Yamuna Arti - Superstition, Waste of Food, Pollution and a nice Atmosphere

We are enjoying these days a lot – Michael and Andrea are here! With my first German friends here at the Ashram, we have lots of fun. Of course they also want to go out a bit and Ramona just came home from Kheshi Ghat and the Yamuna Arti with them. Obviously, how could it be different for my wife, she has some non-religious observations on the ceremony and the time spent there.

Our friends, also not religious, sat there together with Ramona and Purnendu, watching first how the men performing the ceremony poured milk into the river. After that, they saw them throw sugary sweets into the water and finally hundreds of rose petals. When they were looking after the petals flowing down the stream, they suddenly realized what happened to these flower petals: just about a hundred meters down, children were picking them out of the river. Children in worn-out clothes, without shoes and with dirt and dust all over them. The same children who had previously tried to sell our friends little bowls with flowers and a candle that they could have put into the river themselves.

It was a revelation: on one side, there are people pouring nourishing milk into the dirty water of the river and on the other side there are children, trying to somehow earn a few rupees which they can bring home and with which their family can buy rice, grains and – yes – milk. They won’t get to enjoy the sugary sweets though which also land in the river! They cannot afford it.

At the same time you look at the river and wonder whether you can actually still call it a river. Due to only little monsoon rains and big dams in Delhi, there is very little water these days. A big part of the river bed is clearly visible and where previously boats took tourists and pilgrims out on the river, there are now camels walking around. For the ceremony, they had to dig a channel and bring the water to the stairs. This shallow waterhole is where they now throw their flowers, milk and sweets in, polluting it even more than it anyway already is.

It is really not much more than sewage water and chemical waste coming from Delhi. There is no life in it. No fish, no turtles, none of all those animals that swam around us when we played in the water as children! They cannot live there – the water is dead.

In spite of all of this and in spite of two competing ceremonies blaring at each other by speakers Ramona and our friends enjoyed the visit to the river and the ceremony. How come? My wife did great effort to put it into words: she has no religious awe. No feeling that a god or goddess would now bless her for her visit there. No, but sitting on those old stones in front of the ancient building, the setting sun shining in their faces, listening to the singing and just looking around at people coming together, felt good. It was a certain atmosphere which, when in, makes you feel good.

There is nothing divine in that. It is not god that makes you feel good. It is you. You enjoy the get-together with people because human is made for being social. You like seeing the beauty of nature, even though it could be much more impressive. And you enjoy music and listening to others sing.

Couldn’t we have all of this without superstition, waste of food and pollution of the river?