The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Sunday 16 September 2012

WHEN THE FAITH CALLS FOR ITS MANIFESTATION


Faith has varied dimensions. Some believe. Some question. Some doubt. Some don’t believe. A wish, its fulfillment, and paying back obeisance to the god is the most direct worldly manifestation of the faith. The photographs below show one traditional way of doing so in the Hindu faith.

When the faith calls for its manifestation - a devotee travelling to the place of the deity laying his body prostrate on the ground at every step (1) 
When the faith calls for its manifestation - a devotee travelling to the place of the deity laying his body prostrate on the ground at every step (2) 
When the faith calls for its manifestation - a devotee travelling to the place of the deity laying his body prostrate on the ground at every step (3) 
When the faith calls for its manifestation - a devotee travelling to the place of the deity laying his body prostrate on the ground at every step (4) 

WHEN THE FAITH CALLS FOR ITS MANIFESTATION

CATEGORY:  PHOTOGRAPHY


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On fulfillment of a wish, some believers, as decided while praying for the wish, cover the distance to the place of the deity from a particular point (that may run in kilometers) in a most difficult way that shows the importance of the wish fulfilled and their commitment to the deity.

They cover the whole distance laying the body prostrate on the ground at every step till they reach the place. They fold their hands, bow, bend the body to touch the ground, take their hands to the forehead, lay down straight, stretch their hands, mark a line on the path for their next step, get up, to take the next leap of their faith. It goes on till they reach the place where their faith culminates. All this while, they keep on chanting their gratitude to the deity. This person is one such believer.

I took these photographs in a Rajasthan district that has famous Mehndipur Balaji temple. While the temple is on the plane, there are low altitude hills all around housing other temples complimenting to the religious ecology of the Hindu pilgrimage centre.

A brilliantly honest manifestation of faith indeed, but only for them who come to believe for faith is a strange ‘clarity and vagueness’ proposition in life.  

This believer was on way to the place of his deity and was passing through the pathway laid down on top of a hillock when I observed and clicked him.

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/