Females make better Wanderers (photos)

Anum Ansari (twitter, original post, July 16, 2016) edited by Amber Larson, Ananda M., Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Crystal Quintero, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Priestess Path with Elizabeth Wilcock (elizabethwilcock.com)

10 lesser-known facts about female ascetics

Anum Ansari

The Maha Kumbha Mela ("Great Ambrosia-Pot Festival") is joyously celebrated in the city of Ujjain.

Few realized that the Kumbh Mela is attended by sadhvis, female sadhus, not only male sadhus. It is a great attraction for these naga-sadhvis and -sadhus.

There are certain rules for the ascetics who attend the mela, which are mandatory for males and females. Here are some interesting facts about them most people might not know:

 

1. Prior to becoming a wandering ascetic or hermit, a woman has to follow all the rules of brahmacharya (celibate rules) for 6-12 years. If she succeeds in doing that, she is ordained by her guru.

  

2.  Sadhus investigate the woman’s past, family, and friends before making her a naga sadhvi.

3. Before becoming a sadhvi, the woman has to do her own pinddan and libation.

How to become a female wanderer

What is the path to enlightenment, the Eight Limbs of Yoga or the Buddha's Path?

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  How to become a wandering ascetic: Processes and rituals for becoming a sadhvi vary by sect. In almost all of them she is initiated by a guru, who bestows upon the initiate a new name and a mantra (a sacred sound or phrase), which is generally known only to the initiate and guru and may be repeated by as part of meditative practice. Becoming a wanderer is a path followed by millions. It is the final of four stages of a good Hindu life: after being a young celibate student, a retired worker, a householder, it is time to let it all go to become a celibate wanderer or pilgrim in search of Truth/godhood/moksha.

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  I did it! (Sadhvi Saraswati)

  But for most Hindus, particularly in modern times, this does not seem like a practical option. For a person to become a sadhvi/sadhu, vairagya is needed. This term means "a desire to achieve something by leaving the world" (cutting familial, societal, and worldly attachments).
• A person who wants to become sadhu must first seek a guru then perform "service to the teacher" or guru-seva. The guru then decides whether the person is eligible to take to wandering (sannyasa) by observing the candidate or sisya (the person who wants to become a sadhu or sanyasin). If the person is eligible, guru upadesa (teaching) is done. Only then does the ordinary person transform into an ascetic, wayfarer, or wanderer. There are different types of sanyasins in India who follow different sampradya. But all sadhus, even Buddhist ones, from time immemorial have a common goal in mind: attaining moksha (liberation). More

FEMALE Buddhist monastics are known as bhikkhunis ("nuns"), Northern California.

4. Females are first made to shave their heads and then bathe in the river as a part of a [baptismal] cleansing ritual.

 

5. Female ascetics are given equal respect as males. They also take the royal "purification bath" along with males the holy river, usually the sacred Ganges.

 

6. In the path of becoming a sadhvi, a woman has to show that she is a complete devotee of God/GOD and has no interest in worldly pleasures.

 

7. There is only one difference in female and males. Females are made to cover themselves with a yellow cloth. They are not allowed to bathe naked -- like many of the "skyclad" males -- and so they have to use that same yellow cloth while bathing.

 

Acharya Mahamandaleshwar ordains women in the holy river as sanyasins.

8. As their lives are completely devoted to realization (of GOD/Brahman, of union with the universe, of finding the ultimate truth), their day starts with praying (japa) devotions (puja) and ends with the same.

9. Female ascetics put tika (tilaka, colorful makeup using sacred cremation pyre ashes as the base) on their foreheads and wear just a single yellowish or white cloth.

