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What struck me most in Varanasi was the amount of time, effort, and money expended in the run-up to the festival and during it. People had come from afar to attend; many having travelled uncomfortably for days (India is not small); along bumpy roads, in stuffy buses, on crowded trains and aeroplanes. And these were the lucky ones! What about those faithful thousands who hitchhiked? Or wheedled lifts? Or walked! And one must not forget the Government Ministers! With their white Ministerial cars (with the blue flashing light on top) and their police escorts and hangers on – all bearing alms for the sacred River.
And getting to Varanasi was just the beginning. Once here there was much to do: thousands of oil lamps had to be lit, fresh garlands prepared, flowers dressed, scents mixed, ointments rubbed in, coloured spices ground, rituals in-acted, food cooked, new clothes, make-up, and then the complicated business of the ceremonies themselves: dips in the river, the puja, the prayers, and the giving of alms to the River, the priests and the untouchables. All religious festivals, I believe, regardless of whether they are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, create the same feelings in people. The same feeling I used to get as a child on Eid days (and still do get) : a feeling of it being a holy, auspicious and important day.
That Christmasy feeling - Eid feeling - is something we have all felt. It’s a nice feeling. It infects the young from the old. It carries on the breeze and swoops with the kites. I saw a little girl who, with the help of her mother, dipped her hands in the sacred Ganges and scooped up some water and sprinkled it reverently about her face. She was about 4 years old. But the dignity and seriousness with which she carried out this act was charming. As a child you are at your most impressionable. The feelings that religious festivals create are seeded in us when we are children. The sacredness of places – Mosques, Temples, Churches; the forbiddings of certain foods – beef or pork, all these things and many more, the emotional element associated with them are seeded when we are children. But as children we just follow our parents; that is usual, for our parents are our protectors and are always ‘right’. That emotional attachment to religion and ceremony seeded from younger days never really leaves us. It is so powerful, so entrenched, that many years later, when we are grown up and equipped with the faculties of reason, we still maintain an emotional attachment to those beliefs of childhood. If a child has been taught that pork is forbidden, then later on, when it is grown it will still have an emotional abhorrence to eating pork even if reason tells it otherwise. Similarly, a young adult will still consider the river Ganges as sacred and coming from heaven even though in geology lessons it is taught that it is just another river that flows from the mountains to the sea.
So what is my point?
We live in a world of science and technology: of mobile phones, the Internet and jet travel. Yet, nobody believes that there is anything sacred or magical in these things. Nobody believes that mobile phones or aeroplanes have a djinn or spirit in them. Everybody knows that man has created these devices using microchips and microphones and micro processors and that they were assembled in factory lines and that there is nothing 'magical' going on inside them. Yet, to a man living 400 years a go, a mobile phone would certainly appear to embody some sort of spirit or deity. It may even be seen as sacred and god like! This reminds me of a quote by Arthur C Clarke: to a primitive civilization any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
So why is it that in today’s world of technology, mankind still considers it appropriate to pay homage to a river? for that is what the Ganges actually is. A river. Imagine if droves of people were to flock in pilgrimage to the Thames in London to pay homage to it; wouldn’t that seem odd? It would wouldn’t it? So why doesn’t it seem odd when people do it in the Ganges? After all it is a river just like the Thames?
Because of the following:
1) Paying homage to the Ganges is something that is seeped into us from childhood. As mentioned earlier, things we learn in childhood become embedded in us emotionally, so that as adults we continue to follow them regardless of our faculties of reason. We 'know' it is a river, but somehow it is hard to shake off that childhood indoctrination
2) People have been paying visits to the Ganges for hundreds and thousands of years. There is a long history of worship. A history passed down generations; laid down in sacred texts, in oral traditions, in folklore. Who are you to questions all this? Surely all these people in the past and present can’t be wrong?
Er, yes they can!
If there is anything that history has taught us it is that the majority are often wrong. Just because people have always believed in something. Just because hundreds and thousands of people flock to a river to cleanse their sins in it, doesn't make it anymore truer!
Ultimately, I am fascinated by religion and its associated festivals. I am intrigued by the amount of effort that goes into appeasing Gods and giving alms to rivers to bring good luck. Surely bringing good luck to you must mean somebody else must suffer bad luck in return? That's not ethical! I am astonished that religions still draw the crowds they do. That Darwin and our technological revolution have not drowned out its chants. A world that Carl Sagan called : our demon haunted world is still very much a part of us. For it is still haunted by demons, by witches, djinns, the occult, sadhus that have (purportedly) lived hundreds of years on water alone, good luck charms, and the biggest con-trick of all: prayer.
But I don't want to go around telling people the error of their ways (not that it would make a difference anyway! Nor do I feel a desire to). But as I was strolling along the Ghats of Varanasi, watching the smiles and the playings of children, my heart felt as it does on Eid - a feeling I know well. A feeling that was seeded in me when I was a child. A feeling that says: I know what a sacred day feels like. And I could see that same feeling glowing on the faces of the people and children that day. I felt that I too could hold that feeling in my heart and sit with the people knowing exactly what they were feeling. But it is at that point that the connection ends. The feeling is there but ultimately, through some process in my past, that is all there is - a feeling. You see I can’t go any further then the feeling.
To me ultimately the Ganges is a river. Just like any other. And I see people praying to a river; in the same manner people used to pray to the sun the moon and the stars. This detachment, this aloofness or arrogance (call it what you will) has allowed me to raise my consciousness to a level above. I know ‘why’ they pray to the Ganges and ‘why’ they expend so much effort, but at the same time the bitter-sweet irony is that I can also see the futility of their actions and the ultimate pointlessness of it all! What eyes I have with which to view the world! - empathy and detachment in equal measure!
And many times I think that though it is all pointless, it does give their lives a meaning and a happiness. A happiness that is genuine and I would rather they continued with there silly little rituals and strange wondrous beliefs about sacred rivers and all!
I too am in awe, but not with Gods and Goblins. They are small fry! What gets my heart beating is the feeling I get when I try to contemplate the sweeping brush of human history - from our origins in Africa to the present - from our little blue green planet to the infinite majesty of the heavens. There is plenty of awe and wonder in the world without having to invent things like Gods and djinns and sacred rivers!
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