These images are a part of a personal journey where I search for answers to some fundamental questions about life, its meaning, and purpose and then later my understanding about the nature of ‘Reality’. This quest took me to every nook and corner of India meeting sadhus, philosophers, scientists and charlatans alike.
I made visits to spiritually charged places like Rishikesh, Varanasi, Zanskar, Ladakh, Madurai, Durga Puja (Kolkota), Kumbh 2019 (Allahbad – Praygraj) and others.
On Manikarnika (Varanasi) -The Burning Ghat I saw death in all its raw and naked starkness.
In Ladakh (Mini Tibet) I would sit inside the 2000-year-old monasteries trying to experience the state of शून्यता – Suññatā – The Great Void
Constant interaction with these brilliant scholars made me understand that the concept of a ‘creator god’ proposed by organized religions was a childish one. It had failed to fully comprehend that unconditioned, non-dual, eternal omnipresent force. God is not a glorified ‘personality’ sitting somewhere in the universe, directing lives of its people or attending to minute details of its day to day operations. We need to understand that the Universal Mind does not exist separately along with the universe but in it and as it.
The universe was not arbitrarily created by any outside intervention but is self-born and is governed by the eternal Law Of Cause and Effect. The impressions of all objects in the universe lie dormant within the inner depths of the Universal Mind until they become active by the working of Karma. They are then projected in our familiar space-time dimension which we know as the material world. The universe is not only self-actuating but also self-determining.
Adi Shankracharya explains:
मनोबुद्ध्यहङ्कार चित्तानि नाहं
न च श्रोत्रजिह्वे न च घ्राणनेत्रे ।
न च व्योम भूमिर्न तेजो न वायुः
चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥१॥
Roughly Translated As:
Neither am I the Mind, nor the Intelligence or Ego
Neither am I the organs of Hearing (Ears), nor that of Tasting (Tongue), Smelling (Nose) or Seeing
Neither am I the Sky, nor the Earth, Neither the Fire nor the Air
I am the Ever Pure Blissful Consciousness; I am Shiva, I am Shiva “The Ever Pure Blissful Consciousness”
I bring to you this journey through my images……….
About Madhur Dhingra
My name is Madhur Dhingra and I am a photographer based in New Delhi -India. I started my career in photography in the year 1998. For a living I shoot for advertising agencies in Delhi, specializing in product photography, but my main area of interest lies in shooting people. The style I shoot and process my images is more impressionist in nature compared to stark realism.
You can find Madhur Dhingra on the Web :
Copyrights:
All the pictures in this post are copyrighted to Madhur Dhingra. Their reproduction, even in part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.
