There are few places on earth let alone the known universe like Pashupathi. Just as New York and London have attracted those who seek money and power, Pashupathi has attracted those who seek to cross over the ocean of illusion and find just those things that are eternal and true. Since the beginning of time Pashupathi has been a site of great pilgrimage and home to many Saints. Many unnamed souls who have reached across the ocean of illusion to the bank of right living and right perception have walked here. Today’s Pashupathi remains as elegant and interwoven and mysterious as ever. Whoever you might think yourself to be this lifetime, this limited identity will surely shatter at Pashupathi for on its menu of delights it offers the opportunity to meet countless humans just as you who have left worldly attachment, men and woman from all parts walking the same lifetime as you and I and now saying farewell to what comfort we think this world can provide.
A river runs through Pashupathi and on these very banks there are daily those whose mortal breath has left their body, burnt and their ashes thrown into the river. As one confronts the very temporary attachment to the human body we trick our self to think it is permanent, we can then begin the journey to go deeper and ask what is it that remains when ‘I’ am no more? Not just humans but countless animals have made Pashupathi their home, monkeys, pigeons, bulls, dogs and deer. Pashupathi is considered the aspect of Shiva (a word in Sanskrit for consciousness) that is protecting and caring for animals. So on this day, a Saturday, in Pashupathi, people have descended from Kathmandu in droves to ‘feed everything’. By sacrificing some of their food for the satisfaction of some other creature and bringing some joy or contentment to that creature, the universes great logic of cause and effect will lift them up a little higher, a little more freely, a little less to suffer on their way. This is one of the most ancient truths of Vedic culture; feed everything as if it was your own child. So I leave this with many words unwritten about Pashupathi on Saturday, I think its right time you made your way here too!