Life Itself

“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself ?”
(From “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera)

This picture was shot at Scindia ghat in Varanasi (Benaras) where a few young men were enjoying the freshness of dawn in the holy waters of the Ganges.

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Deceptions Of Nostalgia

“He was still too young to know that the heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.
But when he stood at the railing of the ship…only then did he understand to what extent he had been an easy vicitim to the charitible deceptions of nostalgia. ”
(Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez – Colombian novelist, b.1927)

This picture was shot early in the morning at Scindia ghat along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras)…

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A Shaft of Light

“Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n,
and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light”
(Omar Khayyám – Persian polymath, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet, 1048-1131)

Varanasi taught me to wake up early in order to enjoy the sunrise on the Ganges.
These promises at dawn are an absolute treat for the senses and the Heaven’s connection…

This is a picture of the bank of the Ganges facing Varanasi (Benaras) at dawn.

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With A Sprinkle Of Golden Dreams

“Are you looking for gold, friend?
Look around you; anything useful to you is pure gold, pure silver!”
(Mehmet Murat ildan – Turkish author, b.1965)

This picture was shot at Scindia ghat in Varanasi (Benaras).
Two friends were finishing their daily yoga exercises in the river.
It was at dawn when reality is still foggy with a sprinkle of dreams and allows the holy waters of the Ganges to become gold…

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The antechamber of Heaven

“Whatever path men travel is My path: No matter where they walk, it leads to Me.”
(From the Bhagavad Gita – Chapter 4 ‘Hindu Scripture’)

This picture was shot early in the morning when the first lights of sunrise reflected in the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
People enjoyed the freshness of dawn and bathing in this river made of silver and gold as if it was the antechamber of Heaven…

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Bathing in the Fountain of Youth

“The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do [with great artists]; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star. ”
(From “The Prisoner and The Fugitive : In search of lost time, vol. 5” by Marcel Proust)

This young man was climbing a pillar which is usually underwater in the Ganges at Scindia ghat.
This architectural element is what is left from the massive palace which used to stand there until the end of the 19th century before the whole structure fell in the holy river.
This picture belongs to a series revolving around my “search of lost time” and of the lost splendour of Varanasi (Benaras)…

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Several blasts in Bodhgaya

This morning on 7 July, 2013, in a terror attack, 9 bombs exploded inside the Mahabodhi temple (“Great Awakening Temple”) complex (a UNESCO World heritage site) located in Bodh-Gaya in the Indian state of Bihar which is the Buddhism’s holiest shrine.
The first blast took place inside the temple at 5:30 am, followed by eight successive explosions in the next half hour, one near the Buddha statue, one near the Mahabodhi tree and others near the Teraga monastery, injuring 5 people.
One unexploded bomb was also traced and defused.
The main temple is intact and sanitised.

This holy site is the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment.
The site of the Bodhi tree at Bodhigaya is, directly connected to the life of Buddha (566-486 BCE) and attained enlighment or perfect insight when he was meditating under this tree.
The Bodhi tree, which is to the west of the main temple is a direct continuation of original Bodhi tree under which Budha spent his first week after attaining enlighment.
According to the Jatakas, it forms the navel of the earth, and no other place can support the weight of the Buddha’s attainment.

The Intelligence Bureau of India may have alerted state officials of possible threats around 15 days prior to the bombing.
It happens “again” just before some elections in order to raise controversies and disputes which is exactly the opposite of Buddha’s teachings unless it is done in order to mark the Dalai Lama’s birthday who just turned 78 a few hours before those blasts…
Terrorism is not negotiable…Nothing justifies such things…What comes to the mind of those who do such things…???

This insanity is beyond words…I know this place which only inspires love, compassion and brotherhood…
(Last time I went there I took this picture at dawn before anyone came inside the complex)

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A String of Beads

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson – American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882)

This is a view of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) through a few strings of beads.
It was shot last morning around around 5:30 just after sunrise at Dashashwamedh Ghat.

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An Auspicious Day

 

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“Engage yourself in all that is auspicious.”
(From the Sama Veda, the third of the four Vedas / sāman “melody” + veda “knowledge”)

One early morning those ladies came from far away to worship in the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
It was a Monday, Lord Shiva’s day and as Shiva is the God of the city it was an auspicious day for them.
After taking a deep in the river, they washed and stretched many clothes along the ghats.
By the amount of items drying under the sun, it was clear that those pilgrims had a long journey.

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Pursuit of Happiness Photography

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“I have never taken a picture for any other reason than that at that moment it made me happy to do so.”
(Jacques Henri Lartigue – French photographer and painter, 1894–1986)

One early morning those ladies came from far away to worship in the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
It was a Monday, Lord Shiva’s day and as Shiva is the God of the city it was an auspicious day for them.
After taking a deep in the river, they washed and stretched many clothes along the ghats.
By the amount of items drying under the sun, it was clear that those pilgrims had a long journey.

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography