Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife.
Jet lag owns me at the moment. It can take me down anytime it pleases and keep me asleep for as little or as long as it likes. My soul and body are finding it hard to be completely in Seattle, though they are no longer in India, as well. I seem to exist in two realms, and if I had to name those realms they would simply be "Awake" and "Asleep."
I've been forced to do stuff today. Responsible stuff like dealing with the bank and getting my car and it's dead engine towed. The last two boxes that I shipped from India arrived and I unpacked them and felt like, "This is it. I'm all here. All arrived. My adventure is over. Tied up. Concluded. The End." I left everything out on tables for the day, though, so that I can process longer, leave the door ajar till I'm ready to close it for good and all.
I've also been uploading all my photos....or at least a grand amount of them. There are still some areas that might be flushed out a little more when I have the energy to sort through the thousands of pictures I took. As it is, I'm afraid, should you choose to peruse, you might also find yourself hunting a bit for the gems. I don't have it in me to go through and label who is who and all, just now. But if you've been following along, I suspect it might be a little like a scavenger hunt and you might just be able to put names to faces and illustrations to events.
So, I'm just gonna make a list of links here to galleries. I hope you enjoy them. I don't know if this is the last chapter, or just the last one for a few days, a week, what have you. But I am giving myself permission to step away and linger in the moments of reconnection here in Seattle.
Once again, your company has been invaluable. Each comment and private message sent has been cherished and made each step of this journey more rich. So, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Deep, my guide on the first two days in Varanasi, took me to see his Guru. I thought, why not, I'm in Varanasi, I should do something mystical. Deep's Guru, whose name I never caught, is an astrologer. After meeting Deep's Guru, Guru Guy, I decided that I would make an appointment to get an astrological reading, see if he could enlighten me about what might be coming up next in my life, without me having to do the agonizing work of being patient and finding it out for myself.
I'm no stranger to astrological readings. Or tarot readings. Or Skrying. So, it wasn't like it was the first time I'd ever sought answers from the celestial spheres. I actually do a bit of tarot, or intuitive, reading myself. I've always believed that there are people who can clue into the cosmic data-base that all of us human energy balls are constantly downloading information into and from that data base these intuitives can check out different books that can give us some info about ourselves, in particular, and life, in general.
Of course, there are also a lot of people who can read star charts and memorize books on tarot reading or palm reading or what have you, that actually have no intuitive capability at all. They probably don't even really believe in all that "crap" but they know that other people do, people who are willing to spend money so that they don't have to learn how to trust their own intuition. The untalented non-believers, posing as intuitives have no qualms about relieving hopeful suckers like myself of their money.
I had no idea upon meeting Deep's guru whether or not he was an actual intuitive or if he just wanted my money. But I was willing to spend a few dollars for the experience of finding out what going to an astrologer in India was like. It seemed like a "When in Rome" kind of a thing to do.
And, sure, hope springs eternal....maybe Guru Guy would tell me something that would unlock all the doors I've been struggling to unlock over the last three months. Maybe he could tell me what really matters so that I could change my life accordingly and decide what I should do next.
There is a lot of detail I could throw in next about how I got lost trying to get to the appointment and then Guru Guy was late because he was "doing a ceremony for some American man"....
But that part isn't, for the purpose of this post, important.
When Guru Guy finally did start reading my chart and telling me about myself, I could tell he was pretty good. He wasn't really telling me anything I didn't know already, either based on other readings about what my chart says or from my own self-knowledge, but he wasn't throwing out gross generalizations that could apply to anybody and he wasn't saying anything that was wildly off the mark about me in particular.
It started to get interesting when Guru Guy began to zero in on how I am a very spiritually oriented person ("You have an American body and an Indian soul") and how that focus would only get stronger over the next ten years, which backs up what other astrologers have told me. But then he said that that spiritual energy would make me more and more confused and unsettled because I was also very physically oriented, my sexual energy was very strong, so that would be apt to get in the way of my finding peace and cause, instead, a feeling of constant "unsettledness".
Internally I went, "Whoa." I felt like he was touching a new nerve. Though, "unsettledness" is not the word I would use for what he'd hit on. Confusion, yes. Confusion in the sense that I'm no longer interested in having sex just to scratch an itch, to satisfy a craving. There's got to be a spiritual/energetic connection.
Guru Guy continued to explain that my desire for connection would become more and more problematic as my orientation towards spirituality intensified, because he could see in my chart that my future relationships would continue to be unstable. I would be seeking out deeper meaning, deeper connection, but relationships wouldn't happen, and then I would have these physical urges and not know what to do.
Ok. I could see how that might have been true in the past...I thought to myself. In fact, I could see how that had been painfully evident throughout my life and how I'd gotten involved with the wrong people because of those physical needs.
Hmmm... this guy is really good, I started thinking.
Then, he said, "Your energy is so strong. Like mine. People want some of it. I understand this. People come to me and they want some of my energy. Women come from other countries and I can see they want some of my energy. This one woman came and I could see she wanted a hug. I asked her if she did, and I let her give me a hug. But I told her her hug was not real, not strong enough, if she was going to hug me she should hug me with all her strength because, after that hug, that would be it, nothing more could come from me after."
Hmmm....now this guy was veering a little off course.....
Then Guru Guy shifted in his seat so his mundu (skirt) was split just enough for me to see his package. But not enough for me to know if he knew that I could see is package. And let me solve the age old question right now: Indian men do not wear anything under their mundus.
I just kept looking Guru Guy straight in the eyes, wondering where he was gonna try and go from there.
But Guru Guy did not push his agenda too hard. He never came out and made it plain that he was suggesting anything specific, you know, about his energy and my energy meeting up. Though I became more and more sure that he was trying to say that if I wanted his "energy", all I had to do was ask.
But soon the session was over and it was time to leave though not before he tried to sell me a very expensive talisman, or the even more expensive "Ceremony", to stop the "unsettled" trend in my life.
While we were walking to the door, I reached out to shake Guru Guy's hand, to thank him for the interesting reading. All in all, I'd rather enjoyed myself in a "I'm not sure what just happened here, but this guy is fascinating and I can't wait to tell the story about him" kind of a way. So I reach out and offer my hand and he takes it in his hand and, gosh darn it, if when I took his hand, it wasn't electric. I mean E-LEC-TRIC! It didn't excite me sexually, but it did shock the heck out of me.
Guru Guy saw me register his "energy" and said, "You see, you want some of my energy."
I said, "No. But there is energy."
"I think you do. I think you want some energy."
I laughed and walked out....quickly...sort of waving my hands by my ears in a "Oh, my God this just turned too weird and too funny all at the same time" kind of a way.
Guru Guy followed me to the outer door of his building and called after me down the narrow little alley, "You come back. When you have no hesitation, you come back."
I walked quickly, trying to shake off Guru Guy's "energy". As his electrons fell away, I found myself slowly, but steadily, filling with elation. I was thrilled. I had no idea why. I mean, I should have been pissed. I'd just spent 50 bucks for some guy to stage an elaborate and bizarre seduction.
But as I let it sink in, I realized that I was happy because I was free. Suddenly, everything became so clear....Guru Guy could tell me nothing that mattered about myself. Even if he'd been the most pious and talented mystic ever. The truth is in me. My truth. Just like the truth is in you, each of you, each of us, if we get quiet enough to listen. That communal energetic database that intuitives tap into is a free library, folks, we all got a card when we signed up for this ride. And there are certain volumes that only apply to us and we are the only ones who can read the crazy font they are printed in.
A wealth of psychic weight dropped off of my soul and out of my heart. I realized that I could not only check my own books out of the cosmic library, I could write new ones, I could make my own reality. I could decide what mattered to me and build the rest of my years around that.
Later that night, I took a little evening stroll and met a real mystic, a kid of about 17 years, named Kundar....he doesn't know he's a mystic....but boy did he put me in my place.....I tried to shoo him away and he just persisted and then said, "Oh, you think you know everything, you think of me as a dog...not good enough to talk to..." I tried to interrupt him and to have a rational conversation about how I was just trying to be quiet and that my shooing him away was not personal. But he kept saying, "I'm a dog to you, a lowly dog. You know everything...."
So finally I said, sharply, "Do you want to be quiet long enough to listen?"
He said, "Yes, of course. Where are you from?"
"America."
"How long you in Varanasi?"
"Since Wednesday."
"You like it?"
"Yes."
Kundar sat down beside me, calm, gentle, inquisitive.
We had a great conversation. He taught me how to say "mother fucker" in hindi: mutta chowd, so that the next time I needed to shoo somebody away I could let them know I really meant business.
Out of the blue, Kundar wanted to know if I thought God was inside of each of us. He'd heard that this might be true and he wondered what I thought.
"Funny you should ask," I thought. Hadn't I just had that epiphany this morning. The truth, aka God, is in each of us. Sure, I'd heard that before. But now I knew it, in my bones.
I said, "Yes. Yes. I believe that is true. God is in each of us."
In turn, I asked Kundar, "Why do the Hindus say "God"-singular when they believe there are over a million different gods.
Answer: God has many faces, so many that we don't even know how many faces he has.
I asked, "If the Ganges is so sacred why do the Indian people treat her so poorly?"
Answer: Because the hand has five fingers and each finger doesn't know what the other one is doing.
See, a natural mystic.
Kundar also fessed up and told me that Varanasi "runs on money. Because money never stops, money is always working, always going. Money never takes a break. People get tired. Money never gets tired".
After about half an hour, Kundar said, "Your face looks kind of happy, but I think inside you are a little upset with me, a little angry?"
Kundar was right. I was a little bit upset, but not with him, with myself. I had said "no" to his intrusion; I had tried to shoo him away because I wanted to sit with my new found spiritual freedom, I wanted to bask in the light of my earlier epiphany.
I was also sure he was hustling something which I was not in the mood to buy.
Yes, ultimately he wanted to take me to his shop where he works in hopes that I would stock up on souvenirs. But he didn't push it. When I said no, Kundar accepted it without question. And the conversation we had in the meantime was perfect. A gift.
