Seeking Nirvana - Times of India

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Seeking Nirvana:

Westerners look to India for spiritual guidance

by Kim Akhtar

 

Recently, as I was getting ready to leave for Delhi to

attend a cousin's wedding, I received a dinner invite

from a friend in New York, where I live.

 

I sent my regrets and asked if I could bring him

something upon my return. " Please bring me back some

spirituality " , he said. I also received an e-mail from a

dance company with whom I perform Flamenco in

Seville.

 

I sent another regret note. This time, a fellow dancer

asked me to get " a goddess who will help me " . Neither

was joking. The fact of the matter remains that people

in the West believe that India is the home of

spirituality.

 

Westerners look to India for spiritual guidance: the

proof lies in the immense success of gurus like Deepak

Chopra, who have capitalised on the western quest for

the mystical and divine and made millions of dollars in

the process.

 

It helps that celebrities started the trend: Madonna,

Goldie Hawn, Demi Moore, Sting and Tina Turner have

all sought a slice of India's spiritual traditions.

 

Westerners, even the cognoscenti, seem to believe that

Indians are wise and more in tune with higher

consciousness than with the pursuit of worldly things.

 

Perhaps they have not visited Bollywood lately, where

everyone seems to worship the Goddess of Cash.

 

But the bottom line is that the pursuit of spirituality has

existed in India for millennia. I dare say, however, that

it took a Madonna to popularise it in the West.

 

Which brings us to the question: What ultimately is

spirituality? In the most basic sense, it is a feeling of

inner peace, an allowing of oneself to be guided by

intuition and insight rather than rational, scientific

thought.

 

All of this is the basis of most organised religions. But

perhaps, over the centuries, as organised religions went

through unrest and chaos, people simply became fed up.

 

Hence, in the unrelenting and continuous search for

succour, westerners appear to be looking to Hindu

mysticism to be the new saviour.

 

They are now seeking divine refuge in Ganesh,

Saraswati, Krishna, Lakshmi, Hanuman and other gods

on the Indian firmament.

 

Spiritual solace is all about personal growth and a union

with the divine. That is what spirituality, as pursued in

India, is all about.

 

Seeking Nirvana

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1560206.cms