ADVAITA

Dissolving Boundaries

Advaita or non-duality (also, non-separation), is omnipresent and is the core of our existence. Eastern mystical traditions invoke the single consciousness that everything is made of, and they allude to the universal interwovenness of the external and inner world of beings as two sides of the same fabric, woven from one cosmic thread. The Eastern world is a spiritually charged ethnosphere, where a persistent awareness of unity and the mutual interrelation of all things and events is ingrained in daily rituals that amalgamate seamlessly, even in the disparate vibrant lifestyles, the common thread being the spirit of renunciation, simplicity, and tathātā (the inexpressible totality of this moment).

In 2015, I traveled through unexplored interiors of Asia with an urge to get a glimpse if not taste ofadvaita. And sure enough it was everywhere: in the dance of an impassioned dancer; in the scissors of a Himalayan child who had never seen one before; in the innocent, childlike laughter of a woman being blessed by an elephant; in the wise eyes of an old, wrinkled Kumaon woman; and in the empowering act of women bathing unclothed in the purifying waters of a lake. Advaita cannot be perceived intellectually but only experienced by complete immersion. These photographs are a reflection of dissolving identities that I glimpsed along the way. Through them, I hope to share with the viewer the naked, rampant, symbiotic non-duality in our chaotic world.