Kundar was right about another thing. I didn't know everything. I thought I knew something; maybe I even felt, in some small way, that my earlier epiphany had given me special powers to know that Kundar was someone I wouldn't possibly want to talk to. Though I certainly didn't think he was a dog. But I may have initially treated him as one.
The next day, yesterday, I woke up, as is my customary habit in India, to see the sunrise. But instead of going out in a boat, or for a walk on the ghats, I decided to just sit on my own little balcony which sits back from the front edge of the guest house, creating a limited view of life on the waterfront. The sun would be rising to the left of the corner edge of my view, so I wouldn't actually see the sun, itself, rise.
It felt great to just be in my space without yearning for a better vantage point. So easy. So relaxing.
As the sky began to lighten, I caught site of a tourist on a prominatory pillar snapping a photo of something in an easterly direction and knew the sun had just crested the horizon. Soon, I could see rays of sunlight segmenting the sky in perfect pie shapes. It was like the sun was reaching out into the receding darkness with a giant hand and all I could see were the tips of the fingers.
It dawned on me that light spreading in the mind and soul and heart works like those sun rays; tendrils of insight reach out into the darkness of closed minds and hearts and if we are patient and easy with ourselves our inner sky will eventually be swathed in light. We don't even have to move or search for anything, not even a better spot to take in the view, light will make it even to all our little corners of the world, even if we choose not to be out in the middle of everything.
I decided, while the rays slowly spread out and disappeared and daytime came to Varanasi, that I was not going to leave the guesthouse all day. I wasn't going to go to any temple or puja or astrologer; I wasn't going to go to Sarnath, a town nearby where Buddha taught his first lesson. Instead, I was going to practice being happy right where I was, accepting what I might know and what I don't know and making peace with the distinct possibility that there are a million metaphysical conundrums that no one can really solve, certainly not definitively.
The magic of Varanasi, for me anyway, is that here, more than any place I've ever been, the essence of what it means to be human is on display. Does it matter why we are here? Maybe yes, maybe no. But for sure we are here. Varanasi makes it clear as sunshine in a matter of minutes that being on this planet, being human is messy, often disgusting, life is hard, death is inevitable, rebirth is a possibility, and yearning is universal. Everybody is yearning for something: peace, love, money, connection to the divine, to their family, to their friends, a better job, clarity...... the list goes on and on.
As I sat and wrote and chatted with the staff here at Ganpati Guesthouse, I began to sense that in 12 days when I get on the plane to go back to the states it will be time, not just because that's what my ticket says, but because that will be the next step in my journey and no matter where I go, back to Seattle, Santiniketan, Paris, my view will be as expansive as I allow it to be, my reality will be mutable, my choices only limited by my ability, or inability, to trust in my own deepest intuitions, dreams and visions.
Varanasi likes to tell a person what matters. It likes to make a lot of things that many would say are unreal, very real. Reincarnation, for instance. It wants to make sure that you understand why we are all here on this planet, why we suffer, and why and how we can be relieved of that suffering, if not in this life, then, surely the next one....or maybe the one after that.
I'm actually a believer in reincarnation. There, I said it. Have been for a while.
But like I began to say in that last post, before Varanasi jumped in with all that metaphysical marketing who-ha, I have been batting around the question of what matters and why we are all here and what is real, because you know I might be wrong....maybe we only get one shot at this living thing. I've also been wondering why we all can't agree on the answers to those questions, even though so many people think they know THE answer. I've been wracking my brain and querying my heart trying to figure out if all the metaphysical disharmony on this planet rules out the possibility that there is actually one reason, singular, that we are all here, that there is only one, or maybe two, things that really matter (if anything matters at all).
On my first morning in Varanasi I got up at 5:30 a.m. and went to watch the bathers and the mourners and the workers and the pilgrims from the safety of a little boat. I told you about that. Watching the young widower lighting the funeral pyre for his dead wife. I sat in my little boat watching from the outside and beyond the incredible intensity of what was happening onstage.
On the second morning, I decided to go out again at 5:30, but this time I walked along the banks, mingling and taking pictures, almost from the inside of things. Or at least from a more intimate and involved vantage point, sort of from the wings, if you will. I even found a place to sit and to just be for a little while, without being hustled by boatmen wanting to take me out on the water.
I watched the sunrise, which I'd missed the day before because I was looking at the shore while the sun made it's entrance behind me. I watched the sun rise over the Ganges and marvelled that only a week ago I watched that same sun rise over the Himalayas. I tried not to make too much out of that.
When it started to get too hot, I decided to wander back to my guest house. Holy men looking like Asian gnomes sitting under their little mushroom umbrellas called to me, "Namaste, Namaste. Come. Come." But I walked on, sometimes saying what I would say to any boatman, or souvenir hawker, "Nigh-che eh" or "I don't want any."
And, I didn't. I didn't want any of what those holy men were selling.
Speaking of holy men. I've been reading this book by a Sufi named Osho. Who knows, this guy might be famous. I might write "Osho" and half of you out there go, "Oh, yeah, of course, Osho." But I didn't know Osho from anybody, but I bought this book on a whim about a month ago and started reading it on the plane rides to Varanasi. Ok. It wasn't a complete whim. Ever since I read Ellen Burstyn's autobiography where she talks about being a Sufi and why she's a Sufi, I've kind of wondered if, maybe, I'm actually a Sufi, too.