 

10. When a woman becomes a sadhvi, all of the priestesses/ascetics in her group start calling her mata ("mother," like female-padre). More

 

• Ancient history on the Indian_subcontinent (intro)

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Indian Film Festival, L.A. (April 8-13, 2014)

Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; IndianFilmFestival.org, IFFLA on Facebook, IFFLA

India's Bollywood comes to Hollywood, Indian Film Festival of L.A., April 8-13 (IFFLA)

OM (aum) is the sound of the cosmos (EO)

FAITH CONNECTIONS: Every three years Hindus and yogis and others gather at one of four rotating sites for the Kumbh Mela, the world's largest religious celebrations of faith and devotion, marked by bathing in the sacred waters of the river Ganges. With 100 million participants in 2013, these pilgrimages are said to be the largest organized gatherings on the planet for any single purpose. While never losing site of the enormity and scope of the event, it brings viewers the individuals, sharing their unique stories: How did they come to be here to share in their belief in the divine?

(FC) Every three years 100 million Hindus and others gather at one of four
rotating sites for the Kumbh Mela, a devotional celebration at the Ganges.
  

Through stories of pilgrims searching for lost children, marijuana-smoking ascetics, adoptive father yogis, mind-bending physical acts, and a special lost boy who dreams of becoming a sadhu (Indian holyman), IFFLA alum Pan Nalin crafts a moving and unique view of the mass gathering. This vision of the ancient tradition  is rarely seen in the West, bringing the Kumbha Mela to human scale. More
  

Love.Love.Love

But kids?

SOLD: Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jeffrey D. Brown adapts Patricia McCormick’s novel Sold -- a National Book Award finalist about child sex trafficking -- into a vivid, harrowing, and inspiring story of a 13-year-old girl’s resilience in the face of unspeakable cruelty. Young Lakshmi travels to India with the promise of a job and money to send back to her family in Nepal. She quickly learns the terrible truth: she has been sold into prostitution and must work for years to pay back her parents’ debts. While Lakshmi contends with abuse from the brothel’s tyrannical madame and its lustful customers, a nearby activist organization struggles to work against corrupt officials to bring the brothel down. Ultimately, she must resolve not to lose hope and use her wits to escape. More

 

Kashmir(s) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India

SHEPHERDS OF PARADISE: Nomadic herder Gafoor has to lead his large flock of horses, cows, goats, and sheep across Jammu all the way to the natural wonderland valley of Kashmir (J&K) so they can graze. An already difficult journey of nearly 200 miles done by foot covered in 21 days, Gafoor faces the added challenges of military checkpoints and impenetrable terrain in blinding winter conditions. At 75, Gafoor also carries on a way of life for his family that the young seem less and less interested in following. More
 

Shorts Program 1 (IFFLA)

LIAR'S DICE: Geetu Mohandas steps behind the lens for a bracing and unforgettable directorial debut, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. The film follows the journey of Kamala (Geetanjali Thapi), a woman living and working in a remote Himalayan village with her young daughter Manya.

Kamala's husband -- gone off to work in Delhi -- has been out of contact for several months, and Kamala fears the worst. Determined to find what's happened to him, she gathers Manya (and the family's pet goat) to set off for the city. Hardships ensue, as Kamala struggles with directions, money, and the dangers of being a woman alone in a strange place. She hires a guide -- the unfriendly and possibly criminal wanderer Nawazuddin (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), whose interest may lie more in his own personal gain than in any help he can offer others. More


JADOO: Set in Leicester [Lester], England, Amit Gupta’s delicious and delightful comedy charts the chaos that ensues when young Shalini gets engaged to her longtime boyfriend Mark. The fact that Mark is not Indian is the least of Shalini’s concerns. Her father Raja and uncle Jagi have been at war for years. After a big falling out that caused them to close their family restaurant, each man opened his own establishment -- directly across the street from each other!



Shalini’s dream wedding would see both men put aside their differences and prepare the wedding feast together. But resentment runs deep, and neither man can so much as hear mention of the other’s name without a spike in blood pressure. The prospect of disappointing their beloved Shalini -- and the threat of a new, hip restaurant opening in the area -- forces Raja and Jagi to work together, but for how long? In this uproariously funny and heartfelt exploration of family bonds, shared history, and culinary perfection, Gupta’s cast is relentlessly charming. Plus, there’s enough mouth-watering Indian food... More

 

