I’m going to be totally honest, I forgot all about Sharada Navaratri, which started this week.  This fall equinox Navaratri, usually twenty days before Diwali, has different significances depending on what part of India you’re from. I grew up with Navaratri as a celebration of light over darkness and the battle of Dussehra.

It’s my nineteenth Navaratri and I still don’t know things like good and evil, or darkness and light– I don’t understand them, and often find those gray spaces in between the loudest of all– but when I think of Rama flying over dark & cold waters away from the demon land of Lanka, received with light and fervor by his loving people, I think of my grandfathers. So this year my nine days and nine nights are for them.

My maternal grandfather, Govinda Rao, who passed away a few years ago, is probably one of the biggest reasons I felt so deeply about Hinduism in the first place. He came to America with literally twenty dollars in his pocket and used them to take a taxi to the hospital where he had a job; he educated his daughters even when that wasn’t the norm; he loved God and loved scripture intimately. But these are only stories to me. I have only one memory of my grandfather before his stroke, and the rest are of us learning Sanskrit together, of me reading the Mahabarata to him over long long afternoons with breaks for water. His prayer beads, always wrapped around his wrist in his final days; singing bhajans with, and eventually to him when he could no longer speak. He sought out his homeland in every way he could, and in doing so he taught me everything I know now. In music, in prayer, and in devotion. My brave grandfather who traversed the ocean to give his children a better life. I’d like to think, over the course of the years, he came to know God through seeking only peace.

My paternal grandfather, Devraj Gupta, is also an incredible man who I love dearly. Although I don’t know a lot about his religious life, my Babaji unknowingly taught me how to distinguish my Hinduism from Hindu nationalism. From him I am one quarter Punjabi, and I treasure this inheritance because of his bravery, his love, and his peace. When India and Pakistan cleaved in two my grandfather was forced to flee the border further inland. He was around my age at the time. He has only ever said one sentence about it to me– perhaps because I am still, at nearly twenty, the youngest grandchild– and even that shook me to my core at the horrors of it. My Babaji saw the dark dark side of Hinduism and saw the outpouring of religious violence. He fled from it. Did not partake in any sort of sacrifice through blood shedding; condemned it even. And not only did he survive but he remained a good, peaceful man. This showed me that no matter how people act in the name of Hinduism there is purity and there is light. I love my Babaji for his wisdom and his resilience, two qualities that shaped me in my spiritual and daily life as a Hindu.

I hope that we can all take time to reflect on light and dark, on homecoming, on sacrifice. I hope these nine days and nine nights we recognize the Ravanas of the world and that we can embody the spirit of Rama as we set out to conquer them. Shubh Sharada Navaratri my friends!

I set thee in the passage of the waters. I set thee in the

swelling of the waters. I set thee in the ashes of the

waters. I set thee in the lustre of the waters. I set

thee in the way which waters travel. I set thee in the

flood, the place to test in. I set thee in the sea, the place

to rest in. I set thee in the stream, the place to rest in.

I set thee in the water's habitation. I set thee in the

resting-place of waters. I set thee in the station of the

waters. I set thee in the meeting-place of waters. I set

thee in the birthplace of the waters. I set thee in the

refuse of the waters. I set thee in the residence of waters.

(Yajur-Veda, Book XIII)

This week Brother Larry suggested I peruse the Vedas. My namesake: Shruti means, after all, “dscriptures of the Vedas”. I’ve never given them that much thought despite the heritage. On Monday I talked to Brother Larry about living traditions of the dead versus dead traditions of the living. I have always felt that texts lean more towards the latter, because Hinduism is so intensely ritualistic, and text has never come alive to me in the same way that chant or libations do. To me, a living tradition is something you carry out yourself; it is knowledge that you live with, and question, and then choose to live with, and that’s what makes it sacred.

So this week I am trying to explore my choosing of the Vedas, or lack thereof. There’s a lot of fancy English translation that is literally holier-than-thou, and I wish I could read Sanskrit because that’s how much it annoys me, all this thee-thy-thou nonsense that a white translator stuffed in there. But I go through the first thirteen books of the Yajur-Veda anyway. Skimming: I haven’t crossed the boundary yet between perfunctory and meditative. There are some passages I like and some I make a mental note of to come back to later. Then I stumble upon a verse that brings me pause. 

I set thee in the passage of the waters. I’m a sucker for anything that doesn’t make me choose a homeland. Instead let's find ourselves in the waters: we are always growing, always changing. Whether in the Ganges or in the viscous tides of troubled years, we anoint ourselves. I set thee in the ashes of the waters. My ancestors, my own dead things– parts of me that fall away and parts that grow in their place… … I set thee in the way which waters travel. We are carried by God. The flood, the sea. The resting-place, and the meeting-place. The birthplace and the refuse and the residence. We touch upon all these places, and we also come away from them. 

To me this is the essence of Hinduism: my mother's always said it's not a religion so much as a way of life. In my understanding of this passage, and in my understanding of my mother's understanding, there is no call to the absolute.  It's true I believe in God, but I believe in God the same way Book XIII believes in the waters. A current, pulling us throughout life, so subtle beneath us that we believe it to be a part of our very selves. There is no dead tradition, only a living one as the river continues to flow.