Anywhoo. This Sufi master, Osho, talks really eloquently about why it's bad form to pray just to pray. That a soul should only pray when it is moved to pray. And wherever that prayer happens is ok. Any place where someone prays sincerely becomes, instantly, a sacred and holy spot, a temple, a shrine. Osho also talks about how trying to be like the Buddha or Jesus or Mohammad or any Guru you could name out there, is also very bad form. Because to be truly divine, we must all be wholly and completely ourselves. If we just try to copy Buddha or Jesus we only succeed in becoming, at best, a good imitation of somebody or something we are not. There was only one Jesus and only one Buddha.
So, as these Varanasi holy men tried to sell me a moment of serious devotional prayer, I told them I wasn't buying. I had neither the inclination to pray or the the desire to be them.
This resolve wavered a bit as I approached what I call the Big Circus Ghat, where every night they do an extremely elaborate Puja, or prayer service that strikes me as a bit of a cheat put on for the tourists, as well as, the grief stricken Indians who will pay anything to find peace. The Ghat is wide and deep and can hold a lot of holy men, each on their individual little platforms, under their individual large mushroom shaped umbrellas. Pretty soon I had said, Nigh-che eh so many times that I was sick of hearing myself say no and when a certain priest called out, something in me was drawn in.
I went over and, in the blink of an eye, found myself sitting barefoot, in the criss-cross apple sauce pose, a red dot on my forehead, flowers sprinkled with holy Ganges water and a coconut wrapped in flowered cloth all sitting in my cupped hands. And, I was chanting. In Sanskrit. The priest would chant, I would copy. Sometimes I'd squinch up my face to indicate I hadn't caught what he'd said, and he would repeat. Sometimes I would simply butcher the Sanskrit sounds that I was trying to parrot and then silently wonder to what strange deformed deity I might have just promised my first born.
When Sanskrit Priest was done with me, another guy suddenly appeared beside me. The English Speaking Guy. He explained that he would say a prayer for all of my family each and every day for the next month to rid my family of bad karma forever. Then I had to chant some more. But this time in English. Cuz English Speaking Guy was leading me. Then English Speaking Guy made me bend forward and he put his hand on the top of my head and he chanted some stuff I wasn't supposed to copy, having to do with peace and happiness for my family and a good marriage for me. That good marriage part was his idea, but, hey, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Then I had to get up and walk down to the water with yet another guy, Water Blessing Guy. Suddenly I found myself weaving towards the Ganges through a bevy of devout Pilgrims. Suddenly I was no longer backstage, but on stage. I was a real Pilgrim.
I stepped on the first step into the river. There was only enough water on this level to feel like I was dipping the souls of my feet in a shallow puddle left after Shiva finished mopping the floor; I wasn't taking the plunge any further. Water Blessing Guy leaned over and took a handful of the sacred liquid and sprinkled it on my head, saying something benifacting.
Everything was happening so quickly. I didn't know what to make of it. I remember climbing down to the edge of the river and thinking, "How did I get here?" I also had a very clear moment when I was stepping in the water where I thought, "This water feels great. Special. Blessed." I was glad that I was there, getting sprinkled, relieved, even, that I hadn't missed my chance; all the filth and the potential disease that I had previously imagined might muddy the experience of the divine Ganges, disappeared and all I could sense was joy. I was filled with the awareness of millions of drops of faith that infused the water with some kind of special power to filter out all the gross particles and to leave only the blessings.
Then Water Blessing Guy walked me back up to the platform and English Speaking Guy did some kind of final little magic. Then, I had to write down my address in a book along with all the names of my immediate family members.
Then I had to write down how much my donation was going to be to the Temple where generations of bad Rowe/MacCracken karma was going to be wiped clean. I wrote down 100 rupees and then was told that that was too little. To prove his point, English Speaking Guy showed me in the book where Indian's, who we all know have no money, had given 2000, 3000 rupees for the spiritual safeguarding of their entire ancestral line.
I added another zero and called it a day. Not because I don't think my ancestral line is worth the cash, but I'm also thinking my ancestral lines only go back a fraction of the way that most Indian family lines go back, and my people only made a handful of souls compared to all those generations of Indians, so my donation seemed to be appropriate to the task at hand.
I wasn't surprised that the blessing came with a price. Nor was I particularly disillusioned by the hard sell after a slightly transcendental experience. I was rather shocked, however, that I'd just been suckered out of my whole day's budget. But I got over that in a few minutes.
Can you really put a price on the spiritual salvation of your entire ancestral line? Probably not.
The night before I had been to a puja down at a small Ghat close to my hotel. I'd noticed the small puja while I was watching this Puja, The Big Circus Puja, on my first night in Varanasi:
This daily ritual is very elaborate. Using several different holy implements, conch shell, bells, incense, fire, more fire, then a little more fire, sandalwood oil, fire, feathers, fire, water, fire, the priests do a series of synchronized rituals honoring all of the elements, but mostly fire, addressing the six directional points (North, South, East, West, the Heavens, and the Earth).
