Auroville/Sadhana Forest Day 4

Inside Meditation Chamber

Inside the Matrimandir

Lotus Pond

This morning I was lucky enough to go to the Matrimandir (Temple of the Mother) for a 45 minute meditation. Before you entered you had to take your shoes off and before you went up to the main chamber you were provided with white socks. We walked up the ramp inside the dome toward the meditation chamber. It was very cool inside. It was an all white room with pillars and white cushions surrounding the outside wall as well as in between the pillars. In the middle there was a crystal sphere with a single skylight above it, allowing the only light in the space to enter. I felt very relaxed and was pleased at how easy I slipped into a deep meditation, even as people entered I did not lose my focus. The rest of the day I was running off the immense energy I got from my meditation. Underneath the  Matrimandir was a lotus pond.

I've always felt that I needed a quiet meditation space for myself back home and this has inspired me to build one back home that will be cool in the summers and warm in the winters. How I am going to do this is uncertain, but somehow I will figure it out.
(I did not take any of these photos, because photography was not allowed, I got these images off Google).

After the Tour we rushed back to the Centre Guest House and headed down to our next stop, Sadhana Forest. Sadhana is an intentional community focusing on reforestation and water conservation. When we arrived we immediately went to the main hut and joined everyone for lunch. They are a vegan community, I can't tell you how amazing it felt to eat a vegan meal again. I have surprisingly missed being a vegan. Almost all the veg food at the school relies on milk, cheese and butter and it makes me feel heavy. We had this amazing tapioca mash which happened to be their first tapioca harvest of the season. After lunch we got an introduction to Sadhana, what it is all about and what they stand for. As I said their main focuses are reforestation and conservation but they also focus on sustainable, green energy; they are completely OFF THE GRID, organic gardening and composting. They would like to also expand the organic kitchen garden with the hopes of being 75% food sustainable.

The Bathroom

The compost program is very sophisticated, by using food scraps as well as human manure they produce a high quality fertilizer which goes to nourish the growing forest. They have composting toilets and they even use the urine (dilated) to provide the perfect acidity level that pineapple plants love. Everything is included in a cycle so nothing is wasted..All the water they use is immediately put back into the earth, mostly near banana plant which need lots of water. At every hand wash station and at the pool all the water is returned. This one cycle, where everything is used. Who knows, I might also spend some time here in the new year as well.

Learning to Wash our Hands

After the tour we were shown our rooms which were open air, with platforms for mattresses and mosquito nets. All the buildings are wood, palm thatch, coconut rope and local quarried granite. It was surprisingly (relatively) cool at night, with a nice breeze coming in. They provided us with biodegradable shampoo and soap. Since all their water goes back into the ground and eventually the ground water they cannot afford for it to be contaminated with chemicals.



After lunch I headed to a reiki workshop led by a volunteer. She taught us the history of reiki and its benefits. Just another thing I have to learn when I get back home! This time in India has really exposed me to new interests and hobbies.

After dinner we watched a documentary on permaculture called Permaculture: The Food Forest Story. It focused on building a forest that would provide food for generations, plus building a forest in layers. First is ground cover, then small shrubs, then small to medium trees and finally large trees. A very interesting video that is very relevant to this community who are trying to stabilize the forest to a point where little maintenance is needed.
Tomorrow is a 5:45 wake up call, then straight to work in the forest planting trees!