Davar Akher

I have just returned from ConFest: an earthy festival in rural NSW. It was an interesting experience, camping in the bush with a large group of hippies, and there were certainly elements of it that grew on me. The festival was described as being “clothing optional”, although more people there exercised their right of choice to keep something on – at least at those times that they weren’t on the beach, covering themselves in mud or bathing. For my part, I enjoyed being around a group of people of all ages, all of whom were smiling and happy, and all of whom seemed utterly non-judgemental as regards the personal choices of others. If I were looking for an adjective to describe the general mood, I might choose “sweet”. Sure, there were several people there in desperate need of a non-ConFest education, and I also met more than one creep, but stupid and sleazy people exist in every demographic. The hippies are no worse than any other, are they?

I had an interesting experience at one of the workshops. Billed as a “Kirtan” call-and-response exercise, I expected a form of communal mantric meditation. I enjoy meditating and I tend to favour the mantric variety over the alternatives that I have experienced. I was mistaken, however, but remained in the circle for long enough that my departure should not seem rude. Lacking phone reception, I had been unable to Google “Kirtan” but, had I done so, I would have discovered that it is a devotional tradition: a form of prayer. The following are the lyrics to one of the chants, invented by a participant:

Hanuman, O Hanuma-an, Hari Hari Hari Hanuman
Hanuman, O Hanuma-an, Hari Hari Hari Hanuman
Hari Rama
Hari Rama
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Rama
Hari Rama
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Rama
Hari Rama
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Rama
Hari Rama
Hari Sit-ta
Hari Sit-ta
[repeat]

Rama is a Hindu deity, Sita is Rama’s wife, and his attendant Hanuman is the eleventh incarnation of Lord Shiva: another Hindu god. This makes the chant-leader’s assurance at the beginning especially odd. “Don’t worry,” she told us. “This isn’t religious.” Isn’t religious?? What on earth is it, if not religious? And then it hit me. What she had meant to say, was “Don’t worry: this isn’t Judaism, Christianity or Islam.”

I am sure that back in the 1960s, when hippies first began rejecting the major faiths of their upbringing and embracing Eastern alternatives, the choice was a vibrant and an exciting one. I am truly surprised that so many people are still within such a mindset. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I cannot help but feel that if somebody at ConFest had offered to run a workshop in which participants were encouraged to praise the Lord, the peaceful and tolerant veneer would have cracked for more than one attendant. ConFest is, after all, not a “religious” festival. It is not supposed to promote “religious” values. You want to wave a Bible around or get people singing about Jesus, you might have come to the wrong place. But Eastern religion? Nobody’s scared of that, right? It’s so fresh, and so clean. So all-embracing.

Bollocks.

I say, people should do as they please. I say, if somebody wants to run a religious workshop, they should run a religious workshop. I say that the whole point of festivals like ConFest is that members are empowered to do their own thing, absolutely irrespective of what that is. Furthermore, they should have the decency to admit it to their audiences, rather than weakly pretending that they’re offering an alternative. There’s a lesson in that, perhaps, for all of us.

I’d like to wish all of my readers a happy and a healthy 2010: a year in which you have the audacity to be yourselves, along with the integrity to admit it.