REFLECTIONS ON A TWO MONTHS TRIP THROUGH INDIA

 

Jordi Rodríguez-Amat

 

 

Copyright: 2005 Jordi Rodríguez-Amat

 

On January 1, 2005, I arrived in India via London out of curiosity to know a country whose essence I knew but not my conscience. As soon as I got there, I was able to see the existence, known yet not lived, of a completely different civilization from the Western one. The physiognomy of the people - dark skin, black hair, curious deep eyes -, the bustle of the street - people moving from here to there, from there to here -, the buses, the rickshaws, so many of them and so many other characteristic features of this country, all of which suddenly presented itself to me. There was everything I had foreseen, now offered to my eyes; India, the real thing, not plasticine, postcards and documentaries. After suffering the first attacks produced by the distinctive features of the country itself and stoically resisting the sudden and unexpected sensitive impressions, It did not take me long to realise that I could easily fall in love with this country.

 

The images and non-experiential knowledge that can be acquired, in this particular case of a country, do not allow us to cover the sensitive knowledge that is achieved through the vibrations generated directly by personal experiences. This sensitive and non-cognitive knowledge is acquired, or not, according to personal interests, and, above all, according to the predispositions of each individual before confronting the reality that generates it. During the two months I spent there, and later, I tried to analyze the reasons why that country was held in such great esteem by me and, at the same time, with such strong sensitive vibrations.

 

India is a country of the poor, the needy, the beggars, but India is also a country of love and spirituality. A country in which tolerance, respect and consideration for the newcomer allows the spirit of anyone capable of consenting to the traits that characterize it to expand. Still, far from the Western world, although approaching it, India is a country that maintains the secular tradition of its human history. It is a country where the genesis of spirituality and philosophical thought began many centuries before the Christian era. The existence of their gods, not boxed and rigid, breathed over the centuries, as well as the depth of their thinkers, make India one of the countries with the longest spiritual and human tradition.

 

Suggestion always becomes a determining element of our predisposition to accept the facts and things that, unexpectedly or expectedly, emerge before us. It is a crucial stimulus when deciding to love or reject. I must confess that my predisposition was absolute and this allowed me to love a country that for many other visitors is wild and depressing. In India, men and women, young and old, radiate humanity for the uninitiated and believe me, there are many uninitiated. It is true that, living in a Western, opulent and rich world, then suddenly landing in India presents a country of absolute contrasts. Passing in a few meters, consequently in a relatively short physical time, from the most beautiful monuments created by human beings to absolute misery in which it is difficult to survive, has a strong impact that can easily predispose to rejection.

 

Today a few weeks after I returned from India, let me confess that I am in love with it. I know that love can be fluctuating, appearing and disappearing. However, there are some that keep your breath alive and long-lasting. And with frankness and friendship, allow me to give you some advice; if you go to India, bargain and pray, and if you are poor, beg. May prayer not embarrass you. Get rid of all the materialism that the Western world has been able to shape you with. Give up any prejudice that submits you to material interests and release your soul, elevating it to the spheres of the highest spirituality.

 

And if you feel unable to pray, believe me, do not go to India. If you don't want to strip yourself of the dye that the West has dyed you with, believe me, don't go to India. If you don't feel able to smile, don't go to India. And most importantly, if you don’t want spirituality to sway your spirit, believe me, don’t go to India.

 

 

SACRED CITIES

 

The spiritual echoes of people have almost always been translated into sacred spaces throughout history, and there are many in India. Natural elements become places of worship and veneration here: mountains, trees, rivers, and even sacred cities. Along with Varanasi, Puri, Somnath Ujjain and many others, Pushkar is one of them. The waters of its lake allow the ablution of thousands of pilgrims who, year after year, approach it for the purification of their souls. It is there that Brahma, having created God and the Universe, anchored himself around the sacred lake to become eternal. India is an eminently vegetarian country, but in Pushkar the ban on eating meat is absolute. The ban is not limited to meat, but extends to alcohol and any narcotics, drugs and tobacco. On a large poster openly aimed at tourists, I was able to read, in addition to some tips, some of the prohibitions that are required of in this sacred city. The poster, written in English, among other prohibitions and recommendations, read: Drugs, alcohol and non-vegetarian food are strictly prohibited. Photography of bathing pilgrims in holy lake is strictly prohibited. Footwear has to be removed 30 feet (ca. 9 meters) away from bathing ghats of the holy lake. Embracing in public is prohibited and dressing respectfully is obligatory. I must say that apart from a few disrespectful tourists, very few, everyone observed these and other rules.

