A SEPTUAGENARIAN AT HARISHCHANDRA GHAT

COLORES INFINITUM

A septuagenarian man had come to Harishchandra Ghat for the last rites of his wife.

As he approached the ghat, he seemed like a broken man who had just lost his best friend of life. He was certainly beyond any consoling.

While sitting there, performing the rituals, slowly he graduated to a calm that could have been easily said uncharacteristic of being in a committed relation – but for the place which effect it was.

His calm was reflecting in his composure and he looked more thoughtful that restive with increasing intensity of the flames.

It was after some time, that he made a statement.

His observation –

"While we are sitting at the doorstep of God here, we come to realize so naturally that every material object is just an illusion, everyone in life will go, and everything will be lost. It is better if we realize it as soon as possible so that we can seek God in as many manifest ways as possible. Once we turn our back, we forget all this realization, this illumination about illusion and existence, to get engaged again in our relations, our existence.”

- was not some unique thought - and yet it is the only truth that every conscious soul is looking for - the outline of this truth is known - finding and assimilating its finer details is the real quest of life. 

Every person sitting there, on that ghat, sitting by Ganga and sitting with soul, was a natural follower of the thoughts on this line - for the time he stayed there - where life became one with death. 

My friends and I had realized it so many times while stopping by Harishchandra Ghat or Manikarnika Ghat during many of our exploratory trips to the Banaras ghats. 

I do believe that there are innumerable others who have felt this feeling while sitting at or stopping by these two Banaras ghats.

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