Here, maybe this might help you get a better picture:
But at the little puja, instead of 9 priests lined up on 9 individual rose petal covered stages, there were only 5 priests, situated on one platform, arranged like dots on dice. I was one of about 20 people watching this intimate affair, because the other two thousand pilgrims were all at the puja big top.
The guy who keeps the show running at this little puja, Munnar, invited me to sit close, presumably because I was the only white person who bothered to stop and because I was alone.
I almost said no to that invitation, too. I'd been sitting far up on the steps where I felt I could have some space to really connect with the ritual, to feel it, to take it into my being, to invite in my own prayer, if the occasion warranted. But Munnar came up and told me to sit down next to him and his family near the little machine that clangs the drums that keeps the priests in step with each other...the drum metronome. Because it was so loud, and there were so few people, and because Munnar and his niece had to jump up frequently to light the next line of candles or to place incense, I had quite a lot of time to sit by myself, with the drums resonating in my chest and the bells and smoke of the ritual surrounding every nook and cranny of my being.
"This is the real thing," I thought to myself. "Visceral. Palpable."
At some point a small boy of 4-ish or 5-ish, appeared at my side. He was talking to me, but I couldn't hear him over the drums and the bells. So, we adapted and started talking to each other in head bobs and blinks and with points to the moon. If he pointed to the moon, I pointed to the moon. If he put his hand out in a sort of high five gesture, I put my hand out in a high five gesture. If I winked, he smiled, then cocked his head to one side and gave me a lopsided look that showed off his missing front teeth and then I would laugh out loud, joyfully. I thought the kid was angling for a little hand out. I wasn't going there. But he never asked for anything. And just as suddenly as he'd appeared, he looked at me, got up, said, "bye bye," and left.
As the Puja went on for quite some time and eventually Munnar and Punam ran out of tasks, I let Punam distract me from my intention of calling in a moment of personal prayer by letting her decorate my hand with henna. This is not something Punam does to make money. She is not skilled. I will be walking around for the next month with a strange heart with an arrow through it, glaring from the palm of my right hand. But I like my tattoo so much more than those professional jobs that so many tourists get that cover their calves and arms and feet and hands.
Munnar and Punam didn't want money for either their hospitality or the unique, one of a kind, tattoo. I tried to give them something, but they refused. Though they did extract a promise that I would return the next night, and I knew, eventually, that I would be asked to go to some store to look at something....and indeed I was asked just that, when I went back.
I started to have a feeling that first night, though, which I think was still in effect the next morning when I got suckered into paying the 1000 rupees to the priest at the fancy pants ghat. A feeling born of finding myself at the river Ganges among so many people who yearn for purification and blessing from the river, and others who just want to make a buck, and then, others who just want to reach out and connect with something or someone in the course of their simple, ordinary lives. It was a feeling born of discovering that sometimes a person could want or need all three at once. I mean, just because someone wants to make a buck, doesn't mean they don't also want to genuinely connect.
At one point, in the dark night, mesmerized by the candles flying in the priests' hands, the river black and bottomless and vast behind them, I caught sight of a strand of cobweb floating on an air current. It danced silently by me, past Munnar and his niece, and hung in the air for a few minutes at the knees of two holy men who were chatting on a step nearby.
Trying to figure out what matters, what to pray for, who to pray to, even trying to ascertain what is real, is like trying to catch that little cobweb floating on an air current in the dark. Sitting there I knew I didn't even want to try to catch the cobweb, it was magic enough to notice it. I just took a deep breath, and followed the wispy thread till it settled down on the ground between the two holy men. Even though I was sitting only a few feet away. I have no ideas if those guys saw the web, maybe yes, maybe no.
I'm having a long distance conversation with a friend back in the states about what matters. Does anything really matter? Does everything matter? Are there only a few essential things that matter, and everything else is inconsequential? Sometimes we branch out into, What is Reality? Do we make our own Reality? Is anything, essentially, solidly, Real? You know, small questions like that.
Being in Varanasi, even more than being anywhere else in India, makes a soul wonder. Varanasi brings the metaphysical out of the closet and puts it right in your lap and says, "You want to find out what really matters? What's real? Let's look at some family pictures."
"First of all. You are not alone. You are part of a large tribe. The Varanasi Tribe. Look at all the seekers, your brothers and sisters. They come in droves.
"Do you like that new airport? We just had it built, to make all the Westerners feel at home, and to make the Indians feel like wealth is here for the taking if you are willing to make the pilgrimage to Varanasi....
"Because, let's face it. Money matters. Indians have finally embraced this idea. Isn't that funny. Westerners come to India to find out what matters after money, behind money, other than money. They dress like Indians. Indians who've been able to see for millenium what was more important than money have finally decided Westerners are right. Now the Indians want the money. Now they are starting to dress like Westerners.
"Oh, we park the planes at the old airport and make everyone walk in the sweltering heat to the new air conditioned airport. It's a little joke we like to play. Getting the seekers to question the Journey itself. Some of them say...'Ah, I see what this is all about....it's about leaving the old behind and getting to the new all on your own steam....right...I get it'.
"Silly humans."
