Prayer With Incense

 

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“Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”
(The Holy Bible – Psalms 141:2)

This picture was shot at Dasaswamedh ghat along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) during the Ganga Aarti which is performed every evening by students from the Sanskrit University trained to become Hindu priests.

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A Song, A Dream, A Whisper

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“You are the answer to every prayer I’ve offered.
You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don’t know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have.”
(From “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks)

Early in the morning this lady lit up a diya (candle) at Dasaswamedh ghat and let the holy waters of the Ganges carry away her prayer as if it was a song, a dream, a whisper…

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In God’s Hands

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“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess”
(Martin Luther – German Priest and Scholar whose questioning led to the Protestant Reformation, 1483-1546)

Three ladies were performing a puja at Gay ghat at the feet of the big statue of Nandi which stands in front of several Shiva ligams.
We were alone and they smiled at me, the day was rising up among a heavy mist.
I didn’t want to disturb that moment but they insisted that I took some pictures, they seemed to be happy.

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HAPPY DIWALI AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

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I WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY DIWALI AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR WITH LOVE, PEACE AND PROSPERITY…

“May you all attain full inner illumination!
May the supreme light of lights enlighten your understanding!
May you all attain the inexhaustible spiritual wealth of the Self!
May you all prosper gloriously on the material as well as spiritual planes!”
(from the writings of Swami Sivananda Saraswati – Hindu spiritual teacher, 1887–1963)

This is also the opportunity to thank you all for commenting my pictures the way you do and for this amazing support which always gives me the energy to carry on my work…
A new year is starting in India and I want to share with you more emotions with the colours of life which keep on coming in front of my lens…

(This picture was shot in Varanasi (Benaras) during Dev Diwali as Anand was taking all of us on his boat for a ride along the Ganges).

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Light Of Lights

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“The sun does not shine there, nor do the moon and the stars, nor do lightnings shine and much less fire.
All the lights of the world cannot be compared even to a ray of the inner light of the Self.
Merge yourself in this light of lights and enjoy the supreme Deepavali.”
(from the writings of Swami Sivananda Saraswati – Hindu spiritual teacher, 1887–1963)

I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY DIWALI AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR WITH LOVE, PEACE AND PROSPERITY…

This is a picture of Jain ghat in Varanasi (Benaras) shot during Dev Diwali.

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Happy Ganesh Chatrurthi

 

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“On the Ganesh Chaturthi day, meditate on the stories connected with Lord Ganesha early in the morning, during the Brahmamuhurta period.
Then, after taking a bath, go to the temple and do the prayers of Lord Ganesha.
Offer Him some coconut and sweet pudding.
Pray with faith and devotion that He may remove all the obstacles that you experience on the spiritual path.
Worship Him at home, too.
You can get the assistance of a pundit.
Have an image of Lord Ganesha in your
house.
Feel His Presence in it.

Don’t forget not to look at the moon on that day; remember that it behaved unbecomingly towards the Lord.
This really means avoid the company of all those who have no faith in God, and who deride God, your Guru and religion, from this very day.

Take fresh spiritual resolves and pray to Lord Ganesha for inner spiritual strength to attain success in all your undertakings.

May the blessings of Sri Ganesha be upon you all!
May He remove all the obstacles that stand in your spiritual path!
May He bestow on you all material prosperity as well as liberation!”
(Swami Sivananda – Hindu spiritual teacher, 1887 – 1963)

Ganesha Chaturthi is the Hindu festival celebrated on the occasion of birthday of Lord Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati, who is believed to bestow his presence on earth for all his devotees in the duration of this festival.
It is the day Shiva declared his son Ganesha as superior to all the gods, barring Vishnu, Lakshmi, Shiva and Parvati.
Ganesha is widely worshipped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune and traditionally invoked at the beginning of any new venture or at the start of travel.

This picture of Lord Ganesha was shot in a temple of Khajuraho located in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

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The hijras’ house

 

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To give birth to a hermaphrodite is still considered by simple Indians to be one of the most terrible curses than can befall a woman.
At the same time the blessing of a hijra is considered to be unusually potent.
It can make a barren woman fertile.
It can scare off malevolent djinns.
It can nullify the evil eye.
In the streets hijras are jeered at, sometimes even pelted with rubbish.
Yet at a poor family’s most crucial and most public celebrations, at a marriage or at the birth of a male child, the absence of a hijra would almost invalidate the whole ceremony.
(From City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple – 1993)

This house is in a village nearby Varanasi (Benaras) where leaves a Hijra community.
Sunita, the guru, is Muslim and Shushila who wears a yellow sari was born in a Hindu family.
Spirituality has been overpowering religion, they can’t have children but they take care of most of the children of the village.
Hijras are physiological males who have feminine gender identity, women’s clothing and other feminine gender roles.
They have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from the antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra period onwards.

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An Absolute Necessity

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“The work is an absolute necessity for me.
I can’t put it off, I don’t care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I become melancholy when I can’t go on with my work.
Then I feel like a weaver who sees that his threads are tangled, and the pattern he had on the loom is gone to hell, and all his thought and exertion is lost.”
(From “Stranger on the Earth : A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh” (1996) by Albert J. Lubin, p. 22)

This is one of our handloom workshops in Varanasi (Benaras).
Varanasi weavers have to struggle with many issues since the industry collapsed fifteen years ago and half the workshops of the city had to close.
RED HALO has settled a program in order to help a few of them, it is a drop in the ocean but in our humble and limited way we are trying to maintain a few people to carry on this amazing heritage which remains in the Eternal city.

RED HALO is a collection of household linen based in Benaras (Varanasi – India) providing work to people who were living with difficulties and education to children.
“Like” the RED HALO page on Facebook and join this human adventure in Varanasi,www.facebook.com/redhalo.in

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Carrying You with my Blood

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“Extinguish my sight, and I can still see you;
plug up my ears, and I can still hear;
even without feet I can walk toward you,
and without mouth I can still implore.
Break off my arms, and I will hold you
with my heart as if it were a hand;
strangle my heart, and my brain will still throb;
and should you set fire to my brain,
I still can carry you with my blood.”
(From “The Book of Hours” by Rainer Maria Rilke)

This is a view of the Holy Ganges shot at dusk from Jatar ghat in Varanasi (Benaras).
Those bamboo sticks carry baskets with candles lifted up in order to tell the spirits to welcome the people who recently departed from life…

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As a Wild Hunter

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“With my mouth I speak slander, day and night.
I spy on the houses of others – I am such a wretched low-life !
Unfulfilled sexual desire and unresolved anger dwell in my body, like the outcasts who cremate the dead.
I live as a wild hunter, O Creator !”
(From the Guru Granth Sahib – the religious text of Sikhism)

This is a picture of the burning ghats of Manikarnika shot at sunset from a boat on the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
Antyesti, the Last Rite, is an important Sanskara, sacrament of Hindu society
According Hinduism cremation is releases an individual’s spiritual essence from its transitory physical body so it can be reborn.
If it is not done or not done properly, it is thought, the soul will be disturbed and not find its way to its proper place in the afterlife and come back and haunt living relatives…

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