Act of Hospitality

“It is not luxury if minimum two therapists don't massage me.”
Let us put aside the questionable clinical and functional gains of multiple therapists. I simply want to focus on one thing - attention. In the most bodily, corporeal function of relaxation, one desires overabundance, excess. Four hands or six hands to forget the sensation of hands altogether. To be drowned in the overload. To be saved from giving attention to one. This is antithetical to Raga philosophy. It is a reversal of attentive relaxation.

It stems from the deep-seated understanding of what hospitality means. A subversion where the consumer or hegemon of service desires such gluttony of sensation that he forgets to pay the only things he truly possesses, attention.

At Raga, we are all equals, the ones on this side of the threshold and those who enter our home as guests. What is the aesthetic at Raga? Aesthetic in design, in experience and relationship? It is a combination of ease and asceticism; of austerity, restraint, reserve, and quietude.

I can think of no better phrase than by Derrida, who said, “An act of hospitality can only be poetic.” It is difficult for Raga Nivasis (our guests) to have this new/different perspective on hospitality. We do not wish to be mere service providers as subservient hosts. The guest must partake in the ritual of learning to receive and give as a student. This is a new relationship.