 

In this city, visitors and residents discover, day after day, how the spirit expands and the space, imperceptible to any of the five primary senses, becomes infinite. Time here enjoys a temperature imbued with humanity and, together with space, forms a cosmic duality. In India, time breathes history and since the beginning of humanity has formed a perfect marriage with the gods, for it is eternal, and the gods, though born, are immortal; they are the only children of immortality. Not only in Pushkar, but everywhere, the Hindu merges time with space to reconnect with himself and thus be able to communicate with the gods. Despite the strong Westernization stimulus that India is undergoing, the gods do not want to move away from the people to make way for modernization and in Pushkar, along with the others sacred cities, we find temples in every corner. It must be said that, regardless of the great sacred, majestic buildings, created by the power of the human spirit and found everywhere, a temple can be a simple image of a god clinging to a wall, in a corner of a street, in the lintel of a door, under a balcony or in any other location such as a sacred tree. Any place is good for one: houses, shops, bus fronts. You can smell the scent of flowers and the pungent smell of incense. In front it or next to it there are people passing by, kneeling or sitting with their legs crossed in a state of meditation or prayer, a man or a woman, young or old, meditating or praying, while the scents of flowers or incense invades the space.

 

It was in this city where I saw a curious, very curious temple: a man without legs mounted on a wooden board with four pads and in front of him, on the same wood, the figure of a god surrounded by flowers and smoking incense. With his own hands on the ground, the man propelled this kind of scooter and moved around praying and begging, two of the most common occupations in India. In this city we find a miscellany of people from all over the world, some fleeing the West, others in search of a lost or never achieved spirituality. And among all this, the tourist, far from any spiritual search, moves curiously to know this world as a mere spectator. In Pushkar, as in many other Indian cities, more than anywhere else in the world, the need to survive accommodates spaces to the demands of the moment; shops, restaurants, hotels and all kinds of businesses fill the streets. Anyone with ability is trying to invent their way of life. Street vendors, beggars, seducers, verse or false religion offer you your own salvation and that of your relatives, making spirituality and the religious spectacle a means of subsistence. There are people who, despite revealing a high degree of spirituality, try to sell the tourist products with a high profit, through cunning and deception. Religion and business are completely different companies to each other. Here one cannot assess the consciousness of the individual with the same parameters as we would in another culture; surviving in India is not available to everyone.

 

Next to all this traffic, pilgrims and residents, young and old, unfold their spirituality around the sacred lake. Approaching the lake wearing shoes is an offense to the gods. Shoes are in contact with profane and dirty streets and a sacred space cannot be defamed. So, after taking off your shoes and embarking, descending barefoot, the stairs that surround the lake, a pure visual spectacle is presented to your eyes: hundreds of pilgrims offering their religious rituals in the sacred waters, not already as a simple act of atonement, but rather as an offering that keeps alive the respect and love for God. Some, after offering a handful of flowers to the lake, submerge their whole body in the water, others, taking water with their hands, dropping it slowly as if it were a fountain. They all wet each other's foreheads and eyes, in a kind of self-blessing. It is very easy for the spectator with a certain degree of sensitivity to feel strong vibrations in this place in the face of so much spirituality.

 

On my way through India I arrived in Vanarasi. Here, the deep, authentic, secular and living India was presented to me in its maximum sublimity. It was in this city on the banks of the Ganga when, one fine morning, just before the first dawns interrupted my sleep, a generation surrounded me, moving agitatedly, pushing me from here to there and from there to here, dampening my rationality. A girl passes by, smiles, a rickshaw wants to sell you her service, a woman with a thousand and more colors half covers her face with a red, transparent silk veil, dotted with golden embroidery. Suddenly the dream crumbled and the light of the first morning knocked on the door of my half-open room on the terrace that opened onto the left bank of the Ganga. They were the first sparks of the day that encouraged me to re-enter the narrow streets of the chowk, by the bank of its river, and to enjoy a thousand and one smiles; the city consecrated to Shiva offered itself exulting before me. My beating heart longed to reach the end of the day and hear me say: the gods have once again offered me an admirable day.

 

The Chowk is a bustling neighborhood of hundreds of narrow, intersecting alleys where visitors are hopelessly lost. No vehicle, whether motor or animal or human traction, can access it. Only a brave visitor can enter as the only way to get out is to follow the instructions of the inhabitants themselves. It is a real pleasure to the senses to enjoy that wild, dark and humid environment, where humans live with cows, goats, dogs and rats. A space that many would find disgusting, and filthy which they would surely banish. Smells and incense from the hundreds of temples found there mix with the stench in a space where the sun is deprived of its entrance and only in a small square is the passage open to curl your nose. The whole neighborhood is a big bazaar with very small shops and where the hustle and bustle reigns from one end to the other. Vendors of all kinds loudly announce their wares. Suddenly, praying and uttering religious songs, a string of people appears following four men carrying a palanquin. On top of which there is a corpse wrapped in a white shroud and covered by another red one with golden elements. The palanquin is carried by relatives of the dead. Manikarnika ghat, also known as the burning ghat, is the scene of human cremations, wich is located on the left bank of the Ganga. To get to the site of the cremations, all you have to do is follow them, or let yourself be led by the smell of roasted meat that invades the space as we approach it.

 

The wood for the cremations cannot go through the narrow streets of the Chowk therefore it does so via the river. The trunks are placed unidirectional in each of the different layers, intersecting from one layer to another to maintain their stability. At the top the dead body of the human being is placed bandaged by the shroud and the relatives themselves set it on fire. In this place, where the fire does not seem to have been extinguished for thousands of years, I have seen more than a dozen bonfires burning at once. The quantity and quality of the wood depends on the economic capacity of the relatives of the deceased, but, whether one or the other, once the wood has burned, the ash, with the remains of the body badly consumed, is thrown into the river, after extracting the possible pieces of gold, jewels and / or teeth, that may remain. I have seen human remains, skulls, bones and viscera, badly burned floating by the river, waiting for the birds of prey to finish the job badly completed by the fire. And in the middle of this show bathing the whole space with fire, especially at dusk, people move carrying firewood, building another tabernacle of death, among relatives, cows, and dogs, others are trying to extract money from the tourists, taking advantage of the excitement generated by this Dantesque spectacle.

 

The Hindu believes that with cremation the elements in which the body is composed are reconstituted by the effect of fire, and thus his body is purified in order to gain access to nirvana. In neighboring buildings and on the streets near this place, unhappy, miserable, destitute and terminally ill people are lying on the floor or on bunks, waiting their turn to be able to free themselves from the cycle of reincarnations. Not far from that place, with a dead and stinking cow in the middle of the river, people are bathing to access purification by ablution. With excrement and all sorts of dirt floating down the river, I have seen people, without any apprehension or disgust, drinking water from it, thus performing the sacred ritual.

 

Sacred water ablutions are one of the great religious rituals in India, and the Ganga, the holiest river in Hinduism and certainly on earth, passes through Varanasi. This is where men and women of all ages meet at all hours of the day and night to satisfy the sacred Ascension. Depending on the sect, or local, regional, or other customs, Hindus generally perform the ablution five times a day. The most important is the one held in the early hours of the morning, just before sunrise. Despite small differences, the ritual is satisfied by immersing oneself up to five times in the waters while pronouncing the corresponding Mantra. The Mantra can be uttered in silence as a thought or uttered aloud through speaking or singing.

 

One night, a few days after arriving in Varanasi, at two or three in the morning, a voice, both powerful and melodic at the same time, woke me up. I went out on the open terrace over the Ganga and, just below me, a man was bathing completely naked. Gesturing and with his arms raised, he sang to his heart's content. The moon, still basketed, was reflected on the calm waters of the river. For a moment it was my turn to feel the god Shiva enjoying the fullness of that spectacle.

 

The Dasashwamedh Ghat, the focus of religious life in Varanasi, is the place where all kinds of religious rituals and ceremonies take place at any time of the day or night, as well as being the nerve center of the city. After the wedding, there are “bride and grooms”, rich and poor, mostly poor, whom approach the river to present all kinds of offerings and, accompanied by an officiant to give them the blessing. In this place there are many gurus who, while sitting on their couches under a large parasol, wait for the devotee to administer to him the teachings and guidelines of his spiritual leadership. In the middle of it all we find a great generation; destitute, beggars, men and women, young and old, sellers of everything and more, barbers working sitting on the ground or offering their services, each and every one, shaking body and soul, and surrounded by cows sniffing and ferocious at the same time. It was in this place where I saw a man without legs and a cow eating from the same plate. I do not know whether the man, considering the sacred aspect of the animal, did not dare to drive it away, or fully accepted its complicity.

 

I don't know if my perception was a sensory reality or a simple personal suggestion, but Varanasi, despite the great traffic of people, vehicles and animals of all kinds that fill the streets and squares, presented himself to me in an absolute state of peace and quietness. Spirituality is therefore everything and, at dusk, when the lamps are lit by the thousands and the lights conspire with the shadows of the low hour, music and rhythms, songs and prayers, both loud and silent, then emerge from the belly of the city to the Ganga, awakening Shiva with one of the most sincere religious rituals that can be offered to a river and that I, personally, have been able to contemplate with my own eyes.

 

 

THE WOMEN

 

One of the great charms openly offered to visitors in this country is the women. The color of the skin contrasting with the saris looks majestic. The physiognomies with laughing expressions and, above all, the eyes, both become enriching elements of sensations perceived by the visitor who enters any street of any city in that country. Not all women in India look you straight in the eye, but if they do, you will discover the brightness of innocence. The brightness of a Hindu woman's eyes reflects the scent of the whole East. And if you often stumble across the stealthy gaze of a pretty girl, earrings and a gold necklace, her face flatters and offers you, purple lips and a small captivating smile. With sincere gratitude I respond with another smile, kind and charming. She is Hindu, by no means Muslim. You recognize it in the brightness of her eyes and in the length of her smile. Muslim girls in India, and certainly anywhere else in the world, are reproached and once they approach or have reached the state of marriage, the world disappears from their eyes and the colors of their saris are stained with darkness. Here, women, delicate in behavior, excel in ornaments and attractiveness. The jewels adorn her whole body; rings -hands and feet-, bracelets, the more the better. I saw them with their arms covered; bracelets -wrists and ankles-, necklaces, most of all, earrings and even through the nose, through the left side, a large gold ring, sometimes a simple gold dot, others, tie it to their earrings with a gold chain. A Hindu woman needs the beauty of jewelry to cushion her own.

