These past few days have been ones of enlightenment. You can see how
easily sensible people morph into hippie types in ali-baba trousers. If
it wasn't for the fact that ali-baba trousers look ridiculous on me I
might consider joining them.
I write this blog from Varanasi, the magical holy city of Hinduism and we arrived to a particularly enchanting day: the festival for (I think) Shiva. The banks of the Ganga were lined with candlelight, incense wafted along the banks, fireworks lit up the sky, and a few holy cows strutted through the general melee of the devout, the festive and the spectators.
So many people spoke to us, as always, so we had good feelings about this joyful culture.
The next day, however, was an eye-opener. We took a boat ride to see the Burning Ghat. You see the thing Varanasi is most famous for is being the place that people come to die. If you die here and your remains scattered in the sacred Ganga, you can escape the cycle of reincarnation and go straight to Nirvana.
A priest came aboard our boat to explain. He seemed very devout, kind, thoughtful. But part of what he told us made me quite angry. The caste system (which technically has been abolished but in reality...) Is an integral part of the belief system. Basically if you do well in this life, in the next you get to move up a caste. Within your life, no. If you are born an Untouchable, a beggar, a street sweeper, you will die the same. No genius or ambition or kindness on your part can change that. There is no escape except into the Ganga.
For such a beautiful faith it seems rotten at the core.
Now, I must say that this is changing. Probably it is mainly here in the holiest of places that clings to the old ways. In the rest of the country, the very poor remain the very poor because they don't know how to get out, or because as children they are made to beg on the streets to earn money instead of going to school.
Which brings me to Bodgaya. We made a short trip here, to the place where Buddha sat meditating under a Bodhi tree for many weeks and achieved enlightenment.
Another city of temples for another faith. This time instead of the whirl of colour and light we were greeted by the calm stone face of a 25 ft Buddha and a temple of still water and the sound of gongs. And also by a young Nepalise man called Mikku.
Mikku, who trained for two years as a child monk is in Bodgaya to teach and work at an Orphanage. Elizabeth Children's Home. After taking us around the city and explaining the monuments and telling us funny stories about monkeys, Mikku took us to visit the children at the home. We were introduced to all the 32 children in residence, each shook our hand and introduced themselves in English and then they sang a song for us, while the youngest, Matthew, sat on my knee. At less than a year he came in tiny and malnourished, and now here was a happily heavy baby.
The school is Christian founded (hence the Biblical names and halleluiahs) but mainly run by Buddists. As Mikku said, we are all the same anyway. And the same is now true for the children. Instead of being orphans on the street, and getting stuck in their caste and downtrodden position, they are learning Hindi, English, science, being cared for, smiling, and eventually getting a good reference for a good job.
I hate to sound cliche about it all, but it was humbling to see the good things that people like Mikku do in the world. And I hope by sharing this good work, I might get a little good karma too.
I write this blog from Varanasi, the magical holy city of Hinduism and we arrived to a particularly enchanting day: the festival for (I think) Shiva. The banks of the Ganga were lined with candlelight, incense wafted along the banks, fireworks lit up the sky, and a few holy cows strutted through the general melee of the devout, the festive and the spectators.
So many people spoke to us, as always, so we had good feelings about this joyful culture.
The next day, however, was an eye-opener. We took a boat ride to see the Burning Ghat. You see the thing Varanasi is most famous for is being the place that people come to die. If you die here and your remains scattered in the sacred Ganga, you can escape the cycle of reincarnation and go straight to Nirvana.
A priest came aboard our boat to explain. He seemed very devout, kind, thoughtful. But part of what he told us made me quite angry. The caste system (which technically has been abolished but in reality...) Is an integral part of the belief system. Basically if you do well in this life, in the next you get to move up a caste. Within your life, no. If you are born an Untouchable, a beggar, a street sweeper, you will die the same. No genius or ambition or kindness on your part can change that. There is no escape except into the Ganga.
For such a beautiful faith it seems rotten at the core.
Now, I must say that this is changing. Probably it is mainly here in the holiest of places that clings to the old ways. In the rest of the country, the very poor remain the very poor because they don't know how to get out, or because as children they are made to beg on the streets to earn money instead of going to school.
Which brings me to Bodgaya. We made a short trip here, to the place where Buddha sat meditating under a Bodhi tree for many weeks and achieved enlightenment.
Another city of temples for another faith. This time instead of the whirl of colour and light we were greeted by the calm stone face of a 25 ft Buddha and a temple of still water and the sound of gongs. And also by a young Nepalise man called Mikku.
Mikku, who trained for two years as a child monk is in Bodgaya to teach and work at an Orphanage. Elizabeth Children's Home. After taking us around the city and explaining the monuments and telling us funny stories about monkeys, Mikku took us to visit the children at the home. We were introduced to all the 32 children in residence, each shook our hand and introduced themselves in English and then they sang a song for us, while the youngest, Matthew, sat on my knee. At less than a year he came in tiny and malnourished, and now here was a happily heavy baby.
The school is Christian founded (hence the Biblical names and halleluiahs) but mainly run by Buddists. As Mikku said, we are all the same anyway. And the same is now true for the children. Instead of being orphans on the street, and getting stuck in their caste and downtrodden position, they are learning Hindi, English, science, being cared for, smiling, and eventually getting a good reference for a good job.
I hate to sound cliche about it all, but it was humbling to see the good things that people like Mikku do in the world. And I hope by sharing this good work, I might get a little good karma too.
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