It was a great morning weather-wise for Matrimandir, the golden dome; they have to close it if it rains because there is a hole in the roof that light comes through. The light shines down on a huge crystal ball and lights up the whole big white room.
It is incredible in the room. If a cloud passes over, the crystal ball goes sort of dark blue and looks like it fills with mist. When the cloud passes over, the room lights up again with white or sometimes orange light. The colour of the light is constantly changing. Sometimes the top of the crystal ball looked like a crescent moon studded with 3 points of light that shone like stars. Around the base it reflected stylised lotus leaves. Around the center it reflected the circle of mediators.
But something happened while I was meditating. Everything and everyone, all vanished away. There was only the crystal ball and the light.
The room is huge, it is like sitting inside a ball. The round roof is supported by 12 tall, white, cylindrical columns. The whole room is pure white. There are meditation cushions in a huge circle around the outside of the 12 columns.
It's a whole journey to get to the meditation room. The outside of the dome is made from golden discs that reflect the sun. Under the dome is a fountain representing a lotus flower with another (much smaller) crystal ball in the center.
Going inside the golden, sacred geometrical ball is sort of like going inside star trek. It is by far the most amazing structure I have ever seen or been in.
When we arrived, we saw a short movie about the concept of Auroville. It is a community with the pupose to find ultimate universal consciousness.
We were taken in little buses to the dome where the guide gave us a talk. From then on the whole experience is in silence.
We walked through the geometric lawns and gardens, through the arena where Auroville was inaugurated in 1968. We walked around the dome, then under the dome to sit around the fountain for a short while. The fountain is beautiful white marble representing petals of a lotus.
When we went inside we had to put on white socks so no red dirt would soil the complete whiteness of the interior. We walked up a white carpeted spiral walkway and through a door into the most incredible meditation room ever constructed.
I never had a meditation experience like it (well once before at Ayres rock.)
All the people in the room vanished to me. All I could see was nothing. Only my focus on three bright points of light like stars that were reflecting universal consciouness from the crystal ball. It was hard, but I stayed so focused. There was complete emptiness of nothing, not even creation, not even the universal oneness or emptiness. Just total nothing at all.
I have weird short-sighted eyes that don't focus properly so light and stars actually do look like stars, with rays of light shining out from a center. I was so focused the rays stayed still. They had rainbows in them and I could even see the tiny point in the middle of the light was totally black.
I feel like I'm freed.
It was superb.
They flash lights on twice after 15 minutes, it was time to leave.
Outside we sat for a while under a huge Bunyan tree.
Then we went back to the visitors center and I had a delicious double layer chocolate cake and masala chai ☕🍰.
It is a process to get into the Matrimandir. You have to go to the visitors center, in person to purchase a ticket a few days before your visit, they are not open on a Tuesday. It is not a tourist attraction, it is for serious spiritual concentration. It is a good idea to go early in the morning or there will be a long queue. Before you can purchase the ticket you have to watch a 5 minute film about Auroville. It is very interesting. Also you need ID to get a ticket.
If you have visited Matrimandir once, you don't have to go through the booking process again, you can just ring them up on the number they give you or email them.
It was really WOW!