 

She dresses elegantly and knows how to move her body with wisdom and delicacy. Her sensitivity, always imbued with ingenuity, allows her to wear the sari with exquisite refinement. Full of chromatic exuberances -green, blue, red ...- and embroidered with infinite cobbled forms of sequins, the chromatic vocations of the saris shine in the sun filling the spaces with light and color. Indian women are rarely seen alone on the street, almost always accompanied by another or in groups, which adorn lights and shadows composing a beautiful chromatic symphony, a pure pleasure for the eye. But occasionally, coinciding with any celebration, she loses her modesty and frees her smile. Then the exultation invades her and her voice and state of mind are filled with euphoria and joy.

 

The dark color of the skin, together with long, not always loose hair, combines with the whole to form a slender and charming body. It is a stimulus for the eyes to see an Indian girl washing her hair. Once clean, he dries them in the sun by stroking them with her hands and shaking her head suddenly, now forward, now backward, making them fly in the wind.

 

In this country, women are always candid, pleasant and have beautiful, dilated eyes. In order to further accentuate their beauty, they are framed in blue, offering a penetrating and instigating look: look at me !, don't I look pretty? And if you show her the camera to take her picture, she just shyly smiles. So take the decision, and if you dare, enjoy the pleasure of capturing their image.

 

One of those days when the gods openly offer a splendid day, while walking down a street, I saw a woman with a small child in her arms next to a young girl. Joyfully and in clearly spoken English, she said I’m Grandma, while the fullness of her smile was revealed to me. Instinctively and looking at the girl next to her, I replied: you have a very beautiful daughter, they both gave me a satisfied smile. In India, these and other presents delight you and constantly fill you with joy and pleasure.

 

 

THE RELIGION

 

It is no secret that India is an extraordinarily religious country. It is difficult to remain passive in the face of this reality. This fact has allowed me to reflect on certain aspects of the self as an individual. For sixty years I have lived in a world far removed from any religious spirituality. My agnosticism, not skepticism, generated by personal experiences not applicable to any other individual, has not allowed me to approach any kind of religious sentiment. I can't believe in a god. No god is offered to me, and no god can fill my spirit. If I told you I believe in it, I would be an absolute hypocrite. My mind, my individuality and my conformation as an individual does not allow it. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't believe in it, in any case I have to tell you that I don't understand. These words of mine may surprise you, especially if you have noticed that I advised you that if you go to India, pray. It may even seem that there is an absolute contradiction, however, In India I understand prayer as a personal manifestation far removed from any faith-based belief; one can pray satisfactorily within their own individual space. This prayer should be understood as a hymn, a manifestation of joy, a song to life in a moment of personal exultation. Is it possible not to believe in art and keep painting? I can tell you that painting doesn't necessarily require art. We could enter here into a dynamic of reasoning that would take us away from the reflections that the high degree of spirituality of that country has allowed me. I even understand that one can not believe in a god and still fully enjoy offering a religious ritual, for example, to a river that represents him. The act of praying can, in my view, be free from a rational belief in an almighty god. Even the concept of religiosity can be exempt from a blind faith in a being with more or less absolute powers.

 

In Varanasi I was able to enjoy prayer. On the banks of the Ganga, every day, just after sunset, a large group of people gather to satisfy the spirit in a sublime spectacle: the Puja. It is a religious ritual, a cult of the Ganga, an offering celebrated by five or more priests, surrounded by a crowd of people offering light, water, fire, air and incense to the river, accompanied by the sound of bells, timpani and religious songs. No one can remain passive in the face of this ritual, a ritual that can never be understood as a mere theatrical spectacle. The perception of the vibrations emitted by the crowd in the face of these espreiences elevates a person’s emotional state to unprecedented levels. I must confess that my prayer was absolutely fulfilled on a sensory level. Shiva is the god to whom the ritual is offered through the Ganga, but at no time did the idea of ​​offering to a deity, to a creator with higher and omnipotent powers, cross my mind. It was the states of mind created by everything that happened there that lifted me to personal states of absolute complacency. Prayer thus understood is not defined as a supplication or imploration of a particular concession. Prayer can be a song of joy, the manifestation of spiritual values ​​that can at times permeate the mind of the individual.

 

And this country of secular constitution and dynamic religions, not only Hinduism, despite being the most widespread, welcomes Islam, Buddhism, Sihkism, Christianity, Jainism, and even Parsis, an heiress minority of Zaratrusta's followers from Persia, anchored for many centuries in the Bombay region. Here, unlike other countries, respect for followers of other religions is absolute.

 

In the West, man has moved away and is moving further and further away from religious sentiments considered by many to be superfluous and peculiar to primitive societies. In this sense, I am a Westerner and, although I cannot agree with the feelings and attitudes of those people, I admire and respect these believers, able to face an image of wood, stone or simply printed on a sheet of paper, with deep religious feeling. I have been fascinated by the devotion of these men and women, and I have enjoyed their religious rituals, though never with their belief in a god. My perceptions have been linked to the shapes, images, smells, colors and music surrounding the extraordinary plastic beauty of the religious ceremonies in that country.

