Well I for one would give all those bearded willies a miss thank you! its just blatant posing if you ask me
Maybe I WILL convert to Hinduism. Catholic pilgirmages are not that much fun. Those guys know how to party!
[QUOTE=omamana;41890]Thomas, Flex,
Thank you for providing us with an interesting thread.
Yesterday I watched a documentary which was filmed a couple of years ago…
[I]It is of a Christian Vicar who is dissatisfied with some aspects of his faith, he feels that the Church of England is too much a faith of the head, and not enough a faith of the soul, the heart or even the body. So he decides to set off on three extreme pilgrimages, one of which takes place in [B]India[/B][/I].
I urge you to watch it as I think you both might find it worthwhile. It’s 1hr long but worth taking the time to watch. I found it very interesting and humbling.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5018047224011169949#[/QUOTE]
That was a very interesting video. I watched it all.
I was taken aback by the pilgrimage with the dope smoking and the nudity, and the entire absence of women, however.
I was touched by the friendliness and generousity of the poor villagers.
But I don’t understand why there was a field carpeted with human “dung.” Maybe they could not afford toilets with running water, but why could they have not built latrines or outhouses or something more sanitary?
I haven’t watched the video, but I am aware that human waste makes excellent “humanure”. Maybe they were fertilizing for the next year’s crops?
Can human waste really be manure? I mean for plants that humans would consume?
Thomas there is a whole series that I watched in England made by the same Vicar, he goes to many different places in the world and looks at their beliefs. He visits a place in America where members of a community worship snakes in their Church…he goes all over the world. xx
[QUOTE=thomas;41970]That was a very interesting video. I watched it all.
I was taken aback by the pilgrimage with the dope smoking and the nudity, and the entire absence of women, however.
I was touched by the friendliness and generousity of the poor villagers.
But I don’t understand why there was a field carpeted with human “dung.” Maybe they could not afford toilets with running water, but why could they have not built latrines or outhouses or something more sanitary?[/QUOTE]
I am glad that you enjoyed it 
They are naked because they choose to detach themselves from material belongings, and they cover themselves in the ash to keep warm. As for the dope smoking, they do this to focus and still their minds, as some of us may know dope can make you rather giddy, but it does not have that affect on them. There are no women, not sure why, perhaps this is more for cultural reasons.
‘[I]field carpeted with human dung[/I]’…I think he meant this figuratively, as they do not have drainage moving the waste away, so it accumulates in the field/ area they use as a toilet.
I think it is interesting how we in the West focus on the things which make us different from others, you only find it strange because you are not used to it.
Look past the differences and much can be seen and learnt from each other.
[QUOTE=kareng;42013]Thomas there is a whole series that I watched in England made by the same Vicar, he goes to many different places in the world and looks at their beliefs. He visits a place in America where members of a community worship snakes in their Church…he goes all over the world. xx[/QUOTE]
This series in particular is on China, India, and Egypt.
Yes i really enjoyed it…Ps I missed the smiley off the post #41, important as it was meant to be humour, and as part Indian, My family have real photographs of scenes like this from the 30’s 40’s and 50’s…fascinating
[QUOTE=FlexPenguin;40558]Of course. We should come up with a pet name for sport yoga.[/QUOTE]
Bid boobs hot yoga? :)) That would be a bestseller!
[QUOTE=CityMonk;42165]Bid boobs hot yoga? :)) That would be a bestseller![/QUOTE]
Hey! What about us small boob girls?! hehe 
I see what you mean. I was picturing them all just dropping their pants in a field. That would be worse than walking through a mine field.
I think this is a serious issue, though, and not just a difference compared to the west. During the migragation from east to west in the US in the 1800’s many people died because of the diseases from all the human waste on the trail.
But there’s no way I can see the dope smoking as a positive.
Still, I do respect and admire the devotion, though I am not much of a fan of naked old men, regardless of their motivation for en masse streaking.
[QUOTE=omamana;42107]I am glad that you enjoyed it
They are naked because they choose to detach themselves from material belongings, and they cover themselves in the ash to keep warm. As for the dope smoking, they do this to focus and still their minds, as some of us may know dope can make you rather giddy, but it does not have that affect on them. There are no women, not sure why, perhaps this is more for cultural reasons.
