Thread by @vakibs

The human body is more than 60% water. The human brain and heart are 75% water. Water is the carrier of our life. Our words and thoughts can be considered as waves on a river, that nourishes us and moves through us.

In this thread, I want to discuss the seven rivers of my life.

We look at rivers as a resource - in times of awakened consciousness, as a resource to be protected. In times of normal consciousness, as a resource to be exploited. In times of unconscious ignorance, as something to pollute.

But we barely ever realize that the rivers are us.

An enlightened person is one who sees oneself in everything and everything in one’s own self. That is a hard thing to perceive within the conscious eye. But it is not hard to see that unity between one’s own body and the surrounding nature. Water is the bridge that connects them.

The river closest to where one lives is the vehicle of one’s consciousness. We not only drink the river’s water, but we also eat the food nourished by her. In turn, all the cells in our bodies are rejuvenated by her. So we become the speaking and walking embodiments of the river.

Just as a child derives her body and all the nutrients within her cells from her mother at the time of birth, all the new cells created in our bodies are born from the river that nourishes us. So in India especially, we identify the river as our mother. And she lives through us.

The Vedas speak of the Seven Rivers, the Sapta Sindhavah, that nourished the land as the mothers, not only in the physical world (Bhūh), but also in the cosmic world (Bhuvah) where they nurture the seven heavenly planets to be reborn into their cosmic paths every year.

Within our inner consciousness (Suvah), these rivers help us traverse the seven Chakras of enlightenment. I don’t know of this experience, or how the dance of the Apsaras (divine water spirits) looks like.

But I can reflect on all the rivers that nourished my body in this life.

This thread is naturally a personal blog. I will share some photographs of the rivers. I compare how the rivers are treated in their environment and hopefully, I will reflect on what I learned from each of them. All these rivers still live within me and I owe my freedom to them.

The first river that made me is Godāvari. I grew up in her lap, next to the delta known from ancient times as “Sapta Godāvaram” - the land of the seven Godavaris, on the banks of whom were the hermitages of Sapta Rishi - the Seven Sages. It is a green land of rice and coconut.

The mouth of Godāvari is extremely wide. Before she splits into her distributaries (the seven Godāvaris) she is 4 kilometers wide. In the monsoon, she is reddish brown. In winter and spring, her waters become clear. Many people still live simple subsistence lives by her side.

The river is stunningly beautiful as she cuts the Eastern Ghat mountains, before she spreads herself onto the green plains of rice fields.

The seven distributaries are named after the seven Rishis. The main ones are Gautami and Vasishta. The place where the Vasishta river meets the sea is known as Antarvēdi - “the end of the Vedas” i.e, enlightenment. I remembered Herman Hesse’s Siddhārtha when I took this picture.

The sunsets on the Godāvari are beautiful, and for me, they are perhaps the fondest memories of home. This picture is from the banks of the Gautami at Yanam, a part of the old French colony in India.

The Godāvari nurtures a very fertile land for rice cultivation, which is supported by a network of fresh water canals. Each of these canals is as wide as a small river.

Godāvari is called affectionately in Telugu as Gōdāri గోదారి. It sounds very nice because “dāri” దారి in Telugu means a path. “Dari” దరి means a bank, or nearby to the goal. Both of these allude to the goal of enlightenment “mōksha” that Telugu people associate with this river.

Another big river Krishna meets the sea nearby. It is affectionately called as “Krishnamma” కృష్ణమ్మ (Mother Krishna). Though these two rivers never meet, they flow very close to each other and form a fertile Doab in Andhra Pradesh. I never lived next to the Krishna.

In fact, Godāvari is the only river in India that I lived next to. She is the first of the seven rivers of my life, and shaped my body and my mind for the longest.

The second river of my life is in a completely different continent - Europe. She is Isère, who flows by the town of Grenoble near the French Alps.

I moved to France for my PhD and lived there for three formative years in my life. Part of this time, I was living literally next to this river and could see her every day through a large window in my room.

This is the Pont (Bridge) St Laurent which wobbles when you walk on it.

The vantage point where I took the photo of Pont St Laurent was at these steps which bring you close to the river. Isère is a fast moving river fed by the snow melt from the mountains. Often, I would see logs floating rapidly on the water. Messages from the woods in the Alps.

Those steps are not a popular spot in Grenoble. But that was my spot. I spent countless hours sitting there listening to the river, especially when my mind was occupied with various research problems. Isère was my partner in thought (and probably, she still is).

Grenoble is not a beautiful city. But every view in the city is spectacularly beautiful because it is framed by mountains. This is the Chartreuse mountain that I would see from my office (not this view). I did this hike up the mountain to Fort St Eynard too many times to count.