 

While the inner spaces of knowledge and sensitivity that individuals attain do not allow us to free ourselves from our human essence, I would like to use fiction to contrast reflections between a believer and an agnostic. So allow this absurd and free game. How can a human n reasoning? How can a “thinking being” achieve religious conviction and belief in purely fictitious states and beings created by the human imagination? What good is it for a human being to abandon the irrational animal state of not using reason in all his actions? Yes, I know, the abilities of the individual are not just cerebral. I ask as an agnostic, establish myself in attitudes and behaviors that are not dominated by brain for me either. There is, however, I will be told, and I fully accept it, a knowledge that does not depend on the mind and that allows human beings to free themselves from simple rationality in order to access unattainable values ​​through a kind of brain reflection. You can’t prove it the unbeliever will say, because only through suggestion can these kinds of convictions be reached. Suggestive stimuli always incite the conviction of facts uncontrollable by the mind of the believer and the attitudes of the believer. Such as that of any individual, whether or not, they are nothing more than the product of an education and the influence of the environment where it has developed.

 

With clarity we open our eyes and see everything in front of us. Clearly, humans did not create it. Clearly, the world and the universe must be a product of something, if we were to reflect according to the parameters of our reasoning. I said a product of something and not someone because I can't give a human or animal form to that something. Also, we do not know if there are other types of reasoning or actions that are private to our mind. But it is also clear that this same inability does not allow us to know, and we must be humble and accept that, although something may or, if you will, something must exist. We can never come to understand it through our abilities. If we want to imagine a being capable of possessing divine powers, we would imagine it according to a system of insignificant reasoning, ours, totally limited and, the only thing we are capable to do is to create some, forgive the words, dolls, giving them absolute powers. They have also taken historical figures, in the case of Christianity, or legendary in other religions, and built them with abilities superior to ours.

 

One question we can ask ourselves is, how come there are so many believing individuals in some countries but not in others? Why has the spirituality of other less technologically developed countries been lost in Western countries? This is not a pure perception of mine. Reality confirms this statement. Science, technology and discoveries, although minimal in the face of the immensity of the universe, take man away from all spirituality and the West is inevitably following this path.

 

Faced with this reality, I must state that the abilities of human beings, whether cerebral or sensitive, are not enough to reach any kind of absolute knowledge. Absolute knowledge is deprived of man. Everything is pure and simple speculation; there are those who cling to some, there are those who cling to others.

 

Religions have allowed many individuals throughout human existence to attain personal states of peace and complacency. We are all the product of our cultural, educational, social, genetic and other factors that have shaped us through creating our individual essences. We can't get rid of these factors, whether we like it or not. Let us not be deluded, let us accept our inability to go beyond what our human essence allows us. Religion, faith and belief in divinities have for many, many centuries had a concrete function in societies and in humanity itself. However since which era has man been able to free himself from the irrational animal condition and access rational and above all sensitive spaces to create religious principles capable of infuriating so many and so many followers? It has been the fear of the demise of each individual’s own existence, of the unforgivable death to which we are doomed, that has generated the creation of a supreme being capable of granting a life beyond the earthly. The believer is afraid. He is afraid of death and clings strongly to one idea: the salvation of his soul as his body is destroyed. He does not want to accept that there is nothing after death. The body is destroyed naturally after death or remains inanimate due to the effects of embalming. Under no circumstances can man prevent the disappearance of life from his body. Faced with this reality, many religions have imagined heavenly lives to strengthen faith and thus lighten the earthly journey of human beings. This fact is not exclusive to the Christian religion. Thus, in order to calm his spirit, man has invented eternal life beyond death with a resurrection of the soul. He is not afraid of losing his body if he holds the vital breath of his spirit. If we review the history of mankind, we can easily see that man has created all kinds of religious reflections and thoughts in order to free himself from the fear of absolute death. Think for a moment about why the great tombs of Pharaonic Egypt were built.

 

In order not to allow the absolute destruction and forever more of any human being, Hinduism, Buddhism and supposedly other religions I do not know, have gone further by creating reincarnation in a new body, if they have not achieved salvation, and thus beginning a new cycle allowing at one time or another the achievement of nirvana, a condition that allows the soul to be freed from passions and sufferings, giving it eternal happiness. Christianity, less condescending, does not allow this new opportunity and irremediably punishes the sinner in eternal fire, freeing only those who have scrupulously followed their spiritual doctrines or those who at one time or another have repented under confession of having offended God with sinful behaviors. This is according to divine laws drafted by the institutions themselves, but always with divine inspiration. In the West, many consider the spirituality of religious institutions and sects inseparable. They are also those who believe that churches cannot have sectarian structures. They may not even think that religious hierarchies can have the same character as any other type of hierarchy. For the most part, hierarchies have been and are dictatorial, rigid in the contents and applications of their dogmas or principles. In addition religions, based on more or less humanitarian principles, have been structured like any other organization created by human beings with the simple purpose of establishing mechanisms of operation and, by extension, of control of the own organization. Thus religions have been dominated by institutions that, acting in a dictatorial manner, have in many cases subjugated those who opposed subjugation to their imperatives. Nor should we forget that religious institutions are and have been created by men and have used, among other things, the fear that intoxicates human beings to dominate them, making ostensible use of the power that this gives them.

