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Raghu Rai is one of India’s leading photographers

What does spirituality mean to you?
Most of us are like programmed machines, we are the result of a certain education and conditioning. At times though, something foreign to our conditioning comes and nudges us, whispers to us, and in that moment, if we do not hesitate for even a split second, if we completely flow with it, we can feel the alignment of body mind and spirit, fully connected with everything around. That connection and that alignment are spirituality to me. In those moments, we are liberated from the intellect, which I call the heavyweight champion, as it tries to control everything in our lives. And true creativity can take place. Indian classical music is a good metaphor for it. Its purpose is not entertainment, but uplifting. It is about reaching spiritual heights. When an artist begins a rag with certain parameters and so on, you close your eyes and gradually go with it. At some point, if the spiritual connection is there, something comes that has never been felt before and takes us higher, like spirituality raining on us. When that intangible gets discovered and seen, it is true magic. Only those moments will be remembered, all the rest, the predictable, is mediocrity.

Do you believe you are guided and protected by a superior force?
In my youth, I used to believe it is all about me and my own doing. When unpredictable things began happening, I had to question my certainty and realize that there is something else indeed. I see it as a supernatural energy that controls everything. If you give it a name, say Ram, or Muhammad, or Christ, you slot, define and limit it. For me God has no name. Those names refer to those who went in the footsteps of the almighty, of the supernatural, who were connected with that energy, which they could then reflect on others, who got attracted to them. They were connected souls in the same way that Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama would be. We can also feel this connection, if we are open and ready for it. Nothing is more precious than that.
It is like this famous story of a man lost and terrified in the jungle. He asks God for some sign. Some lightning comes and he gets even more terrified. He asks again for some sign, and a butterfly comes gently on his shoulder. He brushes it away with impatience. He was not ready or open to see the signs. When one is open though, everything and much magic can happen.
A nice metaphor for it was given to me when I was travelling to Oaxaca, Mexico. I was taken to an old woman, who had a walking wooden cross with the Christ. She put it on a table, nudged it and it moved. I tried several times until I managed to do the same, until I found the right alignment and connectivity, the correct amount of energy to be channelled: if too much, the cross would fall, if too little, it would not move. Similarly, when you come into alignment in your life, and give a push, things start moving and happening in the most amazing ways.

Do you believe you have a special mission or purpose in this life?
I had no clue when growing up that I would become a photographer. If anything, I thought I would be a musician. I did engineering, worked for a year in government and left, thoroughly unhappy. It is completely by chance that I then found myself one day in a village with a camera, taking a few photographs, which my brother sent to the London Times. One was published, and it was the beginning. Very quickly, I realized that through the camera, I could see the world more clearly, I could relate to it more closely, and understand it better. So photography has been my way of relating to the world. And my purpose has been to reflect the time we live in, in the most intense, sensitive and responsible way. Some people tell me they can recognize my photographs. And I do not like it. I do not want my style, my attitude, my mind, my intellect to be reflected in my work. Khalil Gibran wrote that “those children are not your or my children, they are life’s longing for itself”. In the same way, my images should reflect life for itself, not for me or by me. That is the purest form of delivery. And if at the end of the day my style is still visible, it is about “me, me, me”, I am not free of myself and of my mind. Rather, I strive for my pictures to liberate me from myself, to take me closer to the connection I am seeking, to the discoveries I wish to make, to that moment called nirvana when I am fulfilled and connected with the supreme energy, with such a purity that I am not a seeker anymore.

What is spirituality for you in your day to day life?
For me it is not that mumbo jumbo of sitting in an ashram or in meditation, and making a connection at that moment --- it is about finding the connection at every single moment, feeling centred, in alignment with everything. If you are a good observer of the world, the alignment can happen and gets proven over and over again. Everything else is a product of our vicious or anxious mind. My Guruji used to say “count your blessings”. And indeed, the more I do so, the more I feel nurtured by them, and the more it makes a difference to every step of my life, even to the most mundane walk in the street.

What is the role of spirituality in your work?
Feeling the alignment and the connection in my work is most fundamental. I often think of Satyajit Ray. I loved his work, he was a wonderful human being, but he did not believe in spirituality. So his initial films were magical but his later works were simply the product of a brilliant man’s mind, of the intellect. The other possibilities, the unseen, the unknown, the unpredictable, the magic could not happen. The same process goes for my photography. There is the conscious work of taking a camera, concentrating, working --- and then there may be a moment when you touch something else, you are uplifted, you can dance and sing in the streets, taking pictures. This is when I feel the alignment. I cannot sit meditating and feel it. But when I work, I do. Also, I could make a photograph that carries a lot of information and tells a whole story. As the cliché goes, “a good photograph is worth a thousand words”. But a thousand words are a lot of noise. How about some silence? For me, a great work of art is when total silence is restored in me, when there is no more question, no more need to talk. I can just be.
It reminds me of a story of the Buddha. Once, as he was travelling from village to village, he got late to a place where people were expecting him. They were all talking to each other. As he finally arrived, he sat down quietly. Gradually people began noticing him and silence spread, till it was completely quiet. He looked at them lovingly for a while, and when everyone was still, he simply went away. This is about restoring silence. And as there is so much noise inside and around us, it is essential and it also is spirituality.

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