Photo Credits: Rick Mobbs
To be free. What does it mean to you? How do you look at it? What is true freedom? I know I am asking the same question in different ways. And I am not here to preach either. Many a times, I simply talk to myself and this is one of those times. You can safely skip this.For me, to be free means to think about the world. To think and do beyond oneself. To reflect and ponder over things and approach or tackle anything in the best way possible. It is about being unselfish. In today's context, it seems impossible. Majority of us are indeed wrapped up in our own world to look beyond it. True freedom for me means to break that shackle and come out of it. For me, God is not important, religion is not important. However, spirituality is. Humanity is. I do not even believe that you must love your neighbours. I truly believe that first you must love yourself. That too, unselfishly. Only then you are truly be free of everything. Self-love does not mean self-obssessed. It means to respect our own mind, body and soul. Many feel that it is our body, it is our life, we can do what we want. Is it? Should we? If we think this way, are we loving ourselves? I suppose, we all need to answer that question. We, only we, can truly answer that. We can hide away from the world but can we escape ourselves? At the end of the day, we have to face ourselves in the mirror. Do I have to follow a faith or believe in God to perceive it this way? Answering for myself, I say no. As I see it, religion does more harm than good. Nothing can get worse than blind faith. Follow the goodness in your heart. Let your soul show you the path. You won't be needing anyone other than yourself to guide you. That is true freedom, ultimate liberation.
When my brother called up on Thursday, I wasn’t expecting this. He asked me if I would like to go to Ajmer with him and his family for the weekend. I was in a dilemma. March being such a busy month for us teachers, I was not prepared for this. I had lots of evaluation work to do. But I decided to go. Ajmer is in Rajasthan and is around 425 km from Delhi. Though I have lived in Delhi for more than 35 years and been to Rajasthan many times but somehow we had never been to Ajmer. It is a very important pilgrimage for both Hindus and Muslims.. not to forget people of other faith. There are a few very old Cathedrals too.
On Friday after school, I reached my brother’s place along with my mom on the other end of Delhi. Early morning on Saturday i.e., 5.30 am, we started for Ajmer. The Delhi-Jaipur highway is one of the best in India. It is a toll road and the journey was smooth. We did stop a few times to stretch our legs, tea and lunch etc etc. We reached there around 1.30 pm and booked into a Hotel. As I said before this being exams time, it is off season and we got good bargains in Hotel rooms. After resting a for a while, we started for Pushkar.
There is a Brahma temple in Pushkar which is about 15 km from Ajmer. Brahma is one of the trinity and the creator according to Hinduism, Vishnu being Preserver and Shiva being Destroyer. The beauty of Hinduism is no one knows from where Hinduism originated. There is no beginning, no end. This temple for Brahma is the only one temple dedicated to Brahma in all of India and of course the world. Brahma was cursed not to be worshipped because he married Saraswati which he created from his navel. In a way he married his own daughter. Thus we do not find any more temples for Brahma. Here too there is no ritualistic worship. It was constructed in the 14th century. What was very interesting is that I saw more foreigners than Indians inside the temple. After asking around I found out lots of people from Israel visit Ajmer/Pushkar. The shops leading up to the temples solely cater for foreigners. Shopkeepers were not very keen to even talk to us. Not that I minded much. It was pleasure to see that around 70% of the tourists were foreigners….visiting from Spain, Italy, Israel, US, UK….
Next morning we visited the Dargah of Sufi Saint Hazrat Khawaja Moinuddin Chisty which is visited by both Muslims and Hindus in equal measures. It was built some 800 years back. There is a lot of faith in the powers of the Khawaja.
It is oneof the most revered places in this World. Whosoever goes there gets his wishes fulfilled. After his wishes are fulfilled he returns to thank the Khawaja. Spiritual feelings abounds the tomb. There is a saying, once you visit Ajmer and go to the Dargah, you have to visit again. I do not know but I have heard about it so much. Hope I too go back….soon.
After being both to the Brahma Temple and Dargah, I felt so much better. This was like some burden had been lifted from my head.
Back in Delhi, I feel rejuvenated and energized to face the real world again…