 

Allow me yet another thought. In many historical moments, religious institutions have conspired with politics and society to have more power and ultimately more control over a society. Political powers, knowing the instruments used by religious institutions and aware of the generally military force of others have organized to strengthen and maintain their powers, often oppressively. Thus, throughout history, great social architectures based on religions have been formed that have shaped them into the character and form of religious institutions themselves. These last thoughts lead me to a couple of questions; can a society exist without any religious structure? And, can there be a religion without any organizational structure?

 

Still, let me stand as the devil’s advocate. Haven't religions been the genesis of so many works of art? It is clear that art, as we understand it today in a historical view, has not been stinted solely on products of a particular religion, but it would be proper for Pharisees to deny this fact. Many works considered artistic today are products of this or that religion.

 

Faith has no possible rational explanation. Faith is a stage between primitive man close to the savage and man dominated by intellectual reflection and I, like any other human being, will have lived and died with all my virtues and my defects, helpless in the face of the impossibility of encompassing knowledge beyond the human limits. All my reflections on life and death, on the before and after, on God and on the universe are nothing more than an attempt to learn about the world, the human being and, ultimately, about ones owns existence. Reflections that can never free us from our human attributes. While I would like to know, with abilities and powers, a reality beyond the human, it takes resignation to accept our inability to outdo ourselves. I am and will be human and that deprives me of being God.

 

We have created the concept of God, reminding Him of all the powers our minds can imagine, but our limitation deprives us of knowing and understanding other levels of concepts and reflections of which we cannot even know their existence. Either way, do we always just ask ourselves what is God? Where do we come from ? What are we ? Why do we live? All we have been able to do about these and other questions that have intoxicated human beings from the moment man acceded to rational capacities is to speak with more or less capacity and with more or less imagination. I would like to put myself in the shoes of a sincere believer so that I can make use of his spiritual vibration and at the same time reflect on the content of his religiosity. This is not possible. We have always been told that faith cannot be explained by rational means and therefore no reflection is possible. What is religion? What motivation did human beings originally have to create the Gods and consequently establish religious institutions with all their hierarchies and all dogmatic principles? The evolution of the species is absolutely proven today. At what point does man establish the need to imagine supernatural beings, superior to him, the cause of the creation of heaven and earth, even of the universe itself? Has it not been but the human being with all his virtues and defects that has established, no longer only the ideas, but the very structures of religious institutions? Religions have been and continue to be sources of fanaticism and intolerance today. Is there any religion that has not established hierarchies with powers of control and at the same time determinants of human behavior? Many of these institutions have even become bloodthirsty. The Muslim religion has been and continues to be a source of fanaticism and destruction today. Without going any further, and reviewing the history of Christianity, how many examples can we give of cruel and barbaric actions with impositions that have generated monstrous blood crimes committed by churches for the cause and interests of people or the institutions themselves?

 

If an individual is born in a Muslim place, he will almost certainly be a Muslim and, on the contrary, if he is born in a Hindu environment, he will be Hindu. How many times have I heard that such a religion is true and that such another religion is not. Today, while adapting to social, scientific and technological changes, we make it possible to reduce physical distances and bring individuals closer.

 

Why are technically advanced societies moving further and further away from religious beliefs? What is religion? Religion is nothing more than an agglomeration of beliefs, rituals, desires, hopes and searches for beings with higher abilities that can alleviate the discouragement and fears of individuals.

 

Despite these reflections, my propensity to recognize at first the religiosity and high degree of spirituality of the Indian people was absolute, which allowed me, not an identification, but the total admiration of a religion, pregnant with humanity. Whether for one reason or another, I must state without any euphemism that the impressions experienced in India around religion were very strong and allowed me to observe and reflect on the behavior of some radiant beings.

 

Hinduism is not just a religion in the strictest sense of the word. Hinduism moves away from the institutional structures that govern many religions to become a way of life, an attitude that allows you to face the earthly journey with joy and happiness. Hinduism allows the person absolute freedom to arrange their religious structure, access this or that God, and organize their own rituals with absolute freedom.

 

Man is born innocent and society harms him. This is a fact assumed by many thinkers, in spite of the presumed hereditary transmissions of the character and other peculiar features of individuals; devotees of reincarnations celebrate it here. Whether man is born good, despite being potentially evil, or from the very moment of birth, evil drags him down, there can never be an egalitarian and perfect social structure. There can never be a form of static and eternal society. Man, like nature, is or becomes imperfect, and so will any kind of organization he creates. There is a natural balance, not a just one, under which the human being and everything that is organized around him is maintained punctually, in the same way that a balance is maintained in nature itself.

