Off The Beaten Path

After Dark - 4. All Hallow's Eve'

Centuries ago, the ancient Celts divided the year into two phases, the "lighter" half, and the "darker" half. The lighter half was the time of summer, when sowing and harvesting would take place. The darker half was the time when the days would become short, the nights long, when the cold wind would howl and bring terrors from the nether world. This was the time, before which, a family would hoard food, and spend as much time indoors. The darker half was hostile, and inimical to life.

Centuries ago, the ancient Celts also believed that at the time of the changing of the seasons, when the light would give way to the dark, the gap between the two worlds would narrow, and that the spirits of the other world could slip through, and enter our world.

This was their new year, and they called the festival Samhain, which loosely means summer's end. This was the time when, like many other cultures around the world,  they would celebrate a festival to honour the dead. Benevolent spirits would be welcomed. Malevolent spirits would be shunned, and to do this, they probably wore masks, and devil's costumes, and such like.

While they were difficult times, they were also a time of wonder, when the spirits of nature and of the land, were revered. This was still a time when man still considered himself to be a part of nature.

Head hunting was common those days, and possibly "heads" made from turnip were carved and put on doors and gateposts to frighten malevolent spirits away.

Gradually, as the Church gained in ascendancy, it absorbed this and other pagan religions. Samhain was transformed into All Saint's Day, and All Hallow's Evening, or Halloween.

Somewhere, somehow, possibly through Irish immigrants, Halloween reached American shores. The turnip became the pumpkin, and the Festival of the Dead became the Festival of Tricks and Treats!!

The wonder of the ancient Celts has become transformed into something altogether different. Religions of the past have become new traditions, and the roots of the past have been forgotten. Evolution works in strange ways.

After Dark - 3. Fire On The Ground

Diwali, the Festival of Lights is great fun, if you are in Delhi, or anywhere in North India. It is not so much fun if you are in Mumbai, or Bombay, as it used to be called.

This was our first Diwali, on returning to India after 7 years. One advantage of celebrating Diwali in places like Shanghai is that, since the Indian community is so small, everyone gets together and has a good time. In India, the whole custom of going out to wish everyone, and give them gifts has become an elaborate affair. The gifts, and the associated packaging, has become more and more expensive. Either you do it, in which case your bank balance is damned. Or, you don't, in which case your reputation is damned!

Earlier, we'd write cards to people, seal them, stamp them, and post them. Now, with technology becoming more and more ubiquitous, we send text messages. The element of personalisation has slowly disappeared, and we are all truly becoming bricks in the wall. Never did Roger Waters write a truer song.

The above shot, incidentally, was taken in our backyard. And, converted to black & white. I like the slightly ghostly effect. The essence is what matters.

Diwali is sacred to the Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. For the Jains, it marks the attainment of Moksha for Mahavir, in 527 BC. For the Sikhs, it marks the release of the 6th Guru, Guru Har Gobind Ji, from imprisonment at Gwalior, and his return to the Gurudwara Harmandir Sahib. And, for the Hindus, it marks the return of Ram, after 14 years of exile. For the South Indians, it marks the victory of Krishna over Naraksura.

Diwali is celebrated over a period of 5 days, from the 12th day of the lunar month. In India, the lunar month, is more important in many ways, than the solar month. It is also a much more accurate predictor of seasons.

Either way,what Diwali is  really about, is the rediscovery of the Inner Light, or Atman. Or, the ultimate reality, the Brahman.

We celebrate the Atman by lighting up our homes, and by bursting crackers, to chase the inner darkness away.

It is odd, therefore, that we do so with rituals and gifts that grow in grandeur and pomp with each passing year. This is why the ancient Hindus believed that we are now living in KaliYug, or the Dark Age.

The Temple Of Poseidon

The Temple of Poseidon was our last stop in Greece. I left for China after this, and so did my companions. One of them went on to his death, and the rest of us went our own separate ways.

The Temple, which is located at Sounion, is fantastic. It would have been an absolutely magnificent sight in it's heyday in the 5th century BC. Looking over the sea, it really seems poised to worship the Lord of the Seas & the Oceans.

Walking around the temple, you can feel the spirit of the sea in you, and I think that this is what the temple is designed to do. I am agnostic, but the spirit of God, in my opinion, lies in the forces of nature. Rituals, I believe reading somewhere, were originally designed to help a person enter the right frame of mind to receive the spirit of nature. Somewhere along the way, rituals became ends in themselves, and religion has become ossified and completely lacking in anything you may want to call, The Divine Spirit. 

A half day tour from Athens is the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion. And, I must say, an excellent place to sit and watch the sun rise, or the sun set. Doing so can only do good for a person's soul.

Sunrise On The Ganges. Varanasi

I got on the boat at about 5:30 am, I think, and waited for the sun to come up. It was pitch dark when we reached the Ghats in Varanasi. 

And soon, the sun did rise. Glorious orange. A really beautiful orange. The kind of orange that only the Divine Force can make. 

Call that Divine Force God if you will. But, this is where God is. In the beautiful oranges colours of nature. In people's faces, their hands. In animals, and plants. It's when we try and tie the concept of God down to scriptures and God's Law, that we lose sight of the true nature of God. 

In the song, "Morning Has Broken", the one made famous by Cat Stevens, is a line describing a morning as "God's recreation of the new day".

Glory be to the orange colour that I saw that morning while on the boat in Varanasi. Early one morning, many years ago.

Orange

The colours of Nature are pristine and beautiful. There is a glory in an orange sunset, which never becomes dull. Even though you can see a sunset everyday, it is different every day. The combinations and permutations seem to be infinite. The colours, different shades of orange and red, vary everyday. The clouds move and change shape every day.

