The Five Star Pilgrim

The undisputed world leaders in five star pilgrimages are the Mahometans. The Wahhabi Saudis who control the holy places in Arabia have turned the city of the Holy Prophet into a religious Las Vegas. Stinking rich oil sheihks fly in on their private jets, stay in five star hotels, eat massive banquets, traverse the sites of the pilgrimage in air conditioned comfort and then return home laden with Allah’s blessings. It is surely one of the most disgusting spectacles of religious hypocrisy in our time. They have turned the pilgrimage – the Hajj – into a parody of everything it was mean to be. The whole purpose of the Hajj is to re-enact the privations of Hagar and Ishmael – penniless and homeless outcasts – as they wandered the desert in a desperate search for water.

For justification for the current excesses, Mahometans reach for spurious “hadith” – there is a “hadith” for all occasions in Wahhabi Islam - that say that pilgrims need not endure hardship. It is true that the Hajj was not intended to be excessively arduous or dangerous for pilgrims, but neither was it intended to be an orgy of obscene wealth and luxury, an insult to Hagar and her son. Islam claims to be a ‘middle path’ betwixt ascetic mortification and over-indulgence. But modern Mecca has become an abomination. The sacred Kaaba now stands in the consuming shadow of a monstrous five star – nay, six star! – hotel, a massive monument to Wahhabi hubris. Few people in history have so abused their wealth like the oil Arabs. The fact that this desecration has occurred without so much as an objection from the Muslim Ummah speaks volumes about the degenerate state of contemporary Islam.

The author is currently witness to something of the same thing – a five star pilgrimage - only on a more modest scale, at Boodh Gaya in India. Boodh Gaya is the Boodhist Mecca. It is regarded by Boodhists as the navel of the world, the spiritual centre of the cosmos, and marks the place where the Boodha attained enlightenment. The Bodhi Tree and the Diamond Throne are in a compound at the western side of the huge Mahabodhi Temple. Pilgrims come from throughout the Boodhist world to offer prayers, chant, circumambulate and prostrate at the designated places. Much like Mecca, in fact, there is a prescribed circuit of observances, seven landmarks marking auspicious places where the Boohda performed certain deeds. There are specific pilgrimage seasons, but pilgrims arrive throughout the year – over a million of them. 

For many pilgrims, though, this spiritual journey is nowadays an entirely sanitized affair. They arrive on package tours in luxury air conditioned buses, stay at well-to-do spotless hotels and are ushered in and out of the temple precinct by well-paid guides who cater to their every need. It is nothing compared to the obscene opulence of Mecca, but at the same time neither does it ever take the pilgrims beyond their comfort zones. Some pilgrims to Boodh Gaya stay in the many monasteries that dot the town, each according to their nationality: Cambodians in the Cambodian monastery, the Japanese in the Japanese monastery, and so on. This is a modest way to accomplish the verities of the journey. But others – middle and upper class citizens of Asian cities – follow the smooth and easy path. One feels that for them pilgrimage to the Mahabodhi Temple is an “investment”, pennies in heaven. They dress beautifully, travel in style, eat at the best restaurants and enjoy all the benefits of the Boodha’s eternal presence without once getting their hands dirty.

This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in Boodh Gaya because – outside of the five star circuit – it is a very, very poor little town. (Readers will find views of the town on this page.) The author has spent several days walking around and frankly has been shocked at the depth and extent of poverty here. This is a place that hosts a million tourists a year and yet the local population of about 30,000 souls lives in shanties without clean water, sewerage or reliable electricity. The children – barefoot urchins – are malnourished and unschooled. The roads are unsealed and full of mangy dogs. In general, the civil facilities are dismal. There are piles of rubbish everywhere. There are beggars throughout, many with terrible afflictions. The present author has just spent a month in the areas of Calcutta where Mother Therese worked, but the poverty there was nothing compared to the dusty, rural poverty of Boodh Gaya. 

How is this possible, given that a million Boodhists – sworn to a creed of compassion – can pass through this town each year? Why do they tolerate such terrible conditions? The short answer to this question is that the spiritual tourists, arriving in their deluxe Volvo buses, with their smart phones and prayer beads, quickly scamper into walled compounds to indulge in their meditations and never have to deal with the realities on the street outside. They catch a glimpse of the poverty through the tinted window of their bus, but that is all. Out of sight, out of mind. The five star pilgrim never has to engage with the dirty facts of Indian life. Somehow large sums of pilgrim dollars pour into Boodh Gaya every year, and yet nothing changes for the poor local Indians. 

It is not poverty, per se, that is disturbing. The poor are always with us. Rather it is the blaring contrast between the destitute and the indulgent, and the way it is underwritten by Boodhist piety, that is most remarkable here. No doubt there are structural obstacles to make improvements to the situation – Indian bureaucracy and endemic corruption, for a start. But one would think that the local authorities – the government of the good state of Bihar – would insist that the pilgrim trade made a substantial contribution to the well-being of the local people and local infrastructure. And, even more, one would think that the consortium of Boodhist organizations that have a presence in the town – major Boodhist organizations from throughout the world - would work together to address some of the most obvious instances of want and deprivation. What is compassion without charity?

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black