Moment of Surrender

Rashi Jain sees ash in the Indian tradition as the ashes from burning of bodies, symbolising the impermanence and evolutionary cycles. Ash or Bhasma is sacred. Bha stands for ‘destroy’ and Sma, ‘remember’, signifying Unity with the Supreme Self. In tantra, the skull is a symbol of Life and death. In deep states of silence, the Kundalini, the serpentine energy channel in the body, rises, from the base of the spine to the crown, illuminating the brain. A moment of witnessing the Self: the skull is a symbolic offering, a surrender: dissolving of the body and mind into ash, merging with the cosmos. 

Photography: Nitin Patel