paradigms

or (there comes into my mind) there's The Mother of the ashram of sri aurobindo in pondicherry. she, a true "late victorian" french traveller of great character, wormed her way into this all-male priggish bengali-in-exile monastic settlement, first through the kitchens, finally reigning as an incarnation of the mother goddess.....doubtless deeply resented by the ashramites, who provided an immaculate formidable court for the hippies and others who flocked there in the sixties and seventies. she gave individual darshan, and overwhelmed visitors by her wondrous loving hypnotic openness - i presume by contrast with all the turn-off they had to endure to get to her. !! naughty ... naughty ... a great woman.

i only got there shortly after her death (nnoo i nnoo she didn't really die....never), but have watched the spreading of the empire of auroville, under gov of india and unesco patronage, and 2 of my children have been interned there.....

an open mind is a very terrible thing