"God is dead"

Yet, we feel his presence in Banaras.

“……………………….The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves—to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, it leads to nihilism, and it is what Nietzsche worked to find a solution for by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than the Christian values most people refuse to look beyond…”.............a part of the article from Time magazine published in 1966

The truth is, that, our kind of God is nothing more than a concept born out of our innate fear which has been systematically nurtured by all the religious institutions.

Looking around ourselves it feels as if after creating the cosmos, God just disappeared from the scene leaving his identity to be interpreted by the religions. This way, the God, who is otherwise beyond description, out of the reach of the sensory perception and inconceivable to our mind, got confined to some printed papers and gullible utterances. In the mean time religions have been reduced to nothing more than some dos and don’ts, false beliefs, thick boundaries and pure dogmas, while the God has been forgotten as dead. No wonder, there is so much hatred, violence and suffering in the world!

Where is the compassion on which every religion was supposed to have been founded?

In Banaras, the movie, there is only one theme which has been pursued and those who have seen the movie know that.

Soham is picked up by a sweeper woman who raises him like his own child and asks him to follow the path of Kabir.

Babaji explains to Soham the meaning of true prayer (Bending in fear is not a prayer). He also explains him the true nature of the world (Thou art that) and why is it at the brink of destruction.

Later, after the enlightenment, Soham explains to Shwetambari that love is the only truth which binds everything.

Purnanand’s words (Truth is simple) are aimed to break the dogmas of all religious preaching and to give you authority to look at things with completely different perspective. It is also to give you the right to direct experience and to make choices in complete awareness...

Finally, Shwetambari demonstrates the power of compassion and gives a glimpse of her world that she could create not because of her religious beliefs but because of her direct knowledge of the truth.

It is in the end when we witness her sitting, in calm, in front of the serene water reflecting the stillness of her own mind, that we begin to understand the evolution of Shwetambari.

And suddenly, we feel the presence of GOD.