SKIN DEEP: Sanjay and Sushma plan to elope to escape a looming arranged marriage. They are in love, and their future together shines brightly and perfectly, filled with possibility -- that is, as long as an extra piece of skin that complicates their sex life gets fixed in what should be a routine medical procedure. But Bombay/Mumbai’s electricity gods have other plans in store for them. More 

SIDDHARTH: Barely able to support his family fixing chain zippers, Mahendra is hopeful their lives will improve now that his 12-year-old son, Siddharth [the Hindi form of the Sanskrit name Siddhartha], has found work 200 miles north of Delhi. When the boy fails to return for Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," a few months later, Mahendra and his wife Suman are simply told he ran away. The parents' nightmare is only made worse by indifferent authorities more interested in lecturing them than finding out what happened to their young child. As Mahendra and Suman find out more of the truth, it becomes clear that no one cares what happened to their son but them. More

BOMBAY TALKIES: A quartet of short films celebrates 100 years of Indian cinema in the charming omnibus film featuring work from Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, and Anurag Kashyap -- four of India’s most exciting contemporary directors.

Starlet Katrina Kaif, FHM cover

Each one crafts a tale of ordinary people, whose love of movies profoundly alters the course of their lives: secret lovers who bond over a little girl’s performance of their favorite Bollywood song, an out-of-work father plucked from a crowd to perform a brief role in a Ranbir Kapoor film, a little boy who dreams of being a dancer like the luminous Indian starlet Katrina Kaif, and a son whose ailing father sends him on a quest to receive a blessing from megastar Amitabh Bachchan.

Shorts Program 2 (indianfilmfestival.org)

The brightest stars of Bollywood invite us to share in the joy, heartbreak, and reverence we feel in a movie theater. Each story beautifully captures how lovers of cinema can’t help but carry that fascination into their day-to-day life. Haven’t we all wished, at one time or another, that our lives were more like a film? (For this selection, admission is restricted to guests 21+).

• 2014 FILM GUIDE

Kumbha Mela 2014, California (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Sanatana Hindu Sangha of California, USAKumbhaMela.net

The world's largest festival, originating in India, comes to California on Feb. 22, 2014

The great Kumbh Mela is the oldest and largest gathering of human beings on the planet. It takes place every 12 years in India at the confluence of three holy rivers including the Ganges. More than 1,000 Kumbh Mela festivals have taken place over the ages.

 

It is a massive yogic, ascetic, Vedic, Brahminical, Hindu pilgrimage aimed at keeping the ultimate spiritual goals of human life in sight for the multitude of seekers who merge into the ocean of humanity at this event and become one. One hundred of million people participate, making it the largest gathering of people for a single purpose in the world.

(National Geographic) The World's Biggest Festival (Maha Kumbha Mela)

 

The Eternal Teaching or Truth (Sanatana Dharma, known in modern times as Hinduism inclusive of the two great renegade wandering-ascetic traditions, Buddhism and Jainism) boasts a glorious history of tens of thousands of years. Hinduism (named by the British after the many and varied practices in the Indus Valley Civilization and its subsequent societies collectively called "India") is known for its tenets of religious tolerance and harmony. More

• FREE, Saturday, February 22, 2014
• Excelsior Grounds, 15711 Pioneer Bl.,
• Norwalk, California 90650
• Contact: Pannkaj Kummar (714) 936-1439
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(Saregama) Maha Kumbha Mela 2013 devotional festival

World's largest spiritual event underway (video)

Seven, Ashley Wells, Harichandra Kumar, Wisdom Quarterly

India's most recognizable landmark: Islam's magnificent Taj Mahal (sjpaderborn)

(LINK)

ALLAHABAD, India - What event brings together more people than ANY other event in the history of the world? It is a spiritual festival currently underway in India. It repeats every four years at various locations, but every 12 years it becomes a mega-event of staggering proportions, the Maha Kumbh Mela. Millions of India's largely rural population heads toward the Himalayas to the confluence of two visible rivers and an invisible river or spiritual channel. These are the semi-mythical Saraswati, Yamuna, and Ganges as they converge in an Indian Himalayan foothill town known as Haridwar. Nearby Rishikesh will also see a flood of pilgrims who come to bath in the holy (Ganga) confluence to wash away "bad" karma. (This is the foundation of the popular Christian belief that the holy Jordan river could do the same, as evidenced by John the Baptist and later space-angels who "troubled the waters or effectively made ordinary water a healing agent). 

