The Silence of the Absolute

( My thanks are  due to my friend  Dr. Soma Sammadar , Professor  of Chemistry, Lady Brabourne College,  Kolkata for providing valuable insights while writing this article. Soma herself a cancer survivor is relentlessly working for stray dogs through her NGO Doddaden foundation. She vaccinates, sterilizes and feeds about 100  stray dogs , furry babies as she calls them  ,  in North Kolkata. )

The cremation ground is the backstage of the human drama—the only place where worldly noise is drowned out by the elemental truth of the flame. Every month, return to this ground to strip away your ego. Abandon your social rank and your digital distractions. Stand where the boundaries of life blur, and find clarity in the alchemy of ash.

Gaze upon the quiet form on the wood. A short time ago, this was a conscious being—a complex weave of past recollections, stored resentments, and yearnings left wanting. Those same shoulders, previously bowed by the crushing promise of "tomorrow," have found their final peace. Within this silence, the illusion dissolves; the "forever" we strive to secure is, in reality, not a foundation, but a fleeting moment.

In the presence of the sacred fire, worldly hierarchies dissolve. Agni recognizes neither the king’s silk nor the beggar’s rags; it knows only fuel. This is the ultimate stripping of the ego—a final surrender where the "puppet show" of status, the vanity of youth, and the sting of betrayal evaporate like mist. The pyre reveals a singular truth: our grand complexities are but fleeting ornaments on a journey toward absolute simplicity.

As the ashes merge with the current, allow the weight within you to dissolve alongside them. If every path inevitably converges at this river, why do we persist in lugging such massive burdens of pride? We are but sailors on a brief crossing, yet we insist on ballasting our ships with the stones of ego and the anchors of attachment.

To stand at the burning ghat is not an exercise in morbidity, but a profound practice of Vairagya—the art of holy indifference. Here, you confront the "Final Truth" not to cultivate a fear of death, but to master the grace of living lightly. In witnessing the dissolution of the physical form, you strip away the illusions of the self and rediscover the timeless witness: that eternal spark enduring long after the mask has fallen.

                                                         Dr. Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya