By Victoria McCullogh
I've been living in India and I've come back to my home town London. When I left I was keen to get to India's renowned spiritual source, to the roots of yoga. But as a wise Saddhu wrapped in orange robes said to me on the banks of the Ganges "What are you doing here? Spirit is everywhere - you do not need to travel to find it." Although having said that he had been a former Bollywood moghul and said that he had to leave Bombay in order to connect to God, which leads me to the question - spirituality in the city - is it a paradox?
Greener London
So how has London evolved or devolved in my absence? There is definitely a move towards a greener, cleaner, leaner London.
High street stalwarts Marks & Spencers are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2012… Tescos are building new superstores with wind turbines… Whole Foods has opened the first organic department store in the heart of Kensington.
Londoners are pro-active when it comes to how they shop it seems. People can choose ethically and get their needs met… however, the huge demand for organic has made a rather large carbon footprint and now all the stores are trying to include locally-sourced produce as well as organic.
But some feel it's all gone a bit far… when it comes to our civil liberties and our personal rights. Local governments want to weigh our rubbish and charge for it so that we recycle more… or in some places just give people smaller bins! Some people think this all makes good sense, some are outraged.
This also applies to the smoking ban. Ethically, health-wise and common sense intact, the smoking ban is a great idea, but for some it is one step too far towards the nanny state and big brother.
The smoking ban is respectful of people and a city should be respectful of its citizens. But the whole thing about a city is that it has a bit of everything. The people that smoke, the people that don't. And speaking to a lot of people they are feeling alienated by the new rule.
I was very happy the first night of the smoking ban to be going to a gig in a bar and know that I would not come out smelling of smoke… however the bar in question was a private members club which decided to flout the ban with gusto, encouraging everyone to have a fag… and in fact one patron came in with five blazing cigarettes in his mouth!
On the run up to Live Earth there was as much negative press as positive. Most pundits were calculating the carbon footprint of such a massive event. And although we are being encouraged to recycle, we see programmes like Dumped telling us that at the moment only one in 200 plastic bags are recycled. Or a documentary warning us of the green bandwagon… we all want to save the world, but we also want cheap flights.
These days In London there are more juice bars, there are more yoga classes, but there are also more people. The city keeps growing and it has to take everything, every development under its wing. There are so many things going on, that I am learning to find my own niche in the city, my own community, and ultimately my own inner peace.
Finding Your Inner Flow
You cannot look to a city to feed you spiritually. Cities are about the survival of the fittest. If we are spiritually fit we can navigate the ebb and flow of the city. It seems to me that spiritual fitness comes first from within us and needs very much to be with us on the streets. For example it's all well and good doing your meditation practice in the privacy of your home but if you step out onto the street and are all elbows going down the street and trying to board the train… what have you learnt?
London life seems even faster than when I left. I think the speed of the city is edging up… there is a cut and thrust to it that doesn't really support inner peace. I have found it extremely challenging being back. It's exciting, but it's exhausting. I have found a very insular city that gets by because it has to. But you have to find your own acceptance of that.
The moment when I felt most connected in this big challenging city was at the memorial of a friend of mine, whose life had a huge impact on many people.
As a campaigner and activist, Gilly Mundy, who died aged only 36, managed to cram so much into his own life and touch the lives of so many others. He worked with the victims of racist violence in east London and through Conscious Clubbing, he helped organise music events to raise money for the many causes he supported. But most of all, Gilly had a special gift: the ability to connect on a personal level, quietly and generously, with absolutely everyone he met.
In London you can find your niche, you can find kindred spirits, you can find a vibrancy that you just cannot find anywhere else. But at the end of the day the spirit is always inside you and everything begins from within.