Sometimes life weighs us down so much that it just seems like an endless struggle. As much as we might be aware about the essence of life and the importance of going through the process of life like a game in true sportsmanship spirit, we let ourselves engulfed by a cloud of ignorance, which becomes the ground for turmoil we experience from within. During such times, a travel is imperative that will burst the dense clouds of idiocy and nourishes us to flow through the rugged deciduous forest of life like a river, which will anyway find its trail leading to the blue ocean of salvation.

If there were a spiritual etymology for the word “Salvation”, it would read as “Varanasi”. Yes! Varanasi or Kashi or Benaras, one of the oldest acclaimed cities in Incredible India, that is a machine producing liberated souls out of the seeking mortals. It is said to be built with perfect geometry that is conducive for spiritual emancipation and it is very hard for a traveler to escape its grace.

Some practicalities before liberation!

Getting here:

• By Air:  Varanasi is well connected by air – Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport.
• By Train: Varanasi Junction Railway Junction.
• By Road: 5 Hr 30 mins drive from the Capital of Uttar Pradesh State.

Recommended Stay: Hotel Tridev Varanasi [K 44/34 Bhaironath,Visheshwarganj, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 221001]

Highly recommend giving this place at the least 3 days for the experience that will transform one forever in a way that will allow coming closest to experiencing the quintessence of life.

The Journey within

Visit the listed places but not limit yourself to just these and even though one is physically visiting these places, the journey is more happening from within transcending the physical dimension.

The Seeking?

The sights above on the streets of Varanasi offer some food for thought on the thriving gravity in Varanasi that pulls people from across the world seeking answers and salvation here.

Dogs surrendering to the basic instincts, metaphoric to sensual pleasures and attractions that humans give into and An aged barber grooming an old man, metaphoric to the sophistication that merely is paraphernalia that people may have built around the kernel of life  which has turned the human species barbaric leading to the level of exploitation humans have inflicted on planet earth in order to fulfill their material greed. Both these unwitting indulgences has driven mankind into a “dark room that is locked” and keys seem to have been lost that could get them out of the dwindling ways of life. People come here searching for the keys to their caged life that could lead them to wisdom of light and liberation.

Kala Bhairav Temple

 

Kala Bhairav is vanquisher of foes and the significance here is that through his grace, the seekers would emerge victorious of the colossal impediments or foes to their spiritual progression viz the forces that defeat humans into surrendering to sensual pleasures and inexhaustible material indulgence.

Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Manikarnika Ghat

One of the popular death wish in the sub-continent of India is for a funeral in Varanasi. It is believed that the bereaved souls will find salvation from a funeral here and hence the sights of funeral is not uncommon to the city. There are 88 ghats(where funeral is held) in the city and the sights of funeral is something a seeker would not miss from any corner of the city.

When one walks into Manikarnika ghat, it is like a drill where dead bodies are brought like logs and firewood to burn. The men here are at WORK executing the funeral drill and they feel nothing for the flesh and blood. It is as if people stood in queue to be shredded from the weight that their life had carried all along. When one walks amongst the burning bodies is it reflexive to experience the shroud of ignorance unveil and what remains within is pure essence that cannot be put to words but can only be experienced.

“Walking amongst burning corpses, I could feel the funeral to all my life struggles, impediments, destructive emotions and weight of mindless indulgences I had carried all along. Walking out of funeral pyre, I was pure life that had forgotten to form opinions, judge, analyse, praise or emote. I breezed through the burning flesh and logs merging eventually into the flow of Ganges and never felt so light. That was it! LIFE that I came to know through coming closest to DEATH! ” : The gist of experience that one will hear from every Seeker who comes here Seeking Salvation.

Boat ride on Ganges

A boat ride during sunset on Ganges is not to be missed for impeccable sights of the divine city. It takes one along the countless temples and ghats on the banks of River Ganga in Varanasi.

Ganga Aarti

Ganga aarti is a mesmerizing experience one must not miss here. It starts at 7pm and the best way to witness this aarti is to go for sunset boat ride over Ganges and return on time, experiencing the aarti from the boat that would be docked right across where Ganga Aarti is performed.

Ganga Aarti is best described as “Yoga” or Union one experiences here during aarti. The flow of Ganges, the flames of Aarti, the sounds of conch shell and bells, the sky on top of our head, the earth beneath our feet, the aura in the devotion and the SELF had all come into a beautiful union. Tears of joy flow!