The "Spring Festival," or Chinese New Year (Feb. 10, 2013), is the auspicious day for bathing. It is not simply spiritual seekers and curious onlookers. The height of the celebrations are due to the presence of the country's yogis, sages, prophets, wandering ascetics, and priests. Many of them fierce, independent, smoking bhangra, and in possession of supernormal powers (samadhi  and siddhis), they are a spectacle showcasing India's incredible spiritual diversity and tolerance, the fertile ground that made the spread of Buddhism possible. Unfortunately, the popularity of the Buddha-Dharma was such that it had to be co-opted and subsumed in the dominant Brahminical Vedic philosophy of the day. The resulting amalgamation of brahmana (temple priest) and shramana (shaman, hermit, recluse, wandering ascetic) dharmas (teachings) gave birth to Mahayana Buddhism. As hard as this may be to believe, a study of modern Hinduism will shed great light on strange "Buddhist" devotional practices, deities, magic, rites, rituals, and beliefs. Many were rejected by the historical Buddha, but that did not stop Mahayanists from simply inventing new buddhas, sutras, gods, avatars, bodhisattvas, and figures such as the Taras and an odd, expectant messianic complex obsessed with the future-Buddha Maitreya rather than the current one and his extant message and teachings.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims converge on platforms along the Ganges in Haridwar (wiki)

• What does Kumbh Mela mean?
• Kumbha Mela 2013 (Himalayan Institute) 
• Lost in a Sea of People and Languages
  (Patrick Cox) What happens to those who get lost at the world’s largest religious gathering? Not only are there millions of people, but among them they speak hundreds of mutually incomprehensible languages.

  Lost and Found at India’s Kumbh Mela
  (David Leveille) This year’s Kumbh Mela is expected to attract millions of people. Imagine how easy it is to get lost in the crowds. On the biggest day of the festival, it’s estimated that as many as 20,000 people will get lost along countless rows of tents. Separated from their families and friends, they will seek assistance at the lost and found desk.

Magic Mushrooms help some get Spiritual: Study finds

Typical sadhu (samana, wandering ascetic) Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, India (wikipedia).

Study Finds Benefit in "Magic Mushrooms"
Malcolm Ritter (7/1/08)

In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research project. She felt like she was taking off. She saw colors. Then it felt like her heart was ripping open.

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But she called the experience joyful as well as painful, and says that it has helped her to this day. "I feel more centered in who I am and what I'm doing," said Osborn, now 66, of Providence, R.I. "I don't seem to have those self-doubts like I used to have. I feel much more grounded [and feel that] we are all connected."

Scientists reported Tuesday that when they surveyed volunteers 14 months after they took the drug [in Buddhist and Hindu terms, possibly the mysterious Amrita, "nectar of the gods," which is boiled in a pot the mythology of which has given rise to the largest gatherings of human beings for any purpose in history, the Kumbh Mela], most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience. Two-thirds of them also said the drug had produced one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they'd ever had.

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(AP)

The drug, psilocybin, is found in so-called "magic mushrooms." It's illegal, but it has been used in religious ceremonies for centuries.

The study involved 36 men and women during an eight-hour lab visit. It's one of the few such studies of a hallucinogen in the past 40 years, since research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of such drugs in the 1960s. The project made headlines in 2006 when researchers reported on the volunteers just two months after they got the drug.

Experts emphasize that people should not try psilocybin on their own because it could be harmful. Even in the controlled setting of the laboratory, nearly a third of participants felt significant fear under the effects of the drug. Without proper supervision, someone could be harmed, researchers said.

Osborn, in a telephone interview, recalled a powerful feeling of being out of control during her lab experience. "It was...like taking off, I'm being lifted up," she said. Then came "brilliant colors and beautiful patterns, just stunningly gorgeous, more intense than normal reality." More>>

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