The Spiritual Center Of the Earth (1999)

I know I may be downmodded for saying this, but:<p>the kind of "Indian spirituality" you see outside India is totally different from the actual stuff. most gurus open their "ashrams" in the US exactly for the same reason most entrepreneurs want to move to silicon valley - more money and visibility. sadly, these "ashrams" aren't ashrams in the true sense, more like religious businesses.

The center of spiritual self-satisfaction is more like it. (Notice what paper this is appearing in.)

Actually, the center of the universe is on the campuses of the University of New Mexico, next to the guy who sells burrito cheese-burgers.<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8601342@N03/sets/72157605272220053/detail/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/8601342@N03/sets/72157605272220...</a>

He meant the "Spirituality Marketing Center..." But what the hey. Close enough for spiritual work ;)<p>And of course, by "San Francisco" he meant "Bay Area", which of course means "California." Again: the energy (spirituality) looks pretty much the same from Dakshineswar.

"It used to be in India, but now it is San Francisco. All our gurus are moving there to open ashrams."<p>That made me laugh. Maybe I'm too cynical, but my explanation is a lot less noble than what the author implies...<p>Also note the date of the article. A good reminder that maybe a bit of humility and some critical thinking (in the sense in which it contrasts "automatic openness to new ideas") can be a good thing now and then.

The things attributed to the regular Indian folks appears very "made up" ...

One of the blog entries of independent journalist Michael Yon describes an informal interview of a young Kurdish woman soon after the overthrow of Saddam.<p>Yon said that the Kurds had no material resources, but a can-do attitude. He described the young woman as extremely self-confident.<p>Asked about her plans for the future, she said she wanted to emigrate to France, hang out with the cool people there for a while, then move to San Francisco. (France and SF are respectively the number one and two tourist destinations, BTW.)<p>So, by "the spiritual center of the world," what the Indians in the article might have meant is that SF is the best place they know of for a person to live.<p>And I do not scoff at that notion.

Before I even read the article it reminded me of the spiritual center of the universe. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Hill,_New_Zealand" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Hill,_New_Zealand</a>

Not really an article I'd mark as worth reading, but a little bit of ++ for daring to post something remotely to do with spirituality or religion.

It's funny how we (americans) keep thinking that we are the center of the world ;)

San Francisco is a pretty cool guy. eh is famous for stuff and doesn't afraid of anything.