I cannot think of Grenoble without the view to the peaks of the Belledonne. Belledonne means a beautiful (belle) lady. It (Bella Donna) is also a herb that helps you dilate the pupils of the eye. The mountain has pretty much the same effect on the first time visitor.

I used to bike my way to work by the Isère. I don’t think I have ever had a better commute in my life. Once, when I was walking by the river, I lost my monthly pass for the tram. I don’t know if it is still lying there somewhere with my name and photo on it. 😁

I became an environmentalist in France. Living so closely to nature, one doesn’t have a choice. It is a wake up call in my head.

Grenoble is also a busy industrial town with many advanced scientific laboratories. There is even a small particle accelerator by the river.

A bit further from the accelerator, Isère meets with a second river called Drac. Isère is meandering and dark in color, Drac is light and flows straight due to the speed. At the confluence, the rivers maintain their distinctive colors for sometime before blending into each other.

This point of confluence is very non-descript (at least used to be) and a hidden behind some shrubs. As an Indian, I found it odd that barely anybody visited it. In Indian culture, of course, the confluences of rivers are held sacred and there is usually a temple next to that.

This confluence between Isère and Drac was happening parallel to a confluence in my own mind. Firstly, between my Indian upbringing and my new European sensibility. But secondly, between my previous scientific and analytical mindset to a new ecological awareness about nature.

My years in Grenoble were the first time in my life when I made friends from all the continents. We were all speaking in French, my mind literally got reshaped.

This is the lake Monteynard that holds water from the alps. Just like me then, it is a form of Isère. Nourished by it.

What is the sustenance that is given by a river? Everyone can see the obvious: water, which is a big part of our body. A bit subtler is food, that requires water footprint to grow. Food gives us energy. But there is an even subtler thing: a low entropy envelope within the body.

Every life form maintains an entropy differential, even at the cellular level. Otherwise, the energy is not transmitted (or food is not digested). In Indian medicine (Āyurvēda) the most refined form of this differential is called Ojas. Ultimately, the river is a supplier of Ojas.

Low entropy is termed as Sattva, which measures the life-force of any ecosystem and its harmony with the outer universe. In living creatures, various anatomical organs have evolved to create levees for the entropy differential: chemical, electrical and ultimately mental states.

Āyurvēda describes the transformation of food (Anna) into Ojas, through various intermediary substances created by the body’s metabolic organs: phlegm, blood, fat, semen and so on. These substances are synthesized successively, through several layers of entropy differentials.

So ultimately, through food and water, a river is providing all these substances. The river is helping the body to maintain low entropy, or equivalently, supplying it with Sattva. But in our globalized world, we consume food that is nourished by many rivers. Not just one.

It is not just global trade that exchanges nutrients like this. The earth is a living dynamic system: wind patterns, ocean currents, rains, algae bloom in the oceans, they are all coupled.

This is why, in all our bodies flows a little bit the greatest river on earth: Amazon.

Amazon is the third river of my life. She is larger than the next 7 rivers combined and accounts for 20% of all the fresh water discharge in rivers. I have not yet seen the Amazon nor visited South America. But she has been there in my body, whether I am conscious of it or not.

To me, the Amazon represents all that is tender about the earth, facing the vicious impact of global trade. The deforestation in the Amazon is the reason why I reduced eating meat and ultimately cut that to zero. I don’t want to hurt a mother that I have not even met. Bad Karma.

If Amazon is healthy, we can hope that all the tiny rivers flowing across the planet will be healthy too. Our bodies can still draw the Ojas from them, but not by destroying them or polluting them. Not all rivers are protected equally against the sharp teeth of the global trade.

Depending on where you live, what you eat, especially if you eat meat and how the animals are fed, you might have a large water footprint in far away places and river basins. By educating yourself, you can be conscious whether this footprint is in ecologically sensitive areas.

After I finished my PhD in France, I moved to Germany for my postdoc, to a small town near the French border called Saarbrücken. The Saar river, which flows through this town, is the fourth river of my life.

My love for Saarbrücken grew slowly. Initially, I badly missed my friends and old life in France, and of course, the snow-capped mountains. The Saar river flows in less dramatic landscape than the Isère, but it is perhaps more interesting as it flows along French-German border.

Learning another foreign language was fun, but it was harder. I used to go across the border and visit France, just to have some conversation. Once, I came across the local community of artists enjoying the springtime weather and painting some landscapes by the Saar river.

The river connects the two countries, and a bike lane is maintained on the banks. Chatter in French and German gets mixed up here, with some occasional English. A favorite place for me to hang out were the twin villages of Klein & Groß -Blittersdorf, on either side of the border.

There is a point called the Saarschleife where the Saar makes a cool U-turn. A popular trail leads up to a small mountain where this can be seen. Close by, we also have Luxembourg and Belgium. The Schengen village (giving its name to the European open border policy) is nearby.