"Prayer. A lot of people think prayer is what matters. And God, of course. Any God. In Varanasi we like choice. It's like an American supermarket, only we are selling a million different kinds of God instead of a 100 different kinds of laundry detergent."
"Ooooh. And Devotion. Devotion matters. Reaching for the divine. If God(s) is so important then it's best to prove it with devotion."
"Giving thanks. Gratitude. Puja. Celebrating life. That's what this one's all about. Gratitude. Of course, ask each priest and spectator what they are thankful for, and you open a can of worms....big can of worms. There are as many different answers to that one as there are dead bodies in the Ganges.
"Ok. Wait. I tried to pull one over on you there. Sorry for that. I said this one was all about Gratitude. Celebrating Life. That's kind of not true. There's a puja down the river a bit that is about all those things. But this one. Well, this one just might be a little more about money. Making money. It's really more like a Puja Circus.
"But you didn't hear that from me."
"Oh, look. We are back to God. Prayer. Though that chick in back seems to have something else on her mind. She looks pretty happy. She might even be having fun..... I wonder what matters to her."
"Caste. Social Status. That matters. At least to these young Brahmins. Every morning they come down to the water to learn how to pray, cuz they are special, only they can pray the Brahmin way."
"Death. Really, when you think about it.....all that matters in life is that someday we are all gonna die. Right? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
"Of course, I don't like to brag, but it is most honorable to die here, with me, Varanasi. Everybody in India says so. So, I guess, really, I matter."
"Family? Well, ok. It could be family that matters. And sons. Having a son. That matters too."
"Cows. This is one of my personal favorites. Those humans let the cows shit everywhere. Then they walk in it. Seriously. But that brings us back, of course, to God. Shiva. The sacred divine.
"Boy, willing to walk in shit for God. God must really matter."
"Told you."
"Of course, to the monkeys, what matters is food. Come to think of it, there are lots of humans who think that the world begins and ends with a good meal...."
"Good personal hygiene. Clean clothes. Very important. But would it be getting too metaphysical on you to posit the question, How clean can those clothes be if they are washed in fetid water?
You are absolutely right...it wouldn't be too metaphysical...it would be, rather, deeply existential...if you think about it. But no need to bring you down. Existential pondering can lead to despair, grieving....no need to go there. Grief only matters a little."
"You know, a lot of people think a roof over your head is what matters."
"Looking Good. Could be that is what matters. Again, where did that man bathe? In the river. Best not to think about that."
"Then there is nature, the beauty of the moment. Soak it in sister. Lean back. Look at the sunrise over the Ganges. Could be that's what matters. Especially if you don't think about how disgusting everything is around you. And if you can forget about that little kid you just saw taking a dump on the sidewalk several feet to your left. Focus on the BEAUTY OF THE SUNRISE!"
"Peace of mind, OF COURSE. That's what matters. Emptying your mind of all the worries, the dirt, the death, the "all" of this crazy planet and it's absurd humanity. Empty your mind...."
"Ooohh we have a metaphysical hodgepodge here. We got your boatmen sleeping on the ghats. We got your yogi down there in the lower left. We've got a good Indian family selling tea for all the tourists and pilgrims, doing their service...that's surely what matters.
"Oh, oh, or it could be, once again, God. See all those wise men sitting up there looking out at the Ganges. Surely the wise men know what matters most."
"This poor guy just wants to make a buck. No clients. He over slept and now everyone who wants to go out on the water has left him to sit all by himself next to the warf. Him and the stray dog. If only he were a better worker and he'd woken up an hour earlier....He obviously doesn't know what matters. He doesn't know that money doesn't sleep. He hasn't met Kundar, Kundar knows that Varanasi runs on money. That's why Kundar isn't in this photo."
"Now this guy knows from work. This guy got up on time. He is hard at it. Work. Work is what matters. Right? He is washing those pillow cases. Next he will wash the sheets. Then those pillow cases, and the sheets you can't see, will be returned to the hotel where they came from. Then these pillow cases and sheets will be put on the beds of travelers who won't touch the Ganges because it is frighteningly dirty, but, and here's the funny part, they are all sleeping on sheets and pillow cases that were washed in that sacred, germ laden water."
"Of course. It could be peace that matters. Real peace. Peace for all of humanity. That's what this guy thought."
"Now it might just be that what matters is the very same thing that brings all the pilgrims to Varanasi.
"The source.
"Isn't that a great word: SOURCE. Especially when you are talking about The Ganges. About the mother of life.
"Life giving Ganges, who also holds death. Death and Life and Life and Death.
"It all comes back to the Source. Now we are talking metaphysically, about the beginning of it ALL. It's right here, folks...right here...Mother Ganges. Mother Earth. Life giving and Death receiving.
Varanasi is disgusting. The Ganges is equally repulsive. If you are even slightly germ-phobic, do not, I repeat, do not come to Varanasi.
I've seen a lot of cows in India. I think there may be as many cows in Varanasi as I have seen spread out over all of Kerala and West Bengal. And, they can go wherever they like.
