'Spiritual' journeys to India?

The ten-Oscar category film Slumdog Millionaire, together with the recent publication of The White Tiger, mean India is very much in the public consciousness right now.

A thought-provoking piece in The Times muses on what drives spiritual - and yoga-related - tourism to India, and just how genuine that motivation really is. 

According to the writer, one in six of the five million people visiting the sub-Continent as tourists every year are British - many of whom go with 'some existential purpose'.

For yoga teachers and practitioners, spending time in India on a retreat, or living in an ashram (aka Elizabeth Gilbert's world-wide bestseller, Live, Eat, Pray) is still an absolute rite of passage.

Our motivation for going is perhaps bound up with the self-indulgent ego; Salman Rushdie once said, 'When a westerner takes on the garb of the Indian in their yoga and chanting, it's always a sign of inner pain.'

In the Times piece, yoga teacher Charles Carmell is even more to the point, sneering: 'You don't have to be able to stick your toe in your eat to be spiritual; frankly, the process of getting Delhi belly will take you to a more interesting edge in yourself.'

I confess to wincing a little on reading that quote - but perhaps that's because it carries more than a grain of truth.

The full piece in The Times can be read here.

Your view: how genuine are most westerners' spiritual trips to India? Please log in and leave a comment.

Lucia Cockcroft, editor