Basketball at Midnight

According to the news, the stock market tumbled 7% due to the house failing to pass the economic bailout bill. That’s wild! and being in India probably insulates me from the full effect of that news. I hope you were all shorting the market. I wasn’t.

I’m in Varansi, the holy city of Shiva. Hindus purify themselves in the Ganga (Ganges) here, which supposedly erases the bad karma you may have accumulated over time. I have decided, once again, that I will not bathe in the Ganga. This time, it’s a bit more deliberate; I decided that I’d rather suffer returning to the universe in future lives than having all of my bad karma washed away. All of my choices, good or bad, are my choices, and if I am to be held accountable for them, then let me be held accountable for them! Otherwise, it would be like saying that no decision I made ever meant anything.

That being said, it might be a nice time to mention that I don’t believe in an afterlife in which there is a separation of souls; that gives me the luxury to be metaphorical when confronted with situations like the Ganga Issue.

I also went to Sarnath, which is the location where the Buddha began teaching in c. 300 BC (?). It had been mostly destroyed by the Muslim Mughals in the 11th century and so was a collection of new building and monuments mixed with the unearthed foundations of the originals. The archaeological work began in the 19th century by the British.

Of particular note, they had a cutting from The Bodhi tree. For those unfamiliar with the life of the Buddha, he went to Bodhgaya (which is about 5 hours east of here) and become enlightened under a certain Bodhi tree. Then he came to Sarnath and began his teachings. A cutting from that Bodhi tree was taken and planted in Sri Lanka during the reign of the Buddhist Emperor, Ashoka. Somewhere in time, the original Bodhi tree died, was burned down, or was otherwise destroyed. Recently (ie. in the last 200 years), cuttings from the Sri Lankan cutting (after 2000 years, it is now a full grown tree), were taken and planted at the original site in Bodhgaya and also in Sarnath.

Also of note, there was a verse/inscription recorded from the Buddha that said something along the lines of “for enlightenment, you have to release your craving for reincarnation.” In light of my recently mentioned decision to not bathe in the Ganga and thus suffer the slings and arrows of future reincarnation, I found a little irony in the juxtaposition. Although I could argue that my decision is founded on moral or philosophic principles, perhaps I should abandon my “craving for reincarnation” and just jump into the water. We’ll see.

The question will no doubt continue to follow me. I’ll be leaving Varnasi tomorrow for Uttaranchal where I will follow it all the way to its source. I’ll have many more opportunities to bathe, and legend has it that bathing at the well spring negates your bad karma from all your previous lives as well. That poses an entirely different question since I’m not sure how responsible I should be for my previous lives. You might hear me musing about this more in the future. Until, then, cheers.

Kevin

Also, more Photos:

1. Hampi, which was one of my first places to visit, deep in South India
2. Ellora, intricate caves outside Aurungabad, Maharastra
3. Kalleda, the school I was teaching at in Andhra Pradesh