‘[I]field carpeted with human dung[/I]’…I think he meant this figuratively, as they do not have drainage moving the waste away, so it accumulates in the field/ area they use as a toilet.
I think it is interesting how we in the West focus on the things which make us different from others, you only find it strange because you are not used to it.
Look past the differences and much can be seen and learnt from each other.[/QUOTE]
Did you know Thomas that there is a rare early oil painting of Krishna which depicts him smoking a spliff!!! it is very beautiful as well, I saw it on TV last year.
stunning
The programme is called [I]Extreme Pilgrim (on BBC) [/I]and the vicar who did the pilgrimages was Peter Owen-Jones. It was fascinating, he first went to a shoalin monastry and intensely practiced their teaching for three weeks, then to India and became a sadhu and finaly he went to Egypt to the Monastry of St Anthony of the Desert and became a hermit for three weeks, praying only. I am excited for his parish, he will take so much back to them!
Yes it can. In fact, it SHOULD be instead of sent to sewage treatment plants.
Nature devised a way to be sustainable. Our minds have caused that harmony to get out of whack. I helped a friend build a homemade composing toilet in Hawaii which was basically a two holed concrete structure where, for six months, you’d use one hole and toss in organic material when you took a dump. Then you’d cap it for 6 months and use the other one. By the time the 6 months were up, the material was composted to the point that you could grab it with your bare hands and handle it without foul odor or anything. It was fantastic manure.
Hi Pandara,
I watched that documentary series myself.A very humble guy he was & very sincere too.That’s what came across well & shone through… I especially was taken by his spell with the martial arts young boys apprentices and the master in the hills away from the commercial tourist hub of the shaolin temple but high up in the hills.It was one of the few authentic places remaining and then you needed permission i.e were sincere and it was remote.What was practiced there was something more like a spiritual discipline than a combat dilution.Like me i think he came to a rough conclsion the sadhus were likely addicted to the ganga as something to do to pass the time…But then i was still left wondering if this was an aversion-denial thing going on though i iam nclined towards viewing it somwhat as a culturally accepted ritual though that is prob. not likely to serve you much long-term “spiritually”.If anything it clouds the mind,over-gratifies the senses etc.However i don’t think it really matters.I could watch bits of the kung-fu one again.,the authentic stuff that is’nt so widely taught( because it’s likely esoteric, not as accessible and spiritual and some people just don’t like that, or perhaps have a kind of automatic aversion ,or reel response, to that very concept alone. i think that may be partly because they have preconceptions about spirtuality. they don’t understand it or don’t want to perhaps might be more accurate(??)- can be difficult challenging stuff for sure!)
If i see that particular episode online again i’ll provide the link.
I was reading Les Miserables recently (took me over a year to finish it), and there is an entire chapter devoted to the sewers of Paris, and the auther lamented about how much wealth was being flushed away.
But I have heard there are pathogens, etc. that survive and that it’s unsafe to use on things that would be consumed. This doesn’t happen with this system?
l o l
Some people might say that properly composted material will kill all the pathogens. This is incorrect. In fact, you don’t want your compost to get TOO hot otherwise it kills all the good bacteria and fungus as well.
If I poop out some bacteria will it still be present in the manure? Possibly. Same with all the other animal manures.
- Wash your fruit and vegetables
- Don’t worry about it. Our paranoia about bacteria and other pathogens is overblown. The worry about them does far more harm to us than the occasional bacteria that gets in our body. Heck, some people with Crohn’s Disease are purposefully infecting themselves with hook worms because the theory is that we’re OVER sanitized in the west. And they’re achiving greater than 60% remission rates.
Of course, this is written by someone with 6 months of somewhat unexplained abdominal pains who has been coughing up blood for more than three weeks, so you may want to ignore me.
Funny how a thread starts with yoga as a selling feature and ends in the proper use of human manure. It’s like when you take a photocopy of a photocopy 58 times. The end result has no resemblance to the original picture.