Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. I've always know this. I've always known that one day all of the world's children will return back to Earth so that new life can be created. Yet, the process itself is subtle in its continuous and lengthy manner, so this idea of recycled matter and life remains just that, an idea. Never an experience. Unless you visit Varanasi that is.
While strolling past cows, beggars and mystical pilgrims on the Ghats of the Holy Ganges, a group of burning woodstacks on the riverside caught my attention. If I had read Lonely Planet more closely (or at all), I would've known why these piles were burning and what they contained. Instead, this information was revealed by watching two young men haul a dead body wrapped in white cloth from the river and drop it into the flames. I was at the cremation ghat.
Most people nonchalantly walked past, ignoring the ceremony as if it was a flier plastered on the side of a building. I on the other hand, was mesmerized. From a distance of about 20 feet, my gaze stay fixated, never wandering from the body that was now submerged in flames. I watched as the body became black and slowly crumbled into the fire like a dying, cracking leaf. When I could no longer make out the body from the pile of sticks, I walked closer for a more discerning vantage point.
From this angle I could confirm that the majority of the body had ceased to exist. However, one shin still maintained some sort of charred resemblance of a shin, for it laid on the edge of the fire where it's hunger was weaker. Meanwhile, the foot laid completely outside the grips of the flame, fully intact and appearing alive as it ever had been.
Now only 10 feet away, I focused my entire mind, my entire being, on that shin and foot. The fire slowly ate away at the shin while the foot remained untainted. Eventually the shin became so withered and brittle it could no longer support the weight of the foot. It cracked like a twig, and the foot tumbled toward me. This brown foot, the last piece of physical evidence that within those flames lie the ashes that once constituted a human being full of joy, despair, dreams, struggles and love, sat a couple feet in front of me. Quickly, a man knocked the foot back into the fire with a nondescript branch before attending to other business. There were still many more bodies that needed to be cremated.
We all know that everyone is going to die one day, but we know this the same way that we know the South Pole exists. Surely though, this intellectual concept of the South Pole is a far cry away from waking one morning to piercing cold and sweeping snowfields. With the same sudden shock of waking in the Arctic, the idea of impermanence exploded from a corner of my mind and permeated into everything around me. Every person and every thing was burning, hurdling toward non-existence. Each moment a cremation suspended in time.
This new world existed with me for a few hours before giving way to my normal methods of perception and life. I'm not really sure if realizing impermanence in this manner is ultimately helpful or not. The vacant face and dazed constitution I possessed for those few hours certainly wouldn't serve me well on a first date, or really any task for that manner. On the other hand, maybe consciousness of our Death could help us live life more meaningfully. Moreso, maybe seeing everything as a cremation is a doorway to seeing the other half of the equation, everything as a birth. Either way, whether it's useful or not, whether I acknowledge it or not, those few hours were reality.
While strolling past cows, beggars and mystical pilgrims on the Ghats of the Holy Ganges, a group of burning woodstacks on the riverside caught my attention. If I had read Lonely Planet more closely (or at all), I would've known why these piles were burning and what they contained. Instead, this information was revealed by watching two young men haul a dead body wrapped in white cloth from the river and drop it into the flames. I was at the cremation ghat.
Most people nonchalantly walked past, ignoring the ceremony as if it was a flier plastered on the side of a building. I on the other hand, was mesmerized. From a distance of about 20 feet, my gaze stay fixated, never wandering from the body that was now submerged in flames. I watched as the body became black and slowly crumbled into the fire like a dying, cracking leaf. When I could no longer make out the body from the pile of sticks, I walked closer for a more discerning vantage point.
From this angle I could confirm that the majority of the body had ceased to exist. However, one shin still maintained some sort of charred resemblance of a shin, for it laid on the edge of the fire where it's hunger was weaker. Meanwhile, the foot laid completely outside the grips of the flame, fully intact and appearing alive as it ever had been.
Now only 10 feet away, I focused my entire mind, my entire being, on that shin and foot. The fire slowly ate away at the shin while the foot remained untainted. Eventually the shin became so withered and brittle it could no longer support the weight of the foot. It cracked like a twig, and the foot tumbled toward me. This brown foot, the last piece of physical evidence that within those flames lie the ashes that once constituted a human being full of joy, despair, dreams, struggles and love, sat a couple feet in front of me. Quickly, a man knocked the foot back into the fire with a nondescript branch before attending to other business. There were still many more bodies that needed to be cremated.
We all know that everyone is going to die one day, but we know this the same way that we know the South Pole exists. Surely though, this intellectual concept of the South Pole is a far cry away from waking one morning to piercing cold and sweeping snowfields. With the same sudden shock of waking in the Arctic, the idea of impermanence exploded from a corner of my mind and permeated into everything around me. Every person and every thing was burning, hurdling toward non-existence. Each moment a cremation suspended in time.
This new world existed with me for a few hours before giving way to my normal methods of perception and life. I'm not really sure if realizing impermanence in this manner is ultimately helpful or not. The vacant face and dazed constitution I possessed for those few hours certainly wouldn't serve me well on a first date, or really any task for that manner. On the other hand, maybe consciousness of our Death could help us live life more meaningfully. Moreso, maybe seeing everything as a cremation is a doorway to seeing the other half of the equation, everything as a birth. Either way, whether it's useful or not, whether I acknowledge it or not, those few hours were reality.
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