Globe-trotting Hindu guru for the middle class

Satguru Bodhinatha Vaylanswami teaches his followers ways to "spiritualise" daily life. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Think "pilgrimage" and you picture heat, dust and hardship. But a pilgrimage without suffering has just ended in Auckland, led by an American-born Hindu monk.

Satguru Bodhinatha Vaylanswami, a Pope-like figure to his followers, has been leading 45 pilgrims from eight countries on a fortnight's trip through Australia's east coast and New Zealand.

Between sightseeing - Milford Sound, Te Anau, Wellington and Auckland this week - the "Innersearch" programme has included intense classes in meditation, hatha yoga and practical Hinduism.

These are middle-class pilgrims - no hardship is required. The point, says the softly spoken Bodhinatha, 63, is to break people out of their normal routine to focus on their faith.

In a stressful, busy world, he says, many people have fallen into the habit of seeing Sunday as a spiritual day and the others as spiritual voids.

You can "spiritualise" daily life "by the way you interact with other people, by the way you respond to difficulties and emotional challenges. It doesn't take any extra time."

Bodhinatha is the head of the English-language Saiva Siddhanta Church, founded in Hawaii in 1957.

It has run 22 such trips since 1967, many by cruise liner.

As the Weekend Herald arrived at the Duxton Hotel to meet Bodhinatha and his assistants, some of the pilgrims - a mixed bunch aged 13 to 80 from the United States, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Mauritius, the Netherlands, Singapore and Thailand - were warmly farewelling one another.

Local followers are delighted their spiritual leader is in New Zealand for the first time. Aucklander Sandy Jayakumar said Bodhinatha was "equal to the Pope".

Mr Jayakumar estimates that 40 per cent of Auckland's Indian population are Saivates - or, he says, about 5000 families.

There are three temples, two at Ellerslie and one at Papakura.

Bodhinatha's passport bears his Hindi name; he won't repeat his original name, saying part of becoming a monk, which he did "quite naturally" at 22, is forgetting the past.

He is celibate, vegetarian, has few possessions and no personal money, though he oversees an asset-rich church.

He totes a super-slim laptop and printer. It is getting harder to attract young people outside India and Sri Lanka, he says. Using the "digital realm" may reverse the trend.