 

Social, political, religious, economic and human structures remain under forms of power. They subdue each other and it is the hierarchies that organize any kind of social structure. Equilibrium is reached at specific times and the existence of the same structure evolves towards new forms of power. Revolutions, not just social or political ones, form a new structure which will inevitably rely on new forms of power, to, once again, begin a new cycle.

 

In this way man becomes a slave to himself or to the structures he has created. The slave has been regarded throughout many moments in history as a man who is not free and dependent on another. But is today's man free? And I do not mean the freedom that is deprived of human beings by their own condition. What freedom does a human being have in a society like ours? Look around you and tell me how many free men do you see? How many you can see depends on your concept of freedom. The question: is this or that human being free to leave their job? Some are rich! Therefore there is the personal obligation to maintain his fortune? Does his fortune allow him to be free? Is the human being free from the relationship with his partner? Of your paternity or maternity status? Of your economy? And if we enter the field of the individual as such, is he free from his madness, from his thought, from his own body? I once said that if I were not human I would be free. After centuries of glory, misery and frustration, man is still not free. Luckily, I'm not free either, otherwise I would be a God or a monster.

 

 

THE BEGGARS

 

I can't say I'd like to be a beggar. If I said it, I would be a mere hypocrite. But I can say that my desire to learn, to experiment, to know, leads me to think that I would like to be in the skin of a beggar for a wile. Just enough time to be able to gain their knowledge. I do not mean a higher knowledge, cultural, scientific or otherwise, but their knowledge of begging. To be able to probe their personal experiences, their desires, their loves and their hatreds. His life in the society that swallows him and mistreats him, being able to feel the need to capture in order to survive and thus achieve an experience that I do not have. I know that these reflections are purely fictitious, because if I decided to characterize myself as a beggar and go out and beg, behind me there would be another personality.

 

Our personalities are nontransferable with anyone else, and so is that of a beggar. I don’t think, on the other hand, that his personality and idiosyncrasy allowed him, nor did I, to establish a dialogue that would allow me to access the knowledge of his knowledge. His person and characteristics do not allow him to establish an open dialogue with me, as he cannot free himself from his personal structure. He cannot transmit his knowledge for lack of objective knowledge of his own essence as a beggar.

 

In India, you always have to haggle. Even beggars haggle. When a beggar approaches you, he always asks you for a few rupees. When he realizes that you are not paying attention yo him, he begins to lower his demands; I’m hungry, for my daughter ...... and with her hand in front of her mouth she shows you the act of eating. Ten rupees, five, two ..... Through all of this it is you who decides when to put your hand in your pocket and make the gesture, obviously only if you feel like it, or you think you have to. Although with good will, we cannot, at the individual level, end poverty in India, or change the social and economic structures of that country or any other. India is an extremely poor country with a very high percentage of hungry people. The traveler is constantly presented with a problem of consciousness.

 

What to do when a beggar approaches you and tells you he is hungry and he follows you on your way, keeps telling you that he is hungry? She needs chapatis for her children. What if that man or woman, boy or girl, big or small, is disabled ?, torn or mutilated without arms or legs following you mounted on a piece of wood with four wheels? And if a girl of not more than twelve or thirteen years approaches you with a child in her arms, barefoot, both extremely dirty and full of the most absolute misery, then looks you in the eyes and in a hard to understand English tells you: please, give me something for my baby! At the same time she extends her hand in a supplicated attitude.

 

This problem expands when you realize that in that country, anyone from the West feels opulently rich. But you know that if you did the act of giving openly, you may have to stop at any moment, because otherwise, all of a sudden, hundreds of beggars would approach you and, in the long run, there would be thousands. Since this is a problem of conscience, it must be everyone, on a personal level, who seeks its solution. This is how the traveler from the West is presented with a doubt; What can be done when it is known that many people in India are starving? You can’t help everyone. You cannot personally change India. Can you start giving until you stay like them? until you have exhausted all your wealth? You know that you are not ready to leave your life system, to abandon everything you are and have, because, moreover, if you did, you would not solve the problem. Is it enough to soothe the anxiety of your conscience by giving some coins here and there? Or would it have been better not to have gone to India to see this creepy spectacle? What if you see others continue on their way, ignoring what’s going on around them?

 

The beggars take a seat next to the potential donor, once they have reached the first turn. If a beggar is begging for alms, he or she will in no way accept that anyone else is approaching to take his or her place or simply intends to share the possible donation. Even pushing the other one. I've seen them fight, but with words, and with some pushing.

 

The terrible poverty in India requires deep reflections that, unfortunately, cannot cure the diseases of societies. And if these reflections lead me to compare social and human inequalities, I can only shudder at my helplessness to heal or diminish the differences between human beings. I do not mean only the incapacity of social, political or even religious structures, but my own personal inequalities.

