A meeting with a holy one

Kate Zibluk participates in the Ganga Aarti, the Hindu fire ceremony, on the banks of the Ganges River in India. Our group was the only group of westerners in the front of the throng of 500 participating in the ceremony.

“When you look at yourself and ask ‘What am I doing here?’, you’ve gone from going on a tour to being on an adventure,” my best Connecticut friend and photographic mentor, Bill Treloar, once said after a grueling canoe trip.

As I looked around the Ganga Aarti, or Ganges fire ceremony in Rishikesh, India, and noticed we were about the only western participants, I think we crossed that line.

Rishikesh, at about 55,000, about the same size of our small city of Jonesboro, Arkansas, is famous for its ashrams where Hindu devotees study and pray, the holy men who study and worship, and its swamis who lead the congregations.  It is famous for the Ganges, whose cold and fast waters, it is said, come from Vishnu, the god of balance and control, and it is popular with pilgrims from throughout the world who come to visit, some seeking enlightenment, and some who want to see the spectacle.

Hindu pilgrims, tourists and others come from throughout the world to visit the spiritual center of Rishikesh.

The fire ceremony provides the primary spectacle. It is presided over by the city’s current lead swami, Chidanand Saraswati, head of Parmarth Niketan ashram, who has an international following. A swami is not a formal title. There are no rules or board certification requirements to become one. A swami is a holy man who through spirituality, charisma and not a little self-promotion, builds a following.

He demonstrated it at the fire ceremony, where he led the chants as devotees danced, swayed and prayed.  At sunsets, acolytes gather around an amphitheater at the river’s edge facing a walkway with a giant statue of Rama, the idealized male form in which Vishnu was reincarnated, according to Hindu doctrine.

The swinging bridge is the major thoroughfare across the Ganges for residents and visitors to Rishikesh.

See what it's like to cross the swinging bridge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qltZVhdOhQ

About 500 monks, pilgrims, worshippers, acolytes, devotees and sightseers gather around the swami, following the evening taping of his television show. 

Hindu monks ready themselves for the Ganga Aarti ceremony, held daily at sunset on the Ganges in Rishikesh.

He then leads an hour-long set of hymns and chants. Participants set little boats made of leaves and full of flower petals and a candle into the river and watch them sail by, and then the participants pass candles to one another as they chant a mantra led by the swami or simply sit and pray.

Hindu women enjoy the ceremony in their respective ways.

Participants float little boats made of paper and leaves,  full of flowers and lit by a candle, into the Ganges.

Swami Chidanand Saraswati leads an hour-long session of chanting as the the focal point of the Ganga Aarti.

The ceremony is in two parts, according to Sadhvi Bhagwati Saraswati, who hails from New York and holds a degree from Stanford University, and retains a California-girl style of self-expression. She  has also been one of the swami’s main aides for 15 years, leading seminars worldwide and appearing on the Discovery Channel and other international networks. She said the first part is about reaching out to others and putting your dreams upon the water, and the second part, in which participants share candles, is about cleansing and burning away sadness and unhappiness, and then sharing the experience.

The swami and his chief aide, Sadhvi Baghwati Saraswati, a Stanford University graduate, discuss and explain the ceremony at a special invitation-only reception at the ashram or residence, after the Ganga Aarti.

Saurav "Sam" Somani, our guide, negotiated with the swami’s staff to get us front-row seats. We were the only westerners in our part of the crowd, and the only non-Hindu participants in candle lighting and passing ceremony.

Afterward, we were invited to an audience with the swami in his inner sanctum, or ashram, during which followers asked for his insights and wisdom. Mostly they asked about evangelizing his message. 

We then shared a vegetarian dinner (Rishikesh is totally vegetarian and alcohol-free by law) with several followers, one of whom was from our neighboring state of  Missouri, and who recently edited an encyclopedia of Hinduism. The group asked about our impressions of the country, and we were polite and positive about the friendliness and the willingness to reach across religious and political barriers that is endemic in the culture. Afterward, another Missouri acolyte, a University of St. Louis student, met us and discussed his efforts to protect the river from pollution.

We discussed the commonalities between our faiths, and I talked about my hope to build bridges between Americans and the people of India.

After we thanked the staff for the hospitality, other followers stopped us before we left to fill out a customer satisfaction survey, complete with a request for a tax-deductible donation.

It was a reminder that besides the fact Christians and Hindus share many beliefs and philosophies, we also share an appreciation for showmanship, and an understanding of the necessities of the financial bottom line as well. Finding the balance of the sincere and authentic, the spiritual, the practical, the financial and the promotional is the key for success in any culture.