4 weddings, a few funerals, and a birthday

Dear Friends,Great Souls 

Well Xmas is past -and it has been very special -but more of that later. Eliza and myself have been in Rishikesh since November 7th  -and it just seems like home -as if we have been here for so much longer (in a very good way I mean). 

We arrived in time for the wedding season in late October and November. The weather is more temperate then, but more importantly, the astrological outlook is apparently more propitious. Weddings are not performed in a church and don't have any legal registration.  But the marriage is witnessed by the community and that's that. The celebrations are big and extremely costly for the parents of the bride. Even the very poor have to put on a good show.  This is one of the reasons that families want to have sons rather than daughters.  In addition there is no dowry to pay for sons.  A roofless marquee is erected (quite amazing what you can do with a few dozen tree branches and a few miles of cotton fabric).  This is where the reception is held - food (dhaal and chapatis), music(very loud) and dancing(men strutting their stuff in front of one speaker and women dancing with women much more gracefully in front of the other speaker). 

Usually when a woman marries she lives with the husband at his mother's house, and then effectively becomes a child-making machine and slave.  A slave to the mother-in-law. She washes, cooks, keeps house and gives the mother-in law a massage as and when required. This continues until her own son gets married when she gets her own slave - I mean daughter-in -law! (Another good reason to have sons). Fertile ground for Bernard Manning jokes here!  And the dowry can sometimes be a contentious issue - right up to and even during the wedding celebrations.

I went to 4 weddings in the space of a week or two. And I went to 2 weddings on the same night. What a contrast!  I stumbled into the first by accident.  I went across the Ganges to attend an Aarti - an evening celebration of music and chanting besides the river; it happens every night about 5.30pm to 6.30pm. By chance that evening a marriage was also being celebrated between 2 devotees of this particular Swami -an  American groom and an Indian bride.  It was a most beautiful celebration emphasising the spiritual nature of the new relationship - of service to each other and sublimation of the ego. Along with the garlanding with flowers and chanting by candle and firelight right at the river, it was a sweet and memorable event.  An hour or two later I attended another wedding.  This wedding was marred by loud and awful music, drunken argument - presumably about the dowry - and brawling. 

Rishikesh is undeniably a town of contrasts!! 

And just a few hundred yards down river from our flat is the riverside "crematorium".  Here, the family brings the body to the side of the river, builds a funeral pyre and cremates their loved one. Pretty much every day you can see a fire burning down at the water's edge -and sometimes smell the burning flesh.  There are so many stories to tell and pictures to draw for you that it would easily fill a book, if not two; the tiny women carrying woodpiles bigger than themselves, the odd sadhu sleeping on the rocks beside the Ganges(no mattress, just his shawl!!), the Swedish man we met at the railway station who said he manufactured beds of nails to export to Europe (actually mattresses with nails inset for accupresure-while-u-sleep), the Bhajan (spiritual songs) singing at all times of the day and night,  our Christmas Day trek through the village (with a fully dressed up Santa Claus with Xmas tree sitting on a little trailer pulled by a bike rider and pushed by our kids ) distributing sweets and toys to the street urchins - see picture. Colours, sights and sounds which cannot be described in a short email nor even told in photographs. You have to experience India for yourself. 

 This morning tears of joy came to my eyes as I felt gratitude flow through me for the blessing of being guided to this holy place; for the blessing of transforming - and knowing I am being transformed; for the challenges big and small which reveal who I am and which, when I observe them and accept them and work through them, bring me to a state of higher consciousness, of greater awareness, of greater joy, and of closeness to God. And I feel His presence as I pay attention and observe my own gremlins, and learn to let them go by always trying to become an empty vessel and always trying to allow the grace of God guide me.

I have read so often(eg Carlos Castaneda, Carolyn Myss) about how our history becomes our biology, how we are the result of our past thoughts and actions. And I know this is true.  But, as I have written before, we are possessed by a false history.  When we can become empty then our false history does not control us.  We are neither reactive nor proactive. We simply are. When you become an empty vessel you make space for God (your own God not mine) to guide you, to protect you, and to fill you with His light. And then you cannot fail.  Nor can you succeed, because your successes and your failures all belong to Him. Pretty neat eh? 

But it does not entirely relieve you of responsibility. You still need to keep clarity and act upon His guidance. And stay constantly in the awareness that life on earth is nothing more than a divine play, a tragi-comedy, a farce, a cosmic joke;  and ultimately a divine romance.  As long as we can keep that perspective, that this life is illusion, a play, maya, then we can avoid the pitfalls of ego attachment, of blame, of possessiveness; of I, Me, Mine, as opposed to the connectedness of We, Us, Ours.  We enter the world naked and we leave the world with nothing.  Science is coming to the conclusion that yogis have known for millenia.  All we have is Consciousness and it is up to us, up to you and me, where we wish to be in our consciousness. You can be with ego, or you can be with God.  Your choice.

Oh and the birthday? - Well it was Christmas wasn't it??

And so I hope your Christmas was God-filled and merry, and I equally hope that you will each continue your own special journey through a loving and joyful 2008 

Wishing you very many blessings

with Love

Stan