They can also "go" wherever they like. Shit is everywhere. You know it's not like me to use the vulgar if I can find something else that is nicer, but equally effective. But in Varanasi, it can only and should only be called Shit, with a capital "S". Piles of it, gobs of it, settlements of dung, coat the streets which are narrow, too narrow for cars, and dangerously narrow for pedestrians trying to avoid stepping in shit, especially when motorbikes careen at their own speed (too fast) through the alleys.
Shit foot-print
Mother Ganga, the holiest of rivers, is, presumably, also filled with Shit. But that is the least of what it is filled with. There's your pedestrian trash and non-biodegradables, there's the snakes, there's the slimy film which might be soap or scum from all the bathers, or the laundry, or God knows what. There are also the bodies. Some you can see. There are the live ones, pilgrims doing puja or bringing their dead relatives, people taking their daily bath, Laundry-wallas doing the wash.
Bathers
Laundry Wallas
You can also catch a glimpse of several dead cows, huge and bloated, sailing slowly down river.
But there are also the bodies you can't see, the ashes of millions that have been left here for safe keeping over the centuries. And, I was told today, sunk in the bottom of the river are the bodies of those who cannot be burned: Particular Brahmins, lepers, small pox victims, and children under the age of ten.
Just as you shouldn't come to Varanasi if you are germ-phobic, you should not come to Varanasi if you are uneasy with death, with grieving, with in your face, no holds barred, "Life comes to an end and then something must happen to the empty body and the people left behind will be the ones to do it."
In Varanasi, bodies are brought to the river's edge night and day. These bodies have been washed by river water, blessed, wrapped, if they are men in white, if they are women in colors, maybe their wedding sari, and adorned with gifts left by grieving friends and family. The bodies are sandwiched between two bamboo stretchers, which are more like ladders, in that the bodies are by no means concealed. It is on these stretchers that the bodies are brought to small pyres. Wood is purchased, weighed in some proportion to the weight of the corpse. The heaviest lot of wood is stacked near the shoulders, if the deceased is a man, and under the hips, if it is a woman.
Only men may light the fire, a wife's husband, a mother's son, a husband's brother.....Women are considered apt to throw themselves on the fire out of despair if they are allowed too near. I was told once that some grown children whose deceased father married a much younger second wife might let the healthy young widow come near, in hopes that she will decide to do the honorable thing and relieve her step-children of the burden of keeping her in dal and rice for the next 50 years.
After the body is burned, the ashes are kept for a certain period with the family and then they are returned to the Ganges by the whole family who have each shaved their heads and or facial hair, depending on their faith.
These pilgrims mix with other Hindus and Muslims who have made a sacred journey, as well as, the thousands upon thousands of religious and cultural foreigners who flock here, well, for a myriad of different reasons.
My guide to Varanasi for the last two days was bequeathed to me by my hotel, Ganapati Guesthouse. I chose this place because Nicole called me up and said I would like it, plus, Ganapati is another name for Ganesha, so I thought it would be the perfect place to brave the high-octane energy of Varanasi.
Deep showed up with the driver at the airport. He shook my hand and said with a full heart of sincerity, "Welcome to Varanasi." Right off the bat, I knew Deep was, well, deep. Before we reached the car Deep had already noticed my rings and informed me that I was wearing my butter amber ring on the wrong hand and finger and that for full ayurvedic effect I should switch it immediately.
Deep's insights into my life and his homeland came so quick and steady that I couldn't and can't remember them all, even a fraction of them. A guy of about 30 who can neither read nor write, who is single, the caretaker to his recently deceased older brother's kids, Deep spent the hour in the car from the airport trying to make me laugh ("Your face looks so happy, but your heart is not".) When I did finally laugh at his proclamation that "mobile phones are for the lies," he looked at me, his heart full of sincerity and said, "Thank you for that."
Deep thinks that mobile phones are so popular in India because it allows everyone to lie from a safe distance, "Oh, yes I am just around the corner, I will be there in 5 minutes....They will not be there in five minutes. It will take an hour. You see, lies!"
I hired Deep to be my guide to the "old town" this morning after a two hour boat ride on the Ganges at dawn. I put "old town" in quotes because the city is over 2,000 years old, so when did they decide to draw the line between "Old" and "New", I wonder. Deep was patient with my incessant stopping to take photos, and he was able to ride the fine line between telling me interesting info about the city and being quiet so that I could absorb the energy all on my own without too much extra babble.
Deep is a devout Hindu. He comes from a family of believers. They do nothing without consulting their guru, who is the son of their old guru. If they buy a lamp, they must call the guru to find out where the lamp should be placed for best benefit for personal and economic health. According to Deep, in his religion his Guru is greater than his Mother and Father because the Guru teaches Deep how to release his negative traits, how to open his heart and to live in Peace. Deep's Mother and Father are greater than any God because they gave him life and make sure he is provided for on the planet. So, by my reckoning, the Gods comes pretty low on the totem pole in Deep's interpretation of Hindu doctrine.
You wouldn't know it here in Varanasi. There are, again according to Deep, 56 BILLION temples in this small city by the Ganges. Yes. Billions.
He tried to explain to me exactly how that could be, but I couldn't quite grasp it in a logical sense. However, walking around the one square mile of "Old Town" this morning, I was, admittedly, taken aback by the astounding number of temples. So many belong to Shiva, the patron God of Varanasi. But you also have your Hanuman temples, Durga, Krishna, and, my dear friend, Ganesha who besides getting some good playtime in various temples, also gets a shout out above almost every single door in town. Well, at least in "Old Town". Who knows what they do in the more modern hoods.
Besides the temples, there are priests EVERYWHERE. What's that saying about throwing stones...??? All along the water they sit under large umbrellas waiting to dole out blessings.
They'll also gladly exchange a photo of themselves for a few rupees. I've been tempted to ask for both a blessing and a photo because they do have some of the greatest faces I've ever seen. It's like their faces are painted with wisdom. In some, the eyes are what give them power and prestige. The eyes fairly dare a person to look back....they say, "Can you handle the truth? I've got the truth. Can you handle it?"
So far, the only truth I've sought, well not sought, but welcomed when it arrived, was Deep's. In the car ride into to town, before I'd seen anything of the Ganges, Deep said, "To you all (meaning us tourists) this place is magic. To us, it is just reality."
When I got here and Deep had gone, I walked out onto the balcony of Ganpati Guest House and got my first look at the Ganges and the life that swarms along her shore. I believe my exact thought bubble was, "HOLY FUCK". Again, sorry about the crassness.
But Varanasi is crass. It is rude. It is brutal. It is in your face. It is "reality." It is life and death and Shit with a capital "S". It is hiding nothing. If you look into it's eyes it is prepared to tell you the truth.
Out on the water this morning, I watched as a young widower laid his wife's body down on a funeral pyre. Her body was wrapped in the bright red sari she was wed in. He walked around her five times, then a priest brought some straw lit from the eternal fire which has been going, by Deep's account, over 3,000 years. He walked around her again, went to his wife's feet and lit the pyre. All around him, the city hummed with the visceral energy of the living. As the fire struggled to take hold, the husband stepped aside, sometimes he watched, but mostly he looked away. I saw him wipe a tear away. One moment of introspective, silent, grief in a very public ritual of death and letting go.
"We burn to learn," said Deep from his side of the boat. "This is reality."
But Varanasi is not just crass. "We are not monkeys," Deep would say. "We are not animals. We are the humans, we must make not just our bodies happy like the monkey, we must make our hearts and our spirits happy. We must make for the good Karma. We must do all this that we do when our family member dies so that they will be respected and so that their ghost will be free and not stay here to make our soul unhappy. We are not monkeys, we are humans. We must nurture the soul."
Here's where the magic comes in. What we westerners might, according to Deep, call magic, anyway, is the ever-present thrum of spirit and faith that feeds off of and refuels the mystery of the Ganges. There is no doubt here that life goes on after death, that the whole of this existence is just a chain in the events of countless existences. Everything about this place runs on that same fuel, that supposition, that fact, that Reality.
I'm sitting in an almost dingy hotel room in Siliguri, West Bengal. I awoke in time for the sunrise I might see if I were still in Darjeeling. The view from my room here is of an abandoned, trash saturated lot and a highway. I have no idea where the sun would be if I could see it. The rain that started in Darjeeling two days ago, lingers here. It is dreary. When I arrived last night I checked in, went to my room, ordered room service and watched Richie Rich on HBO. Sometimes you just have to check in and check out.
I'm hoping for good wifi in Varanasi. Ha. That's a funny thing to say. I'm going to one of the spiritual epi-centers of the world and I'm hoping for good wi-fi. That's funny because I've been noticing how my defense mechanisms are already kicking in even before I get to Varanasi. It's a place that makes non-woo-woo folks stand up and take notice of the aggressively energetic vibe. I bought a string of beads yesterday and stood for 15 minutes deciding which one held the best ju-ju. So, the woo-woo in me is more than a little nervous about encountering the ju-ju of Varanasi.
If I was a good spiritual pilgrim I might tell myself, "NO INTERNET IN VARANASI!" Force myself to just be with the experience, process it internally, let it rummage through my psyche without any back up. But, as I discussed in the last post, I am a sloppy spiritual pilgrim.
No. That's not true. Well, maybe it's true. But it's not entirely true. There's another reason I want good wi-fi, besides the ability it gives me to check out of intense experiences when they become overwhelming, and that relates to why I started to say, "I'm hoping for good wifi in Varanasi," in the first place.
This reason is summed up perfectly by this picture:
That's the quote that greeted me on the balcony of The Classic Guest House in Darjeeling. It made me laugh when I arrived there alone. But the main reason I laughed when I saw the quote and didn't get a little bummed out in a "oh, right, thanks for reminding me that I'm ALONE and that I have NO ONE to share this trip with," kind of way was because I have so many of you to share this trip with via the internet. And, it does, indeed, increase my joy.
Plus, I figure if all the monks I saw in Darjeeling can walk around with cell phones glued to their ears, I can have my electronic outlet and still be a spiritual pilgrim.
I started to write a very short post in which I was going to share with you these few pictures of young monks playing cricket in Darjeeling. You see, I don't have good enough internet to just upload ALL my pictures (maybe in Varanasi! See where I'm going with this?). But these few pictures bring me particularly great joy. And I wanted to share them, the pictures, and it, the joy.
