Varanasi

by El Peregrino

Every day, around five in the morning, I would take a boat (my boatman was called none other than Vishnu!) and sail along the banks of the Ganges until sunrise. Every day I was amazed by the same spectacle: darkness slowly gave way to a soft, subtle luminosity on the horizon. Little by little, the buildings of Varanasi began to take on an orange tint, and on the banks a multitude of dark, faceless silhouettes began to appear. In the fresh air of the dawn, the imminent power of a bright, transcendent event was suspected. With the rising color of the sky, beautiful dresses and garments began to appear, purple, yellow, red, green, all of a beautiful, pure, almost crystalline shade. As the sun changed from orange to red, from red to yellow, the dresses seemed to change shade, to increase in brightness, to play with their own shadows. The banks of the Ganges then presented a spectacle that is impossible to describe in all its splendor: men and women in their morning bath, loaded with colors, fabrics, wrinkles and children, carrying the weight of a tradition that is lost in time. Along with the color of the clothes and buildings, there appeared the colors of an infinite number of vegetables and fruits for sale in the markets on the banks of the river. And it was as if the sight of the colors had awakened the other senses; the aroma of the spices mixed with the sweet aroma of the fruits, the sound of the market vendors mixed with the dull sound of the bells of the Catholic church and the call of the mosques.

Every day, as I ascended the shore, I saw the silhouette of a man standing still and silent in the lotus position, facing the rising sun. Every day, as I descended back to my starting point, the figure had already disappeared. This was repeated for many days, and the figure of that man, in some incomprehensible way, haunted me.

One afternoon, as I was walking aimlessly through a market, I was stopped by an unexpected sight. Sitting a few feet away, I saw him. He was at a fruit stand; he was not in a meditative position, but just sitting, watching. I approached slowly, and as he looked at me, the man smiled: a simple smile, simple and indescribable in its infinite beauty. And it was something unknown and ancient that burst forth within me. In that smile was all eternity… all dreams and glances, all faces and memories, sounds, images, pains—Krishna’s very mouth. I wanted to kneel before him and stay at his feet, to share that which no one else could understand, to listen to his smile forever. But something inside me, or perhaps something inside me reflected in his eyes, told me that words were not necessary, that he knew… he knew everything. I approached, bowed, and said, with a lump in my throat: “Namaste, Babaji.” He continued with his infinite smile and only slightly bowed his torso, moving his right hand very quietly, in a greeting of inexpressible purity.

And that was it.

That man with whom I never exchanged a word, who only sold fruit, without any pretensions of being a scholar or a disciple, that man who did not walk the streets as if he were a "holy man" or pose for photographs or ask for money, that man with his humble and deep smile, is the greatest man I have ever seen before me. He is Vasudeva silently observing the waters of the river; he is the dew on the rose, the breeze in spring. He is eternity, reflected in the murky waters of the Ganges.