Vrindavan is one of the coolest places we visited. Not only because it is believed to be the birthplace of Krishna or because it features about 150 temples dedicated to various worshippers, but because it is the coming together of individual spirituality, as one practitioner described to us being the "tick" that lives in each one's heart. The same practitioner talked to us that there is also the "tock", that element of each individual spirit that forms a universal spirituality, regardless of cultural, religious, socio-economic, geographical nuances. And, so we see different walks of life in this festival at one of the temples we visited. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing, visiting the temple for their own personal interests. Yet there is some kind of harmony in the totality of the images that I tried to capture in video, but I find it incredibly difficult to capture something so complex and multi-dimensional in a one-dimensional view-finder. Lots of 60s/70s hari krishna throw-backs hanging out in this absolutely nutty, chaotic festival.
I am reminded of the multi-layered complexity that is India, further evident in William Dalrymple's book,
Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. The juxtaposition of a modern India -a country that the western world holds on a pedestal as the next frontier for economic boom - against thousands of years of tradition and spirituality that grounds itself into the very earth that is occupied by a predominent rural India is staggering to us visiting here. This book actually highlights nine individual stories featuring different parts of India and various styles of tradition, all founded in some kind of spiritual valuation of god. It strikes many of us that there is also a great acceptance of people's lot in life, a justification for it through this spiritual connection to higher beings and a belief in reincarnation into a better physicality on the path to enlightenment.
Vrindavan is one of the coolest places we visited. Not only because it is believed to be the birthplace of Krishna or because it features about 150 temples dedicated to various worshippers, but because it is the coming together of individual spirituality, as one practitioner described to us being the "tick" that lives in each one's heart. The same practitioner talked to us that there is also the "tock", that element of each individual spirit that forms a universal spirituality, regardless of cultural, religious, socio-economic, geographical nuances. And, so we see different walks of life in this festival at one of the temples we visited. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing, visiting the temple for their own personal interests. Yet there is some kind of harmony in the totality of the images that I tried to capture in video, but I find it incredibly difficult to capture something so complex and multi-dimensional in a one-dimensional view-finder. Lots of 60s/70s hari krishna throw-backs hanging out in this absolutely nutty, chaotic festival.
I am reminded of the multi-layered complexity that is India, further evident in William Dalrymple's book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. The juxtaposition of a modern India -a country that the western world holds on a pedestal as the next frontier for economic boom - against thousands of years of tradition and spirituality that grounds itself into the very earth that is occupied by a predominent rural India is staggering to us visiting here. This book actually highlights nine individual stories featuring different parts of India and various styles of tradition, all founded in some kind of spiritual valuation of god. It strikes many of us that there is also a great acceptance of people's lot in life, a justification for it through this spiritual connection to higher beings and a belief in reincarnation into a better physicality on the path to enlightenment. 
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