Ganga Bath

It is imperative that one who visits Varanasi must take a bath in Ganga. The significance is an unfaltering belief that she will wash away the weight of all sins and purify the seeker. Even though humans have only exploited and destroyed her, she continues to show her compassion and still continues to wash away the blasphemies of the one who takes a dip in Ganga with this trust.

Such is the heritage of this land where one’s action is not determined as a reciprocal of another’s man action towards us but our actions are a reflection of our highest virtues. It’s not selflessness but it’s the exhibition of self that makes this land so virtuous. It’s not the Ganga water but the spirit of who Ganga is, is something every pilgrim should carry forward.

Every dip a seeker takes in Ganga,  she shall flow through as Gnana(wisdom), Bhakti(humility and awareness of source of creation) and Vairagya(devoid of entanglements), blessing the one with the wisdom to enliven her spirit where ever life takes the seeker from here on.

Sankat Mochan Hanuman Mandir

There are travelers of every kind we come across and the one that evoke sympathy are those who endlessly engage nagging about unavailability of their home conditions in places they travel to or those who are busy nagging about the apathetic conditions of the city of Varanasi like the pollution, crowd, dirt and muck all around and so on. It is best to avoid travel if one goes to Varanasi seeking their home conditions as seeking comfort and luxury here, it is so easy to miss out the highest spiritual wisdom Kashi could offer.

Most of “Sankat”(struggles) we inflict on ourselves are all self created to destroy the ethos of life. So a visit to Sankat Mochan Hanuman Mandir is a must. Hanuman, the epitome of strength, courage, humility and celibacy is an inspiration and his grace would lift the seeker from the entrapment of struggles of survival progressing the seeker to living the luminescence of life.

Durga Temple

Durga, the epitome and manifestation of femininity. We see the world torn between oppression women are subjected to on one end and on the other end, the war the pseudo-feminists have declared proving, not sure to whom, that any act a man can do, they can do too, oblivious of the fact that this war is more detrimental to femininity in this world. Oppressing women or in race to prove women’s equality to men by shouting slogans “if a man can do, I can do too” , we are killing what femininity represents and need to preserve its beauty for balance in the world.

The true feminist movement if any, is about nurturing femininity, bringing awareness to its beauty, highlighting the importance to the balance it offers to life and harvesting a appreciation for what femininity is. Fighting a war to prove feminine can do what a masculine can do is converting all feminine force into masculine further leading to imbalance and it is self detrimental to the purpose of feminist movements around the world. It is key to appreciate the feminine because feminine is not same as women, it is a characteristic. Men and women both have masculine and feminine characteristic in them and the movement is to bring appreciation and awareness to the importance of femininity in the world so that it seeks expression whether in men or women.

Durga is worshiped for who she is, the manifestation of everything that femininity represents. It is worth meditating here on our approach and work we have in nurturing femininity in this world!

Manas Mandir

Manas Mandir is more of a museum where the entire Ramayana is depicted pictorially and in text carved on the walls. Ramayana has been a sacred text of the land which is a inspiration and guidance to art of living for exhibiting highest virtues and not letting life’s circumstances defeat us. The key message one takes here is that: “We cannot control what life throws on us but keeping the well-being within us despite the external circumstances is a virtue of exercising free will”  . It is that quality exhibited by Lord Rama that makes him worth worshiping and receiving his grace can be a blessing of highest order.

The Sadhu

The gravity of Varanasi is witnessed in its mind boggling stories about how people come here and never go back. The rich, affluent who swam in the pool of luxuries visit Varanasi and never go back, renouncing everything they had choosing a life of self control and abstinence from the material entanglements. These ascetics are usually referred to as “Sadhu” and an extremely fearless form of this ascetic is referred to as “Aghori”

Aghoris are those who have forgotten what it means to fear. They have no shelter, food or clothing and usually live on river side or in ghats, smeared in human ashes, bathing in Ganges and surviving off left overs and sometimes even human flesh. They are seen beholding human skull beside them that will keep the awareness of life’s mortality alive in them. For them this material world and all its indulgences are an illusion one has to wake up from, which they have achieved by transcending the fear of death and material entrapment.

For such life transforming experiences and tales here may be  the reason Mark Twain said: “Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together”.

What propels one to choose a life of Sadhu and how these tales give context to the life of a seeker visiting Varanasi is a rendezvous that probably cannot be chronicled but only experienced.  

The Colors of the City

 

Salvation?

Salvation is for the one who seeks. What you are seeking is also seeking you!