Saar is a gentle river, not as well known as the famous Mosel river which it flows into (or the even bigger Rhine river which the Mosel flows into). But slowly, the river settled down in my mind like a beloved family member.

The Saar also gave me family. My wife and I met each other by these banks, and we got married by the Saar. It is a point I never could have imagined when I first came here.

After my postdoc, I moved back to France to work in the industry. This time, I moved to Bretagne, in the northwestern end of France, to the town of Rennes. The Villaine river, which flows here, is the fifth river of my life.

This bridge is called the “Pont de Bonnets Rouges” (Bridge of the red caps). It refers to a small unsuccessful rebellion in Bretagne, where the Celtic speaking Bretons tried to get independence from France. The Villaine river has been a witness to those many layers of history.

For a year, I lived in an apartment beside the river. This photo is from a flea-market. The thin strip of land is called “Promenade de Bonnets Rouges” and was popular with joggers and bikers jostling by. An endless stream of people-watching, which any Indian grandma would enjoy.

Bretagne is a magical landscape. I will never forget the wild winds of the sea or the sounds of the shore birds. But there are no great rivers here. Villaine is a very humble river, but through carefully planned promenades like this, it provided a great outdoor space in Rennes.

The thin scrambled rivers of Bretagne resemble the scrambled Breton people, who have a unique charm, whether they speak in their ancient Breton tongue or in French. Living here alerted me to the task of protecting one’s own culture and language, even under adverse circumstances.

The simple Villaine river has taught me the lesson that I haven’t learned all this time. Biodiversity matters. Cultural diversity matters. Linguistic diversity matters. And nothing is settled until you give up the fight. I salute that spirit of the Bonnets Rouges.

As fate would have it, after three years in Bretagne, I moved back to Saarbrücken. Altogether, I lived 6 years by the Saar. So after the Godāvari, it was the Saar that nurtured me the longest. All these rivers that I lived next to, they keep appearing in my thoughts and dreams.

Now as a professor, I moved to the city of Leipzig. This is, without a doubt, the most beautiful city I ever lived in. Leipzig is an ancient settlement on the crossroads of three rivers - Elster, Pleise and Parthe. The Elster, which is the largest, is the sixth river of my life.

The Elster flows into the Saale river (photograph here from the nearby city of Merseburg), which in turn flows into the Elbe, which is one of the great rivers of Europe. Instead of saying Elster, I could have said Elbe. Or Rhine instead of Saar, or Rhône instead of Isère.

This is a picture of a sunset on the Elbe I took several years ago. I didn’t know then that I would settle here.

In Eastern Germany, I find it interesting how much space there is for water and nature in the cities, because the communist era has slipped past the development of the dreadful roads for automobiles everywhere. It is actually easier now to develop ecologically friendly transport.

I hope this model of nature-conscious living in the cities will also become more popular in India, close to waterways and bike-paths, with well-developed tram networks and fewer private vehicles. Sometimes, a late start in development can be a good thing (if we use it properly).

Along with rivers and canals, there are many lakes and gardens here. In fact, one can bike from east to west, or from north to south passing almost entirely through parks ! This is so good it even beats my experience in Grenoble (although the mountains are missing here).

Another ingenious idea is to flood old coal mines (yuck) with water. Now they become picturesque lakes. I don’t know why this should not be done at every single possible location in India. Very good for harvesting water, as well as for water sports.

The Elster is a new river in my life, but it already taught me a few things: the value of culture, and of the community spirit to build ecologically driven solutions in cities. It actually filled me with a lot of optimism. I hope I will take this inspiration to some place useful.

Finally, I have to tell you the seventh river of my life. I have not seen it yet, but it is without a doubt the most important influence in my life, running not just my own life but several generations of genetic and cultural history. It is the river Gangā or the Ganges.

Every Indian has the Gangā in the veins. It is the one river that one must see: the one river that connects not only space but also time. And perhaps nowhere better to visit than the ancient crossroads city of Varanasi, where the drops of the nectar of immortality spilled by.

This deep wish is compounded by my own name. I don’t want to just visit. I want to return all that I learned from the rivers that nurtured me to the Gangā. It is a Hindu ritual to pour the waters of Gangā into other rivers and lakes. Perhaps now we do this also in the reverse.

What we need to return is not just mere waters, but our own refined thoughts, nurtured carefully in our minds through meditation. It is the “Samyama” that brings all the rivers together, into the one mother river - the path through the three worlds.

Ōm bhūrbhuvah suvah.

In realizing that the rivers are diverse, but that they are one, we embody the wisdom of Saraswati: the best of rivers, the best of mothers. We may not physically see her, but she will appear when we achieve the “Samyama”. This life is just a journey to that end. (End of thread).