Spiritually Enlightened or Completely Devastated?

Day 3 -4 - Trip to Varanasi

We has a few days before the rest of the team joined us and before our programs officially started so we took a trip to Varanasi to see a different part of India to better understand the scope of the culture and poverty.  I have to admit this trip was a once in a life time experience; meaning I will only do it once!

Upon arrival we were met by a driver who brought us to our hotel.  The ride into the city took about 20 minutes.  The sides of the road were bursting with different intensities of poverty. This was sure a different look and feel from Delhi. We checked into our hotel , the Raddison, which was a 5 star hotel; on line it looked amazing!  In person it was still impressive, however the swimming pool that we were very excited to use was not so inviting. After lunch we got our bags packed and started the unforgettable tour of Varanasi.

Varanasi is one of the holiest cities and targets of pilgrimage for Hindus. As the place where Siddhārtha Gautama gave his first sermon to his disciples, Varanasi is the city where Buddhism was founded.   First stop was the Mulagandha Kuty Vihara (the Buddist Temple). The temple was very interesting; from beautiful murals on the wall, to an active prayer going on, to monks walking and chanting to the point in which Buddah reached his final enlightenment. Then we went to Ruins of Chaukhambha Mosque and museum.

Later that afternoon we went to witness the lighting of the candles on the holy river GangaG.   The overall experience looking back was interesting…during the experience I (personally) was over stimulated!  This experience consisted of us getting dropped off about 2km from the river where we started to walk down the narrow broken streets of old Varanasi along with devoted Hindus, the poor and the sick, tourists and cows.  As we would experience the next day, this part of Varanasi was decrepit and full of many faces of poverty and pain.

The smell walking to the ceremony consisted of a mixture of incense and flowers with a contrasting feces and sweat. Closer to the river we got the more crowded and condescend it was.  We were stuck in the middle of chaos surrounding us with loud music and chanting, people yelling and celebrating, bells and chimes ringing, temperatures rising from all the body heat.  A “priest” approached us and gave all of us (even Wolfgang) a ceremonial red dot on our foreheads and then put his tip jar up…haha!  We proceeded down to the boats where we got on one for front row seating. The ceremony was interesting with 6 men on platforms chanting, light lamps and tossing them  circles, massive incense burning, chanting/singing, chiming…craziness!  It last about an hour.  Once it finished there were people scrabbling everywhere and we were at the bottom of it all. 

The next morning we woke up at 4am so that we could witness the morning rituals of the holy river GangaG. And we stopped 2km from the river and walked in.  We ran into a group of devotees walking down the same narrow and dark street we walked last night, chanting and ringing a bell to start the awakening of the day. Apparently we went on the back side tour of the city and weaved in and out of the shadowy and melancholy streets of Varanasi.  I would classify this a slum, it may not be in its essence, but the exterior look would lead me to believe it had the same problems within. Once we hit the river we got on a little motor boat and headed up the river for a panoramic view of this characteristic city. It was a sight of contradictions. We then turned off the motor in the boat and drifted down stream to the cremation grounds. In India, the dead body of a person belonging to the majority Hindu community is almost always cremated by fire except in the case of small babies or holy men, who are thrown in the river. And a large number of dead bodies are brought to Varanasi every day from far off places to be cremated at the ghats here. This tradition is guided by the belief that those are cremated at Varanasi will be liberated from the endless cycle of birth and death.

WOW…is all I can say about this.

If this wasn`t enough to see on an empty stomach and no coffee that early in the morning, we walked through the even more narrower  and even more decaying streets filled with ashes, feces, smells, cripples, smoke, doom and gloom to find the golden temple (which I found out later is just  replica…I was probably told that day too but I was concentrating on where I was walking). I found myself way out of my comfort zone and doing something that I could never imagine possible…after seeing what goes on in these streets, I walked BARE FOOT to see the temple.  With great despair, after 5 minutes of standing in the moist streets waiting to get into the temple grounds, we all cradled and ran back to our sandals!  We did go back in line with our sandals on and caught an unsatisfying glimpse of the temple.

Life as I know it has changed...and all because of some sweet beautiful soul that has connected with mine. I am so blessed and thankful for my baby boy and the life that I can provide him. The sights, smells and emotions of poverty, even though I have seen a lot of it in different countries, are hitting me very hard this time in India! While walking back to the car I saw a mother and her dying baby in her arms begging for food.  I was unable to control my emotions and broke down in tears.  I could not imagine seeing my child suffer in this way.

Varanasi is known for its silk weaving  so on our way to the airport we stopped at a silk weaving operation. It was interesting to see how silk weaved products are made and gave me a new outlook and appreciation for the work that goes into making such products.  So was is sprirtually enlightening or completely devastating...for me it was a mixture of both.