 

The majesty, wealth, and opulence of some oppose the miseries and calamities of others. If I let my imagination drift, she returns frightened by the concrete images offered to her in the face of the great injustices of the world. The great economic powers, monarchies, churches, among many others, control the world, each within its own territory and often intersecting within their own domains. The wealth in which the Catholic Church moves, the sumptuousness and opulence that is lived in the Vatican with all the curia, the arrogance of the monarchies, despite having an expiration date -take advantage while it lasts-. The great powers economic ones of others, always based on the strength of the strongest, are presented as the great vices of the human being, of his imperfection and, ultimately, of his desire to possess. In the spirit of fear, I feel helpless in the face of this evil world of which I am a part.

 

 

THE TAJ MAHAL

 

India is, as everyone knows, a land of misery, but it is also a country with some of the most beautiful buildings human beings have ever been able to create. I visited numerous buildings considered important architectural wonders, but what impressed me the most was the Taj Mahal. Although it has been seen before in photographs and other images, the direct view of the monument fascinates any visitor who approaches it. This mausoleum is considered one of the wonders of the world. It's definitely one of them.

 

It was on January 4, 2005, exactly four days after landing in India, that I was able to cross the entrance of the enclosure to enter, in the midst of a large number of visitors, in this space, a space, let me tell you, love. Sitting on the cold marble, quickly warmed by the brightness of the sun, I, a spectator of all this magnificence, saw from among the whole generation of visitors and wearing an overseas sari speckled with golden spots, an Indian woman who excelled on the whiteness of the marble. She looks happy I said to myself in a silent voice and, suddenly, my imagination, spurred on by the sweetness of the moment, fled almost four centuries into the past, envisioning how beautiful Mumtaz Mahal would be, and how Sha Jahan had loved her, so much that she might make him build this wonder that, still today and after centuries, breathes the breath of the lover.

 

As soon as he enters the grounds, the visitor relives Shah Jahan's feeling of love for his wife. The Taj Mahal is the transformation into an architectural gem of the anguish felt by the death of a loved one. The Taj Mahal is a cry of love, a cry of pure, transparent, transparent love. Rabindranath Tagore himself, in verses of high inspiration, describes the pain of the heart of Shah Jahan translated in this architectural miracle: You knew, Emperor of India, Shah Jahan that life, youth, wealth ..... everything flows in the course of time. Your only dream was to preserve the pain of your heart forever ...... In the form of this resplendent white Taj Mahal.

 

Inside and outside the mausoleum, barefoot for the respect that the place demands, the visitor finds himself surrounded by the whiteness of the warm and cold marble that millions and millions of visitors have been able to admire over the last centuries; one of the most wonderful marble embroideries the man’s hand has ever been able to weave. The structure of the entire mausoleum, with the ensemble included, shows the absolute balance that only divine inspiration can have built. It seems unlikely that, on a building of this magnitude, with thousands of people working for over more than twenty years, there has been no reliable written document about the author of the work, although, among some names, the Turkish architect Ustad Isa Afandi. In any case, the fact is that the work is a great gem of universal architecture.

 

My words can hardly express the impressions lived before this jewel. The balance of forms, the perfect harmony of the whole, including the outdoor spaces and the adjoining buildings, make this work a marvel that is difficult to overcome, if not impossible, for human beings. Regardless of the studies that can be done at a compositional, analytical or other level, regardless of the technical and artisanal elements that made this building possible, there is something that can only be valued by the vibrations experienced in front of the mausoleum; the inspiration generated by a work of art is never valued by technical or scientific parameters.

 

Without wanting to water down the possible charm that my impressions may have, reflection forces me to subject them to the rigor of history. Only a strong and imperial power has the capacity to create works of this magnificence. Shah Jahan was a Muslim, ambitious and a warrior. He rebelled against his own father and finally, after his death, and without much internal struggle, proclaimed himself emperor in 1628. The construction of the Taj Mahal took place while the emperor was immersed. in constant bloody wars against neighboring states.

 

Warrior spirit, ambition, sensitivity, pride, passion for power and many other human virtues or defects make up individuals. These and other traits can be found in the same person. Passion for power does not have to be free of love and sensitivity. The Taj Mahal was started in 1632 and the ensemble with the external mosques was completed twenty years later. Shah Jahan himself was subdued by one of his sons and relegated to Agra Fort, the emperor's residential palace. In its confinement and from the windows of the Agra Fort, Shah Jahan could see the Taj Mahal. From 1657, the date of his confinement, until his death in 1666, how many tears did the lover shed at the sight of the mausoleum? Since his death, a sarcophagus, containing his remains, has been next to that of his wife Muntaz Mahal, the only element that breaks the perfect symmetry of the entire building.

 

Today, April 4, 2005, as I write my impressions of this trip, I must confess that I feel a strong desire to dive back into that country. A country of which in just a month and a half I was able to experience partial, but certainly significant aspects. I also know that desires are not always feasible to be fulfilled. I also know that if we set out to do so, we can achieve what we want.

 

India allowed me to live moments that intensely mark the person. Moments that, in addition to constantly beating in the memory, are impossible to forget. Moments that allow deep reflections on human beings, society and, above all, the individual himself.

 

April 4, 2005

Jordi Rodríguez-Amat

  To see the photographic series of India, click on the following link: PHOTOGRAPHIC SERIES OF INDIA