Cycles of Suffering, Huge Religious Festival and An Important Question

How do you address the suffering that seems to surround us?  And especially, how would you address it to a group of people who are convinced that until they attain a certain state of righteousness, they are doomed to endless cycles of being born, suffering, dying and then being born again, dying, suffering, etc?

Massive Religious Festival in India

Right now, a massive religious festival, the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Grand Pitcher Festival, is taking place in Allahabad, in northern India.  According to the fascinating accounts, this site marks the intersection of three icy cold rivers, one of which is the extremely filthy Ganges and one of which is either mythical or underground, depending on which news report one is reading.

Millions have traveled to this remote area to plunge into these miserably cold, polluted rivers. Probably 10 million on Monday alone raced into those waters. Planners expect that 100 million will do so in the next two months.  The first group, starting at 6:05 am on Monday, were members of multiple religious orders of holy men.  Women also take the plunge, but the holy men lead the way.

All this takes place in an area of about 5000 acres, less than eight square miles, let’s just say about four miles long and two miles wide.  Yes, 10 million people camped in that small area on Monday—and several days before to get ready.

Logistics

Preparation for this remote and not particularly populated area?  Well, they have set up one hospital with 100 beds in it and 12 smaller health centers and stockpiled quite a bit of food.

Also, according to the sanitation officer in charge of logistics, they built 35,000 single-seat toilets, 340 blocks of 10-seat toilets and placed 4,000 urinals on the grounds.  He states, “All the faecal matter from the toilets will go into the underground pits where it will start to decompose in a few days.”

Oh my.

Purpose

Now, why again are they doing this?  Because the plunge will wash away generations of sins.

One news agency describes the scene: “I wash away all my sins, from this life and before,” said wandering ascetic Swami Shankranand Saraswati, 77, shivering naked in the cold. He said he gave up a career as a senior civil servant 40 years ago to become a holy man, travelled on foot and for decades ate only nuts and fruit.

The report also stated that men with dreadlocked beards to their feet competed for attention with yogis supporting heavy weights on certain parts of their bodies, which shall go unnamed in this article

“I feel pleasure,” grinned Digambar Navraman Giri,” who said he had not sat down for a year, even sleeping on foot. “This is why I became a sadhu,” he said, steam rising from his body in the cold air and wearing nothing but two rings on his fingers.”

These ascetics, i.e., holy men, are also vying for donations.  Many apparently hope that by supporting some or many holy men, they themselves will find release from their own cycles of suffering without having to enter the waters themselves.

Liberation From Sin

From what I have been able to glean, and I admit more ignorance than knowledge here, Hindu scriptures state that until an individual attains “moksha,” which is liberation, he or she will engage in further birth and sufferings.  One dip in the waters here will wash away sins committed both and past AND future births and help the individual gain moksha.

What a despairing way to live–lifetimes, endless lifetimes of unending suffering, unless one can manage to placate God by a leap in an icy river at just the right time. This festival only takes place once every 12 years.

If this were the only means I knew to free myself from endless cycles of births, sufferings and deaths, I’d probably take the plunge myself.

So, here’s my question:  for all who believe there is a different way to find release from sin and eventually leave behind the suffering of this world, how would you explain that to one of these shivering, passionate, true-believing pilgrims?