Everyone knows that the Ganges is a holy river, but few know what makes it holy. The Hindus hold that the Ganges springs straight from the feet of God, and from this comes its holiness, its power to wash away sins. Every day, on the upper reaches of the Ganges, sacrifice is offered to the goddess who personifies the river. Beyond this, all rivers are held to be holy, which recalls the sacredness of nature.
Sacred by nature, baptism by water or the holy bath, and washing the eyes at holy wells, all signify change, a kind of dying and rebirth: through immersion one returns to the primordial state, and rising again is nothing less than a rebirth. Islam, too, prescribes ritual washing before prayer. Thus purified, one may come before the face of God.
In the city of Konya, in the courtyard of the dervish monastery founded by Rumi, there stands a wall fountain. Across the face of a finely worked, flat block of marble, water flows down from shell-shaped spouts. At the very top, a single spout – God, the source of life; below it two: the pair of man and woman; then, lower still, three: new life is born, the child. And last, at the very bottom, a single spout once more, when man, having run his earthly course, returns to his source…
Washing the feet is a sign of reverence and humility, and walking on water means overcoming the laws of the phenomenal world through the power of faith. To plunge beneath the water is nothing other than to search for the secret of life, the ultimate mystery, and to cross the ocean of existence is to overcome transience, to reach the other shore. Murky water stands for the vanities of life, and deep water for the underworld, the realm of the dead.
The dew of dawn is a blessing, a spiritual refreshment, and rain a fertilising force. In the drop is the sea, which the wave makes magically beautiful. The sine curve of the wave is one of the universal symbols of life. The ratio of water to dry land matches the proportion of fluid in the body, hinting at planetary and microcosmic correspondences, and when the world is regarded as the body of God, then water is the place of the rivers and oceans. The cloud is the vapour of the love of God; rain is the tears of the gods, which bring life, the soul, to the earth. Running water, still water, fresh water, salt water, holy water – each is important in its own way.
When a balance of the water element comes about in our body, we experience contentment, we accept and move with ease, and we pass almost fluidly through the events of life. When the water element is in excess, we often lose ourselves in our emotions and drown among waves of passion. At such times we let our responsibilities float away, we lean towards comfort, and we simply drift through life. A lack of the water element brings discomfort, an absence of well-being, and we tend to project this onto our surroundings. We easily grow unfeeling, and compassion dies out in us.
Let the sage be like water: pure, cooling by nature, sweet and holy; and let even the mere sight of him, his touch or the sound of his voice purify those around him. (Bhagavata Purana 11.7.44.)
But what is the wholly ordinary holiness of water? Is it that it moistens whatever it comes into contact with, or that it softens things? Its flow, or its power to dissolve? Perhaps the most remarkable trait of water is that it purifies whatever comes into contact with it without being defiled itself, or, if it takes on the impurity of things, can cast it out. Therefore: be like water.