XII. CONCLUDING REMARKS

In its nascent stage, pilgrimage may be a vigorously open self-organizing system which creates new meaning, myths, and rituals. In its more mature state as a well-developed process opportunities for spontaneity and innovation may be reduced, although n ot entirely eliminated. Openness always invites spontaneity, surprises, and unconventional behavior.

When a system has reached the critical state or dissipate state, it may sustain ideational avalanches as new concepts, theories, perspectives, and cosmologies are developed and then tested by experience. Within the "catchment basin" of a pilgrimage sys tem, these avalanches involve people as well as ideas. In the case of Hindu India, the scale of interaction of the metastable system extends across the entire country, involving the coherent behavior of hundreds of millions of people who are not organized by any central authority, but who, by their movement, provide social continuity and cohesion for the entire land (McNamara 1995). The physical scale of coherent behavior proceeds downward from the four cardinal abodes, through a hierarchy of self-similar structures that are characterized by circumambulation, cardinality, and centrality to the scale of the temple, home, and even married couple.

Often pilgrimage acquires cosmogonic and cosmological meaning as pilgrims reenact the origin myths of the cosmos, mimic great events of the past, and move in parallel with the cycles of the heavens. As self-organizing systems, the complexity of the pil grimage landscape may be natural and internal, and we do not need to look for the evidence of a structure imposed by imperial decree or by a city planner, pundit, or priest when encountering complex geometries and complex ritual.

There is depth to the pilgrimage landscape that is generated by many levels of meaning, many sources of energy, and many centers of attraction. The entry of the mathematics, physics, and chemistry of self-organization into the discussion does not dimin ish in any way the deep mystery and grandeur of the pilgrimage experience. There is breath-taking mystery and spaciousness to the fractal of Mandelbrot, for example, which in its scale invariance, continues inward to the heart of the tiniest piece of matt er and outward to its expanding boundaries of the universe. In the actuality of dawn on the Ganga, there is mystery to the rising of the sun greeted every morning by thousands of pilgrims. The deepest mystery of all is that these complex pilgrimage structures were created by free individuals who walked the landscape in search of meaning and in pursuit of an ideal.