From Kashi On The Ganga To Croton On The Hudson
Given by James Covington on September 9th, 2007
Water Communion Homily
Water seems to call to all of us in some profound and primal way. We seek it out, we live by water, we eat by it, we stroll along it, we swim in it, sail on it, dive into it… and of the many things water does for us, one is incontrovertibly that water nourishes our souls.
This is our service of ingathering, when we welcome each other back to our spiritual home after a summer of absence and vacations. Our summers may have been peaceful or tumultuous, exciting or anticlimactic, domestic or far-distant, simple or extravagant. We will learn those stories in coming weeks and notice changes in others, who may notice changes in us, as well as much that is just the same, beloved and reliable. Like water, people come in many forms. Like water, we must come together to form anything worth noticing. Like water, we take many shapes and functions. Like water we are precious. Like water, we are sacred. Like water, we run hot and cold, spill and surge, ebb and flow. In more ways than I can cite in a brief homily, our ingathering is best symbolized by the real and virtual water we bring to represent our summers and our lives. Welcome back to all of us. It is good to be together.
Sermon
I have already written to you that our trip to India this summer was a transforming one. I am still not certain how that could be, but the feeling is genuine and deeply felt. Still I wonder why. What was it about the Indian journey that satiated us with such fervor and wonder and hope and palpability? Was it just being in such a different culture? Unlike any I have experienced? Are we over-blowing the effects a bit? The economic challenges and social inequities remain challenging in India. So, am I over-romanticizing as I would any exotic destination? Don’t know. Time will tell.
Nevertheless, I can’t eject the Indian sojourn from my mind. I revisit the photos, tell the stories over and over, recall the journey in my mind throughout the days and still I remain moved and shaken. Was it the poverty—mind-boggling, indescribable, as it is? Or was it the billion people racing, driving every type of vehicle imaginable down the streets of orderly chaos? Was it the gentleness of the people which permeated so much of the life we witnessed? Was it the majestic symmetry of love immortalized in the marble monument of Taj Mahal? Or was it Rajghat, the site where Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, was cremated? Or was it the majestic and holy temples–Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, –temples especially at Khajuraho– occupied with so many exquisite, delicate and graceful, erotic sculptures of gods and goddesses, musicians and animals, shaped and chiseled so perfectly and sensually over a thousand years ago by thousands of artisans? Was it the Sarnath stupas where the Buddha preached his sermon enshrining the Principles of his teachings into laws?
Or was it the oldest ancient city of Varanasi, otherwise known as Kashi, on the banks of the River Ganges, referred to as the home of Mother Ganga, where we witnessed the festivities of light in the evening, pilgrims paying homage to Sun God in the mornings and bathing in the Ganges to cleanse themselves. Every morning thousands of Hindus, whether pilgrims or residents, make their way into the holy water of the Ganges. All of them face the rising sun with folded hands murmuring prayers. The river is called Ganga Ma, "Mother Ganges." Her name and her story is known all throughout the land. It is the story of how she poured herself down from heaven upon the ashes of King Sarga's sons. Her waters would raise them up again to dwell in peace in heaven. Not only that, but anyone who touches these purifying waters even today are said to be cleansed of all sins.
The river Ganges draws all kinds of people and life seems to continually be bustling at its side. On the platforms and ghats are barbers cutting and trimming hair, and children flying their kites. You may see young men wrestling, exercising, or in deep meditation. Washermen are beating their clothes on stones at the edge. Multi-colored saris and all sorts of wet clothes are laid out to dry in the sunshine. A boy may be washing his dog while a mother is taking her yelling child into the Ganges for the first time.
"There are beggars, idlers, vendors, touts, the young, the old, the curious, the remote, the talkers, the guides, the priests, the families simply out for a stroll, the ascetics, the crippled, the woman scrubbing out household pots and pans, the toughs, the gently curious ones. All are there along the Ganges" Literally, a river of humanity. Women floated necklaces of marigolds on a boat of leaves, a dozen skinny boys soaped their hair as they bathed in their underwear, and a somber group of men carried a body to the banks of the river
Babies are baptized in the river because they believe it cleanses the child, also when a person dies and is cremated their remains are released into the river for the same reason, because they believe it cleanses the soul.
Ganga Ma is everything to Hindus. “It's our chance to attain nirvana," a young woman exclaimed as she emerged from the river, her peach-colored sari dripping along the shoreline.
And so it goes……..all these scenes teeming with life and history and faith. Or was it the food! Ah, Indian food is one of our favorites. We were not disaapointed! So how does all of this add up to the transformative experience with which we were left?
I have researched the reflections of others in the last several days, to see if there I might find an inkling of what had affected Suzanne and me so much.
Here’s a quote from an Indian philosopher, Swami Vivekananda which resonated immediately with my experience: Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another…But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood….. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. . . . .ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live.
Apollonius Tyranaeus: In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing.
Carl Sagan, the well known Astrophysicist: The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.
George Bernard Shaw: The apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.
Mahatma Gandhi: I am a Hindu hence I Love not only human beings, but all living beings. Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.
And finally, the British philosopher, Count Hermann Keyserling: Kashi (A Hindu holy place in India on the banks of river Ganges) is holy. Europe, grown superficial, hardly understands such truths anymore…..I feel nearer here than I have ever done to the heart of the world; here I feel everyday as if soon, perhaps even today, I would receive the grace of supreme revelation…The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in strength; stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every would be Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend his time on the Ganges; here he would discover what piety means.
And so it goes……..And so I have returned home—as have you—to Croton-on-Hudson, which has it own life and story of humanity and nature. And yet, we here at Croton, share the same mystery and quest and yearning for connection to life, the universe and to all other earthly inhabitants. We have our own ventures and methods and beliefs. The quest is the same. And so we have returned home to commingle the waters of our pilgrimage in the common container—to celebrate our relgious community, our own great treasure.
Water has always been a metahpor for the spiritual life, whether at the River Ganges or the Hudson. In the Genesis myth we read that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters….And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of the heavens.”
In the Muslim faith a disciple came to Mohammed and said, "My father has died; what shall I do for the good of his soul?" to which the prophet replied, "Dig a well, that the thirsty may have water to drink." In the Tao Te Ching we read "The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. . . . Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea."[2]
But again, what was it that affected us so profoundly in India? Was it the connection I experienced with people in spite of profound cultural differences? I felt an at-one-ness with the Indian people.
Religious scholar Huston Smith speaks of the water table of our common humanity - water table - the upward level of water in the earth which sustains all life. We are all more human than otherwise. We are united as people in many ways - we are united in our essential loneliness and long for community; we are united more by our imperfections than our perfections; we all search for the "something mores" of human existence, realizing that there is a greater meaning to human life than getting and spending - something more than we can quite grasp. All this and more we do as we become part of coming home like rivers to the sea.
But there was something else……..It was the essence of peace that permeated the hearts and minds of so many people along the way. The essence of peace permeates the culture, the Hindu philosophy, the rituals on the riverbank—an essence of peace grounded in humility.
It made me want to become more of a peacemaker. To become a peacemaker today is to learn to live simply—with or close to people who are different or in need. We become prophets of peace when we discover our weakness. Here we are touching a mystery. . . Peace doesn’t ultimately come from superiority or might. It comes from this power of life that flows from the deepest, most vulnerable part of our being—a power of gentle and strong life that is in you and me and we nurture in each other in this religious community—the life of the spirit. “When I despair,” said Ghandi, “I remember that throughout history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a while they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fail. Love and peace prevail.”
So be it.