20 days India (Varanasi) with flight ticket, accomodation + breakfast 822 EUR (16.Sept-07.Oct)
Varanasi, or on its older name Benares, is one of the biggest cities of Prades state in the northern part of India, on the Hindustan-lowland’s west side, on the left bank of Ganges river. The saint city of the Hindu religion, which is one of the biggest cities in history, it approximately as old as Babilon. According to the Hindu legend, Benares existed before the creation of the world and going to remain after the destruction of the world, because Siva protects it from decay.
According to the Indians it’s hard to tell how deep the city’s roots is but according to the residents Varanasi existed since the start of the time.
From many points Varanasi also shows the most astonishing, fascinating aspects of India, it can be upsetting for the tourists, however, all in all, the city despite of this is still the most determinative spiritual destination of the world.
Since centuries there have been burned hundreds of people, on the bank of the Ganges. They think about death here from a wholly new perspective than us in the western world. It’s a common practice in India, that Hindus say goodbye to dead like this, however, this city is probably the most saint of all, because whoever has been burned here, his soul will purify from his sins and gets out of the endless cycle, so he can find his final rest in the nirvana. Accordingly, many Hindus come here to die or at least makes it sure that their death ceremony will be held here. The westerns who came here, despite their knowledge of what they can expect, yet get shocked by the natural, profane way of accepting or managing the fact of death. Here it’s completely natural, that children play cricket with their self-made rackets a few meters away from a pyre. Here life and death fit side by side, the two not separate from each other, they don’t treat them taboo, which in our culture can’t, or only with really uncomfortable feelings can talk about. The everyday life and saint religious practices fit side by side completely well; some sing songs on the top of the Ganges’s staircase, while others perform their ritual bathing, meanwhile tea vendors are draw water from there, and others wash their clothes next to them or lead water buffalos into the river as a cooling of. For the Hindus, religion is part of the everyday life. Death is only a station, after which comes the final nirvana (the highest degree of happiness, which frees you from the individual being’s sufferings) or another life, according to the given karma.
Interesting, concerning the dead burners, that this is also a caste, where you have to born. The dead burners are untouchables. (The untouchables is the lowest caste. And as such have to be also unapproachable, they have to maintain a certain distance from the members of higher castes, especially from bramins. In some regions these rules are enforced strictly, and in these areas the untouchables have to wear bells, to warn approaching people to their presence.)
Because of all these duality many are desiring here, due to the city’s mystic atmosphere, or those also find their goals, who come here to learn yoga, music, philosophy or painting from saint people.
A Hungarian descent hippie, who came here 30 years ago and searching for his meaning of life, shared some of his thoughts with us about, why he is here such a long time ago, and about what are the basic differences between how we western and how Hindus here in the city of death thinking about the cycle of death.
According to the man it’s natural, that he also wants to die in Varanasi, just as those loads of Hindu, who came here with this idea. Varanasi – according to him – is a very special city, the part of the city, which you can see on the bank of the Ganges yet stood here millenniums ago. Of course, this isn’t the only case and he isn’t the only European, who left the western world and settled down in India. He feels, in a certain sense he found back to his roots.
The man in his past life – according to the original western values – had everything, which we tend to determine as the criteria of happiness: he had no financial problem, had a rock band and a happy life. “But what type of happiness was this?” asks the question. After a while these delights no longer satisfied him, he wanted something else, something deeper, he was searching for the meaning of life. “Why do western people toil “– he asks “What are their goals? To have a big house, a big car and a pool?” He started to think about where this is leads or at all what comes after you achieved these. He first began to find that higher level life goal in Varanasi, which he was searching for. “You see a lot of disabled people, who has nothing, but yet smiling at you” – he is saying. When he arrived from Europe, the city made a big impact to him, it completely overwrote his values, either in a financial and spiritual way. And then he told a story, which led to his final decision: “Sitting on the stairs of the bank of Ganges, suddenly a small white cow came to me, settled down next to me, and put his head into my lap. I became completely upset from this emotionally. I just cried and even I don’t know why… “I stayed in Varanasi.” Why in Europe he was afraid from death and here why not, he has an answer too: “In the western world, people are scared, that after their death they end up somewhere really bad, but here they just burn them to the eternity. The residents don’t understand this type of dread, because the wiser and older you are the less you fear”
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