Motorcycles Can Get You to Strange Places - Physically and Mentally.
This week I had the chance to visit the Mandarom Shambhasalem monastery on a rocky hillside a few miles outside Castellane in the South of France. About two hours and a million miles away from the extravagance of St. Tropez.
The monastery was established in 1969 by Gilbert Bourdin, whose personal spiritual search ended in Rishikesh with his commitment to yoga and Vedanta and his name change to Hamsananda Sarasvati. He came back to France and started an ashram around the idea of Aumism - a “Universal Religion that unites all the religious currents of the Earth within the Unity of the sound OM. It is the Ideal of Unity, for the evolution of humanity and its maintenance within the Golden Age—an age of peace and planetary solidarity.”.
Hard to argue with any of that.
The monastery is not often open to the public so I wrote to them months ago asking to visit and was given a one on one tour by one of the members.
I had seen pictures of the place and wanted to understand how it got there.
The monastery is at the end of a farm road but spectacularly visible from a couple of miles away across the valley with its massive concrete statues of Jesus and Buddha locked eye to eye across the campus. These works are the reason that the group’s relations with the town blew up - literally - into a two decade legal battle.
The good people of the region thought their statuary was a blot on the landscape and the battles in court and the press ended with the French army being called in to dynamite the statue of the group’s founder. The international press went nuts with the story and the community members were stunned at the way they were treated.
The French government parliamentary commission has since defined the group as a cult when it had 2000 members. The group’s founder died in 1998 but there are still 400 followers who hope for his resurrection.
So who gets to decide what’s a “real” religion?
I was shown around by a lady about my age. I was told not to take pictures so some of the photos here are from their website. Every member was dressed in the same kind of tunic and each wore a headband with the same set of symbols representing the openness to all religions. My guide talked about the imperative for personal evolution through meditation and dialogue with others to break down barriers and find and build peace. We spent some time in the tall cylindrical building used for group services - with an astonishing resonance when saying OM or reciting prayers. Many members live here but my guide lives elsewhere and comes here for weeks at a time. She said “she came into the world as Jewish, but that does not prevent me learning and listening to others”.
The French government is constitutionally non religious but the French government agency MIVILUDES (an acronym that translates to Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cult Movements) identifies groups which exploit people financially and put members at risk of physical or mental abuse.
By these standards, every religion of earth would be banned.
Nobody objects to La Chapelle de Notre Dame du Roc that dominates Castellane
Here at Mandarom I heard nothing riskier than you might here in a Los Angeles yoga and meditation class and heard a general philosophy that should be followed by more countries and their leaders.
Translated from their web site - can anyone disagree?
“1.Aumism: The Doctrine of the Golden Age
Aumism aims to achieve balance between body and spirit—to foster a better understanding of oneself in order to better understand others—and to pray for the spiritual evolution of all beings, thereby helping humanity progress along the path of tolerance, harmony, and peace.
Aumism reconciles science and religion, offering realistic perspectives for a shared future.
Aumism provides clear, practical solutions to the challenges facing our contemporary societies—issues such as relationships, education, and the future of the youth.
This Doctrine invites us to transcend the current moral and spiritual crisis by giving meaning to existence and by helping each individual to walk the path of Love.
It offers us fresh perspectives on death, reincarnation, and human psychology.“
“2. Aumism: Derived from the Primordial Sound AUM
The word AUMISM is derived from the sound AUM—the source of all the religious traditions of humanity (AUM, AMEN, AMIN)—and leads to the Unity of the Absolute, to fusion with God.”
To be an Aumist is to live one’s faith without seeking to impose it upon others.
To be an Aumist is to pray for all—friends and enemies alike—and to be a selfless servant of the world and of the Universe.
To be an Aumist is to purify oneself inwardly while helping to purify the astral and material realms of both inhabited and uninhabited worlds.
To be an Aumist is to assist our friends—the entities of stones, plants, animals, and the elements—in ascending to the higher worlds of the great evolutionary ladder, of which humanity is but a single link.
To be an Aumist is to help departed souls better comprehend the realities of the afterlife; it is to help the living—those who so desire—to no longer fear the death of the body, and to understand the true purpose of existence: to express one’s own divinity.
To be an Aumist is to cultivate a sense of Unity and Universality. It is to love one’s country faithfully, without ever forgetting that one is also a citizen of the world and of the Universe.
To be an Aumist is to detach oneself, day by day, from personal concerns in order to participate in the silent service of the world.