To me, this is an expression of God. If there be God, this is it, this is it, this is it.

Beyond Time

I've always been fascinated by the mythology of Shiva, the third God of the Indian trinity. Typically, and simplistically, he is often represented as the God of Destruction. This is, by far, too simple an interpretation of Shiva, and only when you start to study the mythology around Shiva, do you begin to realize the complexity of the deity. And, the utter beauty of the philosophy.

Specifically, I took this shot of the Nataraja Statue at the Madurai Temple museum, sometime way back in 1986, when I had gone on a weekend trip with my classmates.

We had gone to Kodaikanal, and stopped by at Madurai on the way back. I won't spend any time in this entry on Madurai temple bashing. I think I will have enough time for that at a later point in time.

Back to the statue of Shiva as Nataraj, or the  Lord of Dance. I don't particularly want to  get into a detailed description of the statue or the history, because  information on this is easily available on Wikipedia, or other sources. A small description may be sufficient. 

The beauty of the statue lies in the design, the symbolism of each part, the perfect balance, and the harmony and grace that lies within the statue. The damru in the upper right hand, symbolising the sound of creation, the fire of destruction in the upper left hand, the symbol of benediction in the second right hand, and the symbol of enlightenment in the second left are all perfectly balanced. He dances on the demon of ignorance, thus banishing ignorance from the world. The snakes around him symbolise shakti. The circle of fire in which he dances is the manifest universe, and the matted hair flying around knock the celestial bodies off their course.

In this chaos of destruction and regeneration, there is perfect balance, which for me is represented in the perfect poise and balance in the statue.

But, the beauty of the statue lies in the serenity on his face. There he stands, doing the Tandav Nritya ( the dance of creation and recreation of the universe ) or, the Anandatandava ( the dance of bliss ), and throughout it all, he retains his serenity. The dance has energy, yet he is immersed in the dance, and is beyond the dance.

In the dance he creates, destroys, re-creates the world. He controls the cycle of time, and yet remains beyond it.

This, this beautiful harmony, the beautiful serenity of his expression holds the key to the statue. The old sages who conceived this had to have had a glimpse of divine, mystical insight, thoroughly untainted by the rituals and corruption of modern religion.

Which is why, Shiva is called Nataraj (or, the Lord of the Dance ), and also Mahakaal (Mahakala) or, he who is beyond time.

For the rest of us, the moving finger writ, and having writ, moves on.....

Beautiful Colours

What is a world without colour? What is a photograph without colour?

Black and white photography also does use colour. Two, three colours and many, many shades in between.

A world without colour is something that, for me, is very hard to imagine. What is the world of a person born blind? And, what is the world of a person who becomes blind?  These are things that we do take for granted. Honestly, I don't even want to imagine. For me, I am pretty happy that I do have the gift of sight, and that I can appreciate light, colour, form and shade.

I took this picture when I was in Qinghai province in Western China. That was one cold and blustery day in Qinghai province. Qinghai is stuningly beautiful. It's high up. The lake itself is 3,000 metres above sea level. The day I went, it was a cold, windy day in July. The temperature during the day was 8 degrees centigrade, and there was a cold wind blowing across the landscape. Sadly, my hard disk crashed, and I lost all but a few pictures. All my pictures over a two year period are gone. Forever, I think.

On the way, I passed this little hill, with these strips of cloth tied to, what I think, is a kind of prayer pole.I can only imagine that the colours would have been even brighter if I had bright sunshine that day. I believe that these flags are a relic of old Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Pagan religion is alive and well in China, which is good. I don't believe that you can stamp religion out of people. They either give it up on their own accord, or they stay with it.

Stamping out religion, and leaving behind nothing, not even ethical value systems, leads to empty materialism and anarchy. I think that this can be dangerous for society in the longer term.

Me, the Agnostic

I don't remember if I started life as a believer or, as a non-believer. What I do remember are a few things. One, I could never sit patiently through a religious ceremony. And, why the music of God seemed so unearthly dull, pompous and, totally without life.

I also remember school. I was in a Catholic missionary school, and the Catholics in our school always seemed to be singled out for special - better - treatment.

These are some early impressions, but I did not think too deeply about them. Somewhere along the way, in my teens I became simultaneously atheistic, and deeply drawn to the mystical side of life. This was driven by reading a lot of books on the occult, and the entire series of books by Carlos Castaneda. I do know that many people have tried to debunk Castaneda. There will always be those of the establishment, who will try to debunk anything out of the ordinary. For my part, I could'nt give a toss about whether or not Castaneda actually experienced what he claimed to have experienced in his books. What was important for me was that there was, and is, enough ancient wisdom in the books to awaken something deep within me.

I have always, since then, been drawn to the world of wild landscapes. These places, like Inner Mongolia, for instance, open up my soul.

Somewhere in my thirties, which were in some ways, a decade in the wasteland, I went deep into religion and astrology. That's when i became deeply interested in religion, as I do believe that it is one of the major driving forces of mankind. Essentially, it is, in my view, an attempt to put order to the unknown. And, to bring some degree of certainty into it. I do like to read mythology, and religious texts.

And, in the recent times, I did read Richard Dawkins' book, "The God Delusion", which is a bloody intelligent book. I don't quite buy the idea of atheism. I think that I am still bound by my early training and coaching. But, I do buy his idea that much of religion is a complete sham. It's about money and greed and power, and not so much about trying to make people good.

To me, the concept of God is unknowable. To me, "God" resides in the universe, in the creation and beauty of the universe. In the small and big things. And therefore, I take the position of being an agnostic. This is not a middle path. It is a choice.

Agnosticism drives choices of how you choose to behave. And, I will return to this theme again.