this place.”

“To me, that explanation is just as confusing.”

Kianga closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out in a slow exhale. “You’re thinking too much. Just let go, and see.” She leaned back in her chair and gazed up at the dark sky. “The Mother said, ‘Auroville wants to shelter people happy to be in Auroville. Those who are dissatisfied ought to return to the world where they can do what they want and where there is place for everybody.’ ”

Abhay reached up to a branch hanging low over the table, pulled off a leaf, and rolled it into a cylinder. “I feel like I’m a foreigner no matter where I go.”

“What’re you going to do after this trip?”

He shook his head. “I don’t really want to work with Justin anymore, even though things have been kind of successful. I’ve booked him on some AM radio talk shows, and the hosts think he’s a joke, but maybe about forty people actually signed the sterilization pledge on our Web site.” Abhay began tearing the leaf into even strips. “It’s not the right job for me, but I’ve organized things well enough that someone else can take over.”

“Oh, well. Poor Justin. I’ll get Ellen to help him out. I think they kind of like each other, actually. And listen, I’m not giving up on you yet. A friend of mine back in Portland wants to start a community radio station in her garage. I think you met her that one time when you went with me to the farmers’ market. Since you have some radio experience now, maybe you could—”

“Don’t worry about me, Kianga. I’m not even sure I’ll stay in Portland much longer. Maybe I don’t belong there either.” His leaf was now in shreds, and he pulled off another leaf and began ripping. “Being in Auroville actually has helped. I agree that this place is just about as perfect as a community could be, and if I don’t feel like I fit here, then I’ll probably always be an outsider no matter where I go. And for the first time, I’m wondering if that might actually be a good thing.”

He reached up for another leaf. Kianga put her hand on his forearm. “Stop it already with the leaves,” she said.

“What?”

“You’re acting like everything’s fine, but you’re ripping these leaves to shreds.” She pointed to the bits of green scattered over the table. He looked down, surprised. He hadn’t realized what he was doing.

“Just because you’re ripping apart Auroville, and Portland, and Justin, and your relationship with this woman, that doesn’t mean you should harass this tree,” Kianga continued.

Abhay clutched his hands together on the table, and took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to rip everything apart.”

“What are you trying to do, then?”

“I’m realizing something about myself. I’m interested in societies. I seem to want to figure out what makes them tick. So maybe I ought to take advantage of my alienated feelings.”

Kianga tilted her head at him inquisitively.

“For example, I could study societies from the perspective of an outsider. I could be a professor.” He was surprised at his own words. In Portland, Rasika had